CCTAU 3,334 Posted February 28, 2008 Share Posted February 28, 2008 The not-so-simple story of Barack Obama's youthShaped by different worlds, an outsider found ways to fit in By Kirsten Scharnberg and Kim Barker | Tribune correspondents March 25, 2007 HONOLULU - The life stories, when the presidential candidate tells them, have a common theme: the quest to belong. A boy wants to find his place in a family where he is visibly different: chubby where others are thin, dark where others are light. A youth living in a distant land searches and finds new friends, a new language and a heartbreaking lesson about his identity in the pages of an American magazine. A young black man struggles for acceptance at an institution of privilege, where he finds himself growing so angry and disillusioned at the world around him that he turns to alcohol and drugs. These have been the stories told about the first two character-shaping decades of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's life, a story line largely shaped by his own best-selling memoir, political speeches and interviews. But the reality of Obama's narrative is not that simple. More than 40 interviews with former classmates, teachers, friends and neighbors in his childhood homes of Hawaii and Indonesia, as well as a review of public records, show the arc of Obama's personal journey took him to places and situations far removed from the experience of most Americans. At the same time, several of his oft-recited stories may not have happened in the way he has recounted them. Some seem to make Obama look better in the retelling, others appear to exaggerate his outward struggles over issues of race, or simply skim over some of the most painful, private moments of his life. CONTINUED Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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