Obama was raised by wealthy-Upper Middle Class Whites
He's no African American ghetto to the White House
"Obama at no point grew up poor in any economic or commonly understood sense of the term.
He may have been born to two flaky college students, so there were inconsistencies in the amount of attention he received at various points in his life, but both these students hailed from the top of the social ladder, and their son would only climb higher - never lower.
For most of his life, Obama?s status can be characterized as ELITE.
While Hillary Clinton did indeed enjoy a privileged upbringing, she has never said otherwise, and in fact ended her Texas debate speech with an admission that she wants all Americans to have the same privileges she grew up with. This is an ambitious, and I dare say sincerely noble, goal. I would be the last to object to a world, in which everyone can have the best education, best parenting, best public services, and the best protection from corporate, social, or individual abuse.
Unlike Clinton, Obama is flat-out lying and misleading the American people into believing he is a self-made rags to riches story, of utmost modesty and pristine moral character. Not only has Obama never encountered any ?no? to even the slightest caprice, which is reflected in his brat-like arrogance, his economic history is that of a spoiled boy pampered on a tropical island!
For Obama to speak of hardship, poverty, privilege and opportunity, is stunningly amoral!
At the lowest points in his life, 90% of American?s did not know the opportunities Obama knew.
At its peaks, 99 % of American?s did not know the privileges little Barry was born into!
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1) Obama?s biological father?s side: Barack Obama Sr was the son of the Chief of a prominent Luo tribe in Kenya. His father controlled all tribal land and held power over all tribal members. The stories of a poor goat farmer, are absolute fabrications. Obama?s biological father would not only enter Harvard as the son of a privileged Luo, upon his return to Kenya Sr. became a senior economist in the country?s Government. He died the bitter death of an abusive alcoholic, but still the Big Man in his Tribe and entourage. [source]
From ages 0 to 2, Obama was growing up in a family of two inexperienced but economically secure, College Students.
2) From 2-6 he was with his rich grandparents.
3) From 6 - 10, with his well-off stepfather employed by Exxon Oil in Jakarta, living in elite conditions and neighborhoods designated for foreigners. [Chang]
4) From age 10 to College Days, Obama lives the Tropical Life with two well off grandparents. One rich, the other idle.
5) The grandparents who raised Obama: On Obama?s mother?s side, the income was upper upper upper. Since it was they, not Ann, that sponsored most of Obama?s education right through Occidental College, it is their income, and not the perennially absent-student mother, that impacted Obama?s status.
It was Stanley Armour Dunham and Madelyn Dunham that made sure since the day of his birth that Barry wouldn?t ever know want, poverty, or hardship.
Even before moving to Hawaii, Obama?s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, was a Vice-President of a local Seattle bank. While her husband, Stanley Dunham managed a local furniture store, the couple Obama portrays as ?typical white people? from Kansas who survived the Great Depression, actually lived in a gentrified suburb called Mercer Island, which has remained gentrified till this day (Bill Gates has built his modern sprawling estate).
When the couple suddenly took off for Hawaii, it wasn?t to escape poverty, but for Madelyn to pursue her banking career. In Hawaii she found her chance to became a pioneer in the American banking world. While her grandson was only nine and living in Jakarta?s walled compounds, she became the first female Vice President of the Bank of Hawaii. [source]
The bank was the top bank in the islands in terms of assets in the 1960s and 70s, making her ascent especially notable. [AP]
When Barry rejoined Madelyn a year later, he had behind him four years of elite schooling in Indonesia (attending the country?s elite Catholic school and elite Public Schools for sons and daughters of dignitaries), and he would go on to study in one of elite America?s best high-schools, and eventually, our country?s most elite Universities.
With absolutely no material wants whatsoever, and zero hardship, a grandmother who was a top executive in America?s banking world, a grandfather with extra time on his hands while running a local furniture store, Obama?s self-obsessed mother had the luxury of pursuing her PhD with anthropological studies of Indonesia, while her parents bankrolled her son?s $7,000 tuition in Hawaii?s best private college preparatory school!
Historically one of America?s most ethnically diverse but economically homogeneous schools, today?s tuition in Punahao runs $16,675 a year per student. If billionaire alumni like Steve Case (AOL) and Pierre Omidyar (Ebay co-founder) don?t impress you, maybe a more comprehensive read of alumni is worth it, if only to drive home the message that anyone going to Punahao -because his grandparents could pay for it- should not lie about a modest background.
Having graduated Punahao, Obama went to Occidental -not cheap by any means- , then on to Columbia, and then Harvard. None of these schools are attended by average or middle class Americans. The income distribution for all three is skewed towards the top 10 % percent of the social ladder.
During his college years, nothing indicates any kind of full-time employment activity typical of middle-class or lower-income youth needed to sustain their education. In fact, while no details on his livelihood are available for this period, it is absolutely clear that were Obama ever to find himself in need, his grandparents would have taken care of him. Speculating that significant portions of his income, including for his marijuana and cocain habit, may have come from his unwitting grandparents, is legitimate.
