RISING STAR: The Making of Barack Obama
By David J. Garrow.
William Morrow. 1,460 pp. $45.
Of the books that journalists and historians have written on the life of Barack Obama, three stand out so far. In Barack Obama: The Story, David Maraniss shows us who Obama is. In Reading Obama, James T. Kloppenberg explains how Obama thinks. In The Bridge, David Remnick tells us what Obama means.
Now, in a probing new biography, Rising Star, David J. Garrow attempts to do all that, but also something more: He tells us how Obama lived, and explores the calculations he made in the decades leading up to his winning the presidency. Garrow portrays Obama as a man who ruthlessly compartmentalized his existence; who believed early on that he was fated for greatness; and who made emotional sacrifices in the pursuit of a goal that must have seemed unlikely to everyone but him. Every step whether his foray into community organizing, Harvard Law School, even the choice of whom to love was not just about living a life but about fulfilling a destiny.
It is in the personal realm that Garrows account is particularly revealing. He shares for the first time the story of a woman Obama lived with and loved in Chicago, in the years before he met Michelle, and whom he asked to marry him. Sheila Miyoshi Jager, now a professor at Oberlin College, is a recurring presence in Rising Star, and her pained, drawn-out relationship with Obama informs both his will to rise in politics and the trade-offs he deems necessary to do so. Garrow, who received a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Martin Luther King Jr., concludes this massive new work with a damning verdict on Obamas determination: While the crucible of self-creation had produced an ironclad will, the vessel was hollow at its core.
***
By now the broad contours of the Obama story are well known, not least because Obama has repeated them so often. With Kansas and Kenya in his veins, he carries Indonesia in his memory, Hawaii in his smile, Harvard in his brain and, most of all, Chicago in his soul. It wasnt until I moved to Chicago and became a community organizer that I think I really grew into myself in terms of my identity, he said in an interview about Dreams From My Father, his 1995 memoir. I connected in a very direct way with the African American community in Chicago and was able to walk away with a sense of self-understanding and empowerment.
Note how it was as much about Obama himself as any success he had in his organizing work. Inspired by Harold Washington, the citys first black mayor, Obama began to discuss his political ambitions with a few colleagues and friends during his early time in the city. He wanted to be mayor of Chicago. Or a U.S. senator. Or governor of Illinois. Or perhaps he would enter the ministry. Or, as he confided to very few, such as Jager, he would become president of the United States. Lofty stuff for a 20-something community organizer who struggled to write fiction on the side.
Jager, who in Dreams From My Father was virtually written out, compressed into a single character along with two prior Obama girlfriends, may have evoked something of Obamas distant mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. Like Dunham, Jager studied anthropology, and while Dunham focused on Indonesia, Jager developed a deep expertise in the Korean Peninsula. Jager was of Dutch and Japanese ancestry, fitting the multicultural world Obama was only starting to leave behind. They were a natural fit. Jager soon came to realize, she told Garrow, that Obama had a deep-seated need to be loved and admired.
During his public life, President Barack Obama has often turned to his personal story as a touchstone to relate to the public. Here are four moments that stand out. (Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
She describes their life together as an isolating experience, an island unto ourselves in which Obama would compartmentalize his work and home life. She did not meet Jeremiah Wright, the pastor with a growing influence on Obama, and they rarely saw his professional colleagues socially. The friends they saw were often graduate students at the University of Chicago, where Sheila was pursuing her doctorate. They traveled together to meet her family as well as his. Soon they began speaking of marriage.
In the winter of 86, when we visited my parents, he asked me to marry him, she told Garrow. Her parents were opposed, less for any racial reasons (Barack came across to them like a white, middle-class kid, a close family friend said) than for concern about Obamas professional prospects, and because her mother thought Sheila, two years Obamas junior, was too young. Not yet, Sheila told Barack. But they stayed together.
In early 1987, when Obama was 25, she sensed a change. He became. . . so very ambitious very suddenly, she told Garrow. I remember very clearly when this transformation happened, and I remember very specifically that by 1987, about a year into our relationship, he already had his sights on becoming president.
The sense of destiny is not unusual among those who become president. (See Clinton, Bill.) But it created complications. Obama believed that he had a calling, Garrow writes, and in his case it was coupled with a heightened awareness that to pursue it he had to fully identify as African American.
