The Moral of This Story? We Are Way More Than the Color of Our Skin.
- Barack Obama is the son of a Black man and a white woman, raised by two white grandparents who survived World War II.
- His wife "carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners—an inheritance [they] pass on to [their] two precious daughters" (16).
- There isn't a single story when it comes to America.
- We are a nation comprised of histories and traditions from all over, amalgamated across generations to create a home that is "more than the sum of its parts—that out of many, we are truly one" (19).
- The thing about that word "unity"? People want it—like, I-have-to-wait-how-long-for-the-next-season-of-Stranger-Things want it, and in 2008, those people avoided "the temptation to view [Obama's] candidacy through a purely racial lens" (21).
- They saw the bigger issues and chose to listen to Obama as a person, a potential leader, and not as a Black man trying to make history.
- But where people got tripped up was the fact that Obama was a Black man who made history—that's just not all he was.