Hadn’t seen this before - dropping in for archiving
Interview in 1995 after publication of Dreams
http://www.eyeonbooks.com/ibp_obama.php
....The result was his book “Dreams From My Father,” first published in 1995. That’s when Eye on Books talked with him.
[” Listen to Barack Obama”- audio is still there]
PDF transcript of this interview
http://www.eyeonbooks.com/obama_transcript.pdf
Obama: I think what was toughest was writing honestly and truthfully about the suspicions and hurts and failings of the people closest to me, and writing about those same failings and disappointments and blind spots in myself. I think whenever we talk about race there are all kinds of issues we’d like to skirt. You know, I tell the story – just to take one of the clearest examples – of my grandmother, who loves me dearly and has made all kinds of sacrifices on my behalf, expressing at one point when I was a teenager her fear of black men on the streets. To discuss that honestly, and to discuss how that felt, to discuss how my grandmother felt, and then to be able to arrive at some sort of peace with that, some greater understanding and some forgiveness, I think was probably the most difficult part of writing it.
he was throwing g’ma under the bus, even back then
another telling quote “That my individual salvation is not going to come about without a collective salvation for the country.
Unfortunately, I think that recognition requires that we make sacrifices, and this country has not always been willing to make the sacrifices necessary to bring about a new day and a new age.”
~Kate