[The racial procrastination of Barack Obama]
Maranisss 2012 biography deftly describes Obamas conscious evolution from a multicultural, internationalist self-perception toward a distinctly African American one, and Garrow puts this transition into an explicitly political context. For black politicians in Chicago, he writes, a non-African-American spouse could be a liability. He cites the example of Richard H. Newhouse Jr., a legendary African American state senator in Illinois, who was married to a white woman and endured whispers that he talks black but sleeps white. And Carol Moseley Braun, who during the 1990s served Illinois as the first female African American U.S. senator and whose ex-husband was white, admitted that an interracial marriage really restricts your political options.
Discussions of race and politics suddenly overwhelmed Sheila and Baracks relationship. The marriage discussions dragged on and on, but now they were clouded by Obamas torment over this central issue of his life . . . race and identity, Sheila recalls. The resolution of his black identity was directly linked to his decision to pursue a political career, she said.
In Garrows telling, Obama made emotional judgments on political grounds. A close mutual friend of the couple recalls Obama explaining that the lines are very clearly drawn. ... If I am going out with a white woman, I have no standing here. And friends remember an awkward gathering at a summer house, where Obama and Jager engaged in a loud, messy fight on the subject for an entire afternoon. (Thats wrong! Thats wrong! Thats not a reason, they heard Sheila yell from their guest room, their arguments punctuated by bouts of makeup sex.) Obama cared for her, Garrow writes, yet he felt trapped between the woman he loved and the destiny he knew was his.
Just days before he would depart for Harvard Law School and when the relationship was already coming apart Obama asked her to come with him and get married, mostly, I think, out of a sense of desperation over our eventual parting and not in any real faith in our future, Sheila explained to Garrow. At the time, she was heading to Seoul for dissertation research, and she resented his assumption she would automatically postpone her career for his. More arguments ensued, and each went their way, although not for good.
***
At Harvard, the Obama the world has come to know took clearer form. In his late 20s now and slightly older than most classmates, he had a compulsion to orate in class and summarize other peoples arguments for them. In law school the only thing I would have voted for Obama to do would have been to shut up, one student told Garrow. Classmates created a Obamanometer, ranking how pretentious someones remarks are in class.
[A literary guide to hating Barack Obama]
Such complaints aside, he was generally admired, including by his professors, one of whom wrote a final exam question around comments Obama had made in class. And his elevation to the presidency of the Harvard Law Review, the first time for an African American, signaled the respect the schools elite students had for him even if some liberal classmates later regretted their choice, finding Obama too conciliatory toward conservatives in their midst. Garrow re-creates the drama around the election, with Law Review colleagues debating the candidates legal acumen and leadership skills, as well as the possible history-making aspect of the selection. It is an unexpectedly riveting part of the book. The black editors on the staff began crying and running and hugging when the final choice was made and with the national news coverage that followed, Obamas star was on the rise.
Law school also provided Obama one of his most important intellectual interlocutors: classmate and economist Rob Fisher. They took multiple classes together and co-wrote a never-published book on public policy, titled Transformative Politics or Promises of Democracy: Hopeful Critiques of American Ideology. The manuscript explored the political failures of the left and right and expounded on markets, race and democratic dialogue, showing glimmers of the political philosophy and rhetoric that Obama would come to embrace. A few years later, Fisher helped Obama rethink Dreams From My Father (originally titled Journeys in Black and White), making it less a policy book and more a personal one.
Obama had met Michelle Robinson at the Chicago law firm where she worked and where he was a summer associate after his first year of law school, and the couple quickly became serious. However, Jager, who soon arrived at Harvard on a teaching fellowship, was not entirely out of his life.
Barack and Sheila had continued to see each other irregularly throughout the 1990-91 academic year, notwithstanding the deepening of Baracks relationship with Michelle Robinson, Garrow writes. (I always felt bad about it, Sheila told the author more than two decades later. Once Barack and Michelle were married, his personal ties to Sheila was reduced to the occasional letter (such as after the 9/11 attacks) and phone call (when he reached out to ask whether a biographer had contacted her).
If Garrow is correct in concluding that Obamas romantic choices were influenced by his political ambitions, it is no small irony that Michelle Obama became one of those most skeptical about Obamas political prospects, and most dubious about his will to rise. She constantly discourages his efforts toward elective office and resents the time he spends away from her and their two young daughters. Obama vented to a friend how often Michelle would talk about money. Why dont you go out and get a good job? Youre a lawyer you can make all the money we need, she would tell him, as the couple struggled with student loans and the demands of family and political life. (Garrow sides with Michelle, highlighting how, on the day after Sasha was born, Barack went downtown for a meeting.)