6) Obama may not have paid for Harvard out of his own pocket, or his grandparents? pocket, preferring to take out loans. If his Dreams From My Father (which Gregory went to pains to introduce our readers to, in post after post) Obama makes his racial animosity towards whites, a fait accompli during his college years.
One interesting question about Obama?s admission to Harvard, is not only whether he benefited from Affirmative Action (which as is well known, benefits mostly upper class blacks, with negligible impact on lower-class), but also from his father?s alumni status? Clearly, Obama did not make it to Harvard as a kid struggling against the odds. If anything, he eventually made it into Harvard as a result of schooling in our country?s top preparatory college institution after years of being thoroughly spoiled by his well-off grandparents.
From age 0 to graduation from Harvard, regardless of whatever anecdotes of deprivation Obama comes up with, the reality of his privileged social and income status is indisputable. We are talking a minimum upper 10 % of our country?s social structure, and most certainly higher. A review of his grandparents income, along with his work activity in Occidental, and Columbia, would clarify whether it is top 7, 5, or even 3 percent.
7) Obama likes to brag that once out of Harvard, he received a less than $1000 a month salary as a community organizer. He neglects to mention that this lasted very briefly, and he was in a solid middle-class income in less than three months.
His comportment as community organizer as early as 1990 already bore marks of elitism and arrogance. He was a Harvard Grad - and he wore it like a flag pin. Obama was top top, through and though [salon]
Already in the early nineties Obama was working for a top Chicago law firm and had ties with a millionaire developer- definitely not the story of a typical poor, or middle class American.
Again, shortly after graduating Harvard, Obama found himself living in a gated lake-front condominium at Hyde Park, his neighbors some of the city?s most influential movers and shakers. Anyone familiar with the neighbourhood, will tell you that Obama?s accommodations were not the Chicago Middle Class Average, and especially not representative of the average for African-Americans. By any measure, Obama was living an upper-middle class/upper income life. Maybe not spectacularly upper upper, but again, not at all poor, modest, or middle class. Remember, he was just getting started. After college, none of the candidates in the running, were living in Villas or Governor?s mansions.
9) Already in the early nineties Obama had three incomes: from part-time lecturing in one of the country?s more generous universities, to part time work as attorney (more like paralegal, as Juanita rightfully puts it), to State Senator, and supposed community work (still unclear on that), living in a lake-front condo.
All of which puts Obama is in the top 10 % of our country?s social structure.
***
The Michelle Robinson Obama story is actually different from her husband?s. But again, she can not make any logical claim towards poverty or lack of opportunity.
Only the contrary.
Like Obama, she did not attend an average middle class university, but graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law School. Unlike Obama, this seems to had less to do with her parent?s privilege, although it would have been less likely without her father?s significantly above average income.
Michelle grew up in a supremely middle-class neighborhood and house, but her father already earned 25 % more than a high-school teacher at the time. Considering that high-school teachers have on average earned 20% above the national median, another 25 % above this means that the Robinsons? household would have found itself anywhere from 35th to 25th income percentile for the nation. [source]
With this kind of salary, Michelle?s mother could stay home and devote all her energy to her two children if she chose to, which is the choice she made.
This payed off big when Michelle won entrance to one of Chicago?s best magnet schools. At age 13, she was taking college level courses. Today, largely thanks to the opportunities America gives to hard-working honest folk like her father, Michelle is a successful lawyer with a fat check, sitting on the boards of a Food Company, member of Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and Vice President for Community and External Affairs at University of Chicago Hospitals.
She is noted for her crass materialist orientation, preferring glamor and expensive glitz to anything contemplative or spiritual, and her racially filtered understanding of American society.
Her only argument for having known poverty, consist of not being able to buy a BMW straight out of Priceton/Harvard because of college loans.
With such a low-bar for poverty, any number of middle class children whose parents refuse to pay for their tuition to top schools, will call themselves poor.
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For either Michelle or Barack Obama to call themselves poor or suffering middle-class hardship at any point during their lives, is simply misleading.
Nor can Obama make the claim that he, rather than Clinton, is more in touch with the Middle Class due to his economic history. This is patently false, as he had never moved out of the top 10 % income bracket at any point in his life! Its equivalent to the pot calling the kettle black.
If anything, Obama?s history shows a supreme pride and arrogance in not having been born poor, and having been privileged. Chosing between a man who pretends to have known hardship so he can compensate for his arrogance with the middle-class, and a woman who honestly admits knowing privilege and makes it her goal the middle-class gets to know it too, is a no-brainer.
As for Michelle Obama, If not for Jeremiah Wright?s attacks on the ?middle-class? as an all-white concept, Michelle Obama could reasonably portray herself as someone who does indeed hail from the upper middle-class.
But she is being unreasonable in calling herself poor and talking about hardship, especially when falsely using the pronoun ?we? when speaking of Barack as somehow sharing in this heritage."
