Obama’s becoming a resident of Chicago impelled him to join the ranks of the Black community and its streets if he were to ever become a public figure. His joining the most popular church also became inevitable if he were to draw on black connections. After all, he was born into white culture and because of his mother’s travels in a sense he became a world citizen, if not a nomad . He cannot be faulted for wanting to belong, particularly having married a black woman. Being highly intelligent and open minded, he probably looked upon the Rev. Wright’s “audacity” as one would perceive a crazy uncle with radical ideas, but, as any young politician, would play along with the wackiness in order to be successfully upward mobile in the community.

This does not take away from Obama’s integrity or intellectual openness, notwithstanding a trace of hypocrisy that reside in all of us. Put simply, he was an ambitious young man who wanted to get ahead and knew it took a village.

However, one thing that really disturbs me, is that he completely abandoned his white roots in finding his black; for why would he expose his children to such blasphemous rants—did he not have as much obligation to preserve in his children the white of his ways as well?