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WP: Before Michelle, Barack Obama asked another woman to marry him.

D

Deepwater

Member
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2017/05/02/before-michelle-barack-obama-asked-another-woman-to-marry-him-then-politics-got-in-the-way/?tid=ss_tw-amp&utm_term=.5104eef5104b

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.
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It is in the personal realm that Garrow’s 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.
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“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 Obama’s professional prospects, and because her mother thought Sheila, two years Obama’s 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.”
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Maraniss’s 2012 biography deftly describes Obama’s 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.”
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Thank God for Chicago cause I don't know if this would have applied to every other city. I can only really think of Detroit and Atlanta. We wouldn't have gotten Obama the senator or Obama the President if it wasn't for Chicago and Michelle.
 
M

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
At 25 he had set out that goal to be president... At 25 my top priority was getting to e3.
 
B

Barzul

Member
Posted this response in PoliGAF to the article and it's how I feel.

I read this and in my opinion the biographers conclusions are bullshit. It's almost expecting Obama to be perfect in the way he projected himself and lived his life. We all put out the best versions of ourselves to the public and Bams did no different. I got pissed off reading how Obama didn't really care for his ex because he thought he would need to be married to an African American to hit the political heights he wanted. So? He still asked her to marry him twice and she said no both times. He also chose not to run with "Barry" as his name even though it polled better than Barack, hows that for authentic? It's like some people expect this mythical Christ-like image of perfection from Obama. He was just like a lot of us are driven, fallible but a great and unforgettable President. Anyways yeah I did not come away reading that having a good opinion of the biographer. The content was definitely interesting though and worth reading for that alone.
 
S

Slayven

Member
Deepwater said:
do you think Obama would have became president with a white wife?
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Just a generic white wife, or a white wife as strong as Michelle? I don't think he would have with any other woman but Michelle or a damn good copy, Michelle is such a unique person in herself i don't think you can really make that comparison.
 
M

Mael

Member
Barzul said:
Posted this response in PoliGAF to the article and it's how I feel.

I read this and in my opinion the biographers conclusions are bullshit. It's almost expecting Obama to be perfect in the way he projected himself and lived his life. We all put out the best versions of ourselves to the public and Bams did no different. I got pissed off reading how Obama didn't really care for his ex because he thought he would need to be married to an African American to hit the political heights he wanted. So? He still asked her to marry him twice and she said no both times. He also chose not to run with "Barry" as his name even though it polled better than Barack, hows that for authentic? It's like some people expect this mythical Christ-like image of perfection from Obama. He was just like a lot of us are driven, fallible but a great and unforgettable President. Anyways yeah I did not come away reading that having a good opinion of the biographer. The content was definitely interesting though and worth reading for that alone.
Click to expand...

The good thing with your reply is that I don't need to post my opinion when it's basically a less coherent version of yours.
 
M

msdstc

Incredibly Naive
darscot said:
I know he is a super public figure and was President but I really think this is no ones business.
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It isnt and tbh who cares, almost everyone has multiple partners who could have been "the one"

That being said its part of the territory when youre such a public figure.
 
S

Slayven

Member
Gordon Shumway said:
Right?
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Hmm Obama had a committed relationship before he met the woman he would marry. That is mighty suspicious

Barzul said:
Posted this response in PoliGAF to the article and it's how I feel.

I read this and in my opinion the biographers conclusions are bullshit. It's almost expecting Obama to be perfect in the way he projected himself and lived his life. We all put out the best versions of ourselves to the public and Bams did no different. I got pissed off reading how Obama didn't really care for his ex because he thought he would need to be married to an African American to hit the political heights he wanted. So? He still asked her to marry him twice and she said no both times. He also chose not to run with "Barry" as his name even though it polled better than Barack, hows that for authentic? It's like some people expect this mythical Christ-like image of perfection from Obama. He was just like a lot of us are driven, fallible but a great and unforgettable President. Anyways yeah I did not come away reading that having a good opinion of the biographer. The content was definitely interesting though and worth reading for that alone.
Click to expand...