[The self-referential presidency of Barack Obama]
As he considered a U.S. Senate bid, Obamas team commissioned a poll that covered, among other questions, his name. Barry, as he was known from childhood into his early college years, polled better than Barack, but Obama never considered resurrecting the old name. He had made his choice, of identity and image, long ago. Sheila recalls that one of the few times Obama became genuinely angry with her was in Hawaii, when she heard relatives calling him Barry, and she did so as well, just for fun. He became irrationally furious, she said. He told me that under no circumstances was I ever to use that name with him.
There was no going back.
***
Rising Star is exhaustive, but only occasionally exhausting. Garrow zooms his lens out far, for instance when he recounts the evisceration of Chicagos steel industry in the early 1980s, providing useful context for Obamas subsequent work. And he goes deliciously small-bore, too, delving into the culture of the Illinois statehouse, where poker was intense and infidelity was rampant. Theres a lot of people who fed in Springfield, a female lobbyist tells Garrow. What else is there to do? Obama, however, did not. Michelle would kick my butt, he told a colleague there. At times Garrow delivers information simply because he has it; I did not need a detailed readout of all of Obamas course evaluations from his years teaching at the University of Chicagos law school. (Turns out his students liked him.)
The books title seems chosen with a sense of irony. Garrow shows how media organizations invariably described Obama as a rising star, in almost self-fulfilling fashion. Yet, after nine years of research and reporting, Garrow does not appear too impressed by his subject, even if he recognizes Obamas historical importance.
The author is harsh but persuasive in his reading of Dreams From My Father, for instance, calling it not a memoir but a work of historical fiction, one in which the most important composite character was the narrator himself. (Reviewers were impressed by it, but few who knew Obama well seemed to recognize the man in its pages.) He points out that Obamas cocaine use extended into his post-college years, longer than Obama had previously acknowledged. And he suggests Obama deployed religion for political purposes; while campaigning for the U.S. Senate, Garrow notes, Obama began toting around a Bible and exhibited a greater religious faith than close acquaintances had ever previously sensed.
Throughout the book, Obama displays an almost petulant dissatisfaction with each step he took to reach the Oval Office. Community organizing is not ambitious enough, he decides, so he goes to law school. But then he moves into politics because I saw the law as being inadequate to the task of achieving social change, Obama explains. In Springfield, he is again disillusioned by the realization that politics is a business . . . an activity thats designed to advance ones career, accumulate resources and help ones friends, as opposed to a mission.And upon reaching the U.S. Senate, he tells National Journal that he is surprised by the lack of deliberation in the worlds greatest deliberative body. Nothing measures up.
Rising Star concludes with Obama announcing his presidential campaign, and Garrow speeds through the Obama presidency in a clunky and tacky epilogue, in which he recaps the growing media disenchantment with Obama and goes out of his way to cite unfavorable reviews of earlier Obama biographies. (Come on, David. Other books can be good.) In his acknowledgments, Garrow says that Obama granted him eight hours of off-the-record conversations and even read the bulk of the manuscript. His understandable remaining disagreements some strong indeed with multiple characterizations and interpretations contained herein do not lessen my deep thankfulness for his appreciation of the scholarly seriousness with which I have pursued this project, Garrow writes.
That is Obama now: a scholarly project, a figure of history. After the eight years of his presidency, it is odd to consider him in the past tense. Yes, he remains a public figure, as the mini-controversy over his speaking fees shows, and he is not going away, and certainly not with a post-presidential memoir still coming. But now he is fighting for history and legacy, and one of those battles is against another figure whose ascent is even more bizarre, yet perhaps no less personally preordained.
Obama had considered Donald Trump long before either man won the presidency, and brushed off his existence as a misguided national fantasy. Americans have a continuing normative commitment to the ideals of individual freedom and mobility, Obama wrote in the old Harvard book manuscript, now more than 25 years old. The depth of this commitment may be summarily dismissed as the unfounded optimism of the average American I may not be Donald Trump now, but just you wait; if I dont make it, my children will.
Follow Carlos Lozada on Twitter and read his latest reviews, including:
The liberal war over the Obama legacy has already begun
How Clinton and Obama tried to run the world while trying to manage each other
The case for impeaching President Donald J. Trump. (Too soon?)
