... What Obama found in Mooney was more complex. Part of her appeal for him was certainly the job. Working at the Literacy Center provided both social standing and the opportunity to rise. But Mooney and Obama also spent time together outside the office, enjoying rural drives and attending some of the popular evening dances. And that association brought a different kind of benefit for Obama. Among a certain kind of African man, just keeping company with a white woman provided considerable social status...
So you see, why I might wonder, just what was that missionary woman thinking, she encouraged him to write letters to various US universities seeking a scholarship, she, or the Laubach Literacy Fund, paid for his airfare to Hawaii, she contributed toward his living expenses during the early period in Hawaii, he only had enough funds for one semester, according to himself at an early interview...and all this, while he had a wife who was pregnant and a young child when he left Kenya. Is that how a missionary would behave? Encourage a young man to leave his wife and family...JUST WHO DID SHE ASSUME WAS GOING TO SUPPORT THEM?