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News & Issues > Throw Grandma from the Train
 

Throw Grandma from the Train

Wouldn't you love to know what truly lurks in the heart of Barack Obama? I can't be any more certain of what's there than anyone else but I think I can offer some clues that you can't get anywhere else.
When Barack offered his "I am not a racist" speech this week the most disturbing thing he did was to throw his loving grandma off the train. I may have been more shocked than most listeners because I had witnessed this sort of act performed by another celebrated black man and was certain that Barack had witnessed the very same incident. The man who first did this shameful act was Mark Mathabane.
Mark Mathabane is the author of "Kaffir Boy". Kaffir Boy is required reading in practically every high school or college that offers a black studies course. What "Uncle Tom's Cabin" represented to the American movement to free the slaves "Kaffir Boy" represented in the movement to end apartheid in South Africa. It is considered a classic to this day and is hailed as the standard for judging white racism and apartheid at their worst.
I've read the book a couple of times now and cannot get over the lack of critical thinking on the part of educators who get overwhelmed with enthusiasm for what is essentially a self-serving piece of propaganda on the author's part. The man's only thought was to sell a book in order to line his pockets and feed his spectacular ego; and the reader needn't be especially astute to pick up on this writer's motives. It is a scandal on our educational system that twenty years after it came to market this book has still not been exposed for the ratty sham that it is.
Kaffir Boy purports to be the autobiography of a black boy (Mathabane) growing up in a South African ghetto. In the course of his young life he suffers illness, starvation and every degradation one can imagine as a result of the racist policies of apartheid. One can excuse many of