Original post:
Before Michelle, Barack Obama asked another woman to marry him. Then politics got in the way. - Washington Post
- Top 5 Hottest Gifts in the UK to Give Your Boyfriend in 2023 - Be Global Fashion Network - September 21st, 2023 [September 21st, 2023]
- Barbara Marx Hubbard - Wikipedia - November 21st, 2022 [November 21st, 2022]
- Celebrating the Soul of India in the Heart of the U.S - Digital Journal - September 27th, 2022 [September 27th, 2022]
- 'You cant memorise your way out of poverty' - The UN speech that got Education Minister trending - Myjoyonline - September 22nd, 2022 [September 22nd, 2022]
- Black Women Have Always Proven Their Mettle as Church Leaders - The Washington Informer - April 11th, 2022 [April 11th, 2022]
- Epic Travel Adventure Unveils the Source of the Living Grail Inaiya Ray's Newly Released Book is a Catalyst for Transformational Healing and... - February 1st, 2022 [February 1st, 2022]
- Heart of Oneness Holistic Expo aims to unlock the keys to true wellness - Jersey's Best - September 29th, 2021 [September 29th, 2021]
- Explore the Non-Dual Enlightenment Tradition of the U.S. - River Journal Staff - September 14th, 2021 [September 14th, 2021]
- Attentive AI that boosts accuracy and consistency - Cambridge Network - July 16th, 2021 [July 16th, 2021]
- Bitcoin Paves The Way Toward A Truly Sustainable Future - Bitcoin Magazine - July 2nd, 2021 [July 2nd, 2021]
- What Is Conscious Evolution? | HuffPost - March 25th, 2021 [March 25th, 2021]
- What is Conscious Evolution? How is Consciousness Created ... - March 25th, 2021 [March 25th, 2021]
- Margo Price on the Bob Dylan Classic She Wishes She Wrote - Pitchfork - July 21st, 2020 [July 21st, 2020]
- The First Cause of All of Humanity's Problems - Patheos - May 24th, 2020 [May 24th, 2020]
- Conscious Evolution TV - The Convergence of Science ... - March 13th, 2020 [March 13th, 2020]
- Sacramento boasts a hot lineup of community and culture events this week - Yahoo News - October 24th, 2019 [October 24th, 2019]
- Sheila Gautreaux Highlights Importance of Forgiveness - Benzinga - August 18th, 2017 [August 18th, 2017]
- Nights Of Fire: A Conscious Evolution Festival Preview - NYSMusic - August 15th, 2017 [August 15th, 2017]
- What's Happening: August 4, 2017 - Verde Independent - August 3rd, 2017 [August 3rd, 2017]
- KABAKA PYRAMID + One-A-Chord & DJ Spleece - SantaCruz.com - August 3rd, 2017 [August 3rd, 2017]
- Princess Nokia Will Use Smart Girl Club To Promote Afro-Indigenous Spirituality - Vibe - July 12th, 2017 [July 12th, 2017]
- The 8 Stages of Conscious Evolution - Waking Times - July 5th, 2017 [July 5th, 2017]
- First Gaia Symposium scheduled for July 7-9 in Weed - Taft Midway Driller - July 4th, 2017 [July 4th, 2017]
- Talk About INDEPENDENCE. We just divorced, yet get along better than ever! - The Good Men Project (blog) - July 4th, 2017 [July 4th, 2017]
- Surprise: People Who Claim They Don't Eat or Drink Are Probably Liars - ATTN: - June 23rd, 2017 [June 23rd, 2017]
- Native Americans are getting cheated again by a white president ... - Los Angeles Times - June 22nd, 2017 [June 22nd, 2017]
- Dr. Leslie Wells Announces Upcoming Launch of the EVE Consciousness World Tour - PR Web (press release) - June 7th, 2017 [June 7th, 2017]
- Jackal - Summer In Your Arms - EDM Sauce - June 3rd, 2017 [June 3rd, 2017]
- Illuminate Film Festival returns for fourth year - Sedona Red Rock News - June 3rd, 2017 [June 3rd, 2017]
- Seeking conscious evolution - The New Indian Express - May 28th, 2017 [May 28th, 2017]
- Sedona to host 4th annual Illuminate Film Festival - Verde Independent - May 23rd, 2017 [May 23rd, 2017]
- Barbara Marx Hubbard | Futurist, Author, Public Speaker - April 27th, 2017 [April 27th, 2017]
- Pierre Teilhard De Chardin Information - April 3rd, 2017 [April 3rd, 2017]
- International Forum on Consciousness - Business Wire (press release) - March 17th, 2017 [March 17th, 2017]
- Skill to discriminate - The Hindu - March 10th, 2017 [March 10th, 2017]
- Modi supports yoga at Lord Shiva bust unveiling - Easterneye (press release) (subscription) - March 4th, 2017 [March 4th, 2017]