The last line in the book is especially petty
 
D

Deepwater

Member
Slayven said:
Just a generic white wife, or a white wife as strong as Michelle? I don't think he would have with any other woman but Michelle or a damn good copy, Michelle is such a unique person in herself i don't think you can really make that comparison.
Click to expand...

His interaction with black folk would have went a LOT different in 07-08 with a white wife, period. Regardless of how "strong" she was. I can't even imagine Barack with a white wife. My opinion of him would change instantaneously.

And I'm not saying Michelle doesn't deserve credit for being herself, but I'm saying there is a lot of merit to the idea that Barack needed a black woman to be able to springboard his political career in Chicago, at the very least.
 
N

Not

Banned
msdstc said:
At 25 he had set out that goal to be president... At 25 my top priority was getting to e3.
Click to expand...

I'm 25 and I just want to get my career going already

I'm in the door and closer than I've ever been, but I feel like I keep missing my chances

I guess I could decide to be President instead...
 
J

Jenov

Member
9a92b03d30ef2f8b58a7299a7a88bfd762d4e6fc1331c52268c7a2db5e4e926b_1.jpg
 
N

numble

Member
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
Intriguing how?


The blackness of his wife is what won him the election? themoreyouknow.gif
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He's implying that racists would probably come out against such a candidate. There were surges of the "hidden white" voter in places like Florida and rural Pennsylvania--people that don't usually vote but could vote for a strong racist reason.
 
S

Slayven

Member
Deepwater said:
His interaction with black folk would have went a LOT different in 07-08 with a white wife, period. Regardless of how "strong" she was. I can't even imagine Barack with a white wife. My opinion of him would change instantaneously.

And I'm not saying Michelle doesn't deserve credit for being herself, but I'm saying there is a lot of merit to the idea that Barack needed a black woman to be able to springboard his political career in Chicago, at the very least.
Click to expand...

Oh, now I got you.

The whole conversation is just distasteful, especially phrasing Michelle as a blackness powerup, stripping her of her agency.
 
Z

zou

Member
Man, between this and the scandalous $400k speech fee, Obama is having one hell of a week. How dare he marry someone else after she said no, twice. He should have remained single forever.
 
B

Beartruck

Member
Oh my god, imagine the vile shit we would've heard from republicans if his wife was white. We would've heard stuff like "that mooslem is stealing our women and forcing them into shawarma law", etc.
 
M

Maintenance

Member
zou said:
Man, between this and the scandalous $400k speech fee, Obama is having one hell of a week. How dare he marry someone else after she said no, twice. He should have remained single forever.
Click to expand...

The republicans probably were happy that Bams came back.

"Finally, they have another target".

Trump: Hold my beer.
 
N

numble

Member
zou said:
Man, between this and the scandalous $400k speech fee, Obama is having one hell of a week. How dare he marry someone else after she said no, twice. He should have remained single forever.
Click to expand...
Who is saying he shouldn't have married Michelle?
 
Z

Zaraki_Kenpachi

Member
numble said:
He's implying that racists would probably come out against such a candidate. There were surges of the "hidden white" voter in places like Florida and rural Pennsylvania--people that don't usually vote but could vote for a strong racist reason.
Click to expand...

Not sure I'm following you, racists would come out in larger numbers if he had a white wife than racists already did in both elections that he won?

Deepwater said:
I'm confident in saying black people would have treated him differently with a white wife
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Why? Do you have issue with any blacks dating "outside their race" or just Obama?
 
N

numble

Member
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
Not sure I'm following you, racists would come out in larger numbers if he had a white wife than racists already did in both elections that he won?
Click to expand...
Yes? They used to lynch black men that flirted with white women.
The rural white turnout in 2016 was higher than in 2012 and 2008.
 
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