http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080508_obamas_mama/Obama’s Mama
Ellen Goodman
snip//
The rest of the story is known: a divorce, a marriage to an Indonesian, a second divorce. She was a mother who kept her children focused as well as fed. But what’s less known is the woman in her own right, the one who became an anthropologist, the woman who spent years as the respected head of research for Women’s World Banking, bringing micro-financing to poor people in Indonesia.
Nancy Barry, who was the head of Women’s World Banking and knew Ann well, has been bewildered by the way she’s been reduced to a stick figure. “She was stubborn, hard core, decisive, convincing, deep-thinking, rigorous in her analysis,” says Barry. “When I hear Barack talking about how we are not red states, blue states but the United States, I think he gets that from his mother. The other core capability he gets from her is the desire for healing.”
Indeed, the Obama we see may be the offspring of “Dreams From My Mother.”
If Ann were alive today she would be the age of Hillary Clinton’s most devoted demographic. She would be among those women who have gone through enormous transitions, making and remaking the female script. Dreaming big.
I am not suggesting Obama drag out his mama as a prop. But he’s staked his case for the presidency on his ability to bridge racial, cultural, party divides, to lead a postpartisan America. He’s described how the root of this desire is in his DNA. Now he’s faced with another divide: women who identified their success with Hillary’s and who are unsure they will vote for him.
What better way to begin reaching out, holding the “gender conversation,” showing women he “gets it,” than by sharing the dreams he inherited and the dreams he understands. The dreams from his mother. A girl named Stanley.