- Important to preserve the essence of yoga: PM Narendra Modi - Economic Times - February 26th, 2017 [February 26th, 2017]
- PM Modi unveils 112-foot tall bust of Lord Shiva in Coimbatore - Zee News - February 26th, 2017 [February 26th, 2017]
- YOGA-PM 2 LAST : PTI feed, News - India Today - India Today - February 26th, 2017 [February 26th, 2017]
- PM Modi unveils 112-foot tall bust of Lord Shiva in Coimbatore on occasion of Maha Shivratri' - Zee News - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- Narendra Modi to unveil 112-ft tall Shiva idol on February 24 - India ... - India.com - February 20th, 2017 [February 20th, 2017]
- Coimbatore: PM Modi to unveil 112-feet tall face of Adiyogi on Feb ... - India.com - February 20th, 2017 [February 20th, 2017]
- Modi to unveil 112-ft tall Shiva idol in Coimbatore on February 24 - Hindustan Times - February 19th, 2017 [February 19th, 2017]
- Global Communication Hub - Foundation for Conscious Evolution - February 18th, 2017 [February 18th, 2017]
- Grey Magick and Soapbox Preachers - Patheos (blog) - February 14th, 2017 [February 14th, 2017]
- Sacred Centers - Tools for Conscious Evolution - November 27th, 2016 [November 27th, 2016]
- Stay Inspired: Conscious Evolution with Barbara Marx ... - November 21st, 2016 [November 21st, 2016]
- Fearless Conscious Evolution - Home - November 14th, 2016 [November 14th, 2016]
- Conscious evolution - Wikipedia - October 17th, 2016 [October 17th, 2016]
- Conscious Evolution (Kansas City, MO) - Meetup - September 20th, 2016 [September 20th, 2016]
- Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social ... - July 29th, 2016 [July 29th, 2016]
- Psychological, Conscious, and Spiritual Evolution ... - June 21st, 2016 [June 21st, 2016]
- Back to the Future: LCWR nuns and Conscious Evolution ... - June 8th, 2016 [June 8th, 2016]
- Conscious Evolution - FREE Tarot Card Reading - September 27th, 2015 [September 27th, 2015]
- Conscious Evolution TV - August 10th, 2015 [August 10th, 2015]
- Conscious Evolution Defined - Foundation for Conscious ... - July 18th, 2015 [July 18th, 2015]
- Cures Without Side Effects - Video - April 13th, 2015 [April 13th, 2015]
- How to Activate Our Genetic Blueprint - Video - April 13th, 2015 [April 13th, 2015]
- CEM-The Living Consciously-TV - Video - April 11th, 2015 [April 11th, 2015]
- How Can You Be Happy - Video - April 11th, 2015 [April 11th, 2015]
- How Technology is Connected to Consciousness - Video - April 11th, 2015 [April 11th, 2015]
- Activate Your Higher Mind Powerful DNA Healing Energy | All 9 Solfeggio Frequencies - Video - April 11th, 2015 [April 11th, 2015]
- Conscious Evolution! - Video - April 5th, 2015 [April 5th, 2015]
- Eyes of Emerald - Video - April 5th, 2015 [April 5th, 2015]
- What is Cultural Fusion - Video - April 4th, 2015 [April 4th, 2015]
- Teddy M. - Conscious Evolution (Kansas City, MO) - Meetup - April 4th, 2015 [April 4th, 2015]
- Conscious Eating for Health - Video - March 31st, 2015 [March 31st, 2015]
- Are We at a Turning Point for Humanity - Video - March 29th, 2015 [March 29th, 2015]
- Barbara Marx Hubbard - The Next Phase of Conscious Evolution - Video - March 25th, 2015 [March 25th, 2015]
- 06 Conscious Evolution - Video - March 25th, 2015 [March 25th, 2015]
- Reverend Jim Lee on Conscious Evolution - Video - March 25th, 2015 [March 25th, 2015]
- Living an Inspired Life - March 25th, 2015 [March 25th, 2015]
- How to Reach Higher Levels of Consciousness - Video - March 20th, 2015 [March 20th, 2015]
- How to Find the Seeds of Consciousness - Video - March 18th, 2015 [March 18th, 2015]
- Conscious Evolution ~ Yoga with Haley - Video - March 18th, 2015 [March 18th, 2015]
- How to Hear with Your Heart - Video - March 18th, 2015 [March 18th, 2015]
- Is that All there is-The Journey Within - Video - March 14th, 2015 [March 14th, 2015]
- How to Open Your Mind to Unlimited Possibilities - Video - March 13th, 2015 [March 13th, 2015]
- Solfeggio Frequency 174hz ||| The Foundation of Conscious Evolution ||| 1 HOUR ||| - Video - March 13th, 2015 [March 13th, 2015]
- Our True Nature as The Divine Spark - Barbara Marx Hubbard - Video - March 12th, 2015 [March 12th, 2015]