Reading Response Obama- Sangay Dolma.

Connection to Malcom X’s autobiography(pg86-87) .

1.Obama starts to read books of black authors but finds out most writers gives up in the end. Only Malcom’s book caught his interest but again he gets troubled by Malcom’s wish to clean his white blood. He knows that he can never do this to his white family. One day, at basketball court, Obama and Ray meets Malik, a follower of Nation of Islam. They were having conversation about Malcom and some guys. Obama notices Ray laughing. “I don’t need books to tell me how to be a black” when asked, “why are you laughing” by Obama.

2. “He spoke of a wish of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged. I knew that, for Malcolm, that wish would never be incidental. I knew as well that traveling down the road to self-respect my own white blood would never recede into mere abstraction. I was left to wonder what else I would be serving if and when I left my mother and my grandparents at some uncharted border.”

While reading Melcom’s autobiography, Obama learns that Malcolm hated white blood that had in him which was resulted by violence. So, he once wished to clean his white blood. Malcolm seems to never disregard that wish. However, Obama was aware that even if he follow the path to self-respect, his white blood would never simply disappear. In addition, he can not imagine what his life would be without his white family.

3. Barack Obama learns that white people can be brothers in Islam through reading Malcom’s book, just as Malcolm realized late in the life. He realizes that how important is his white family to him and he knew that the white blood in him can not be cleansed. In the end, he sees hope that a resolving can be achieved, though the process will take long time. He also learns that a new and a better world can be built with different race, if people are willing to put an effort to achieve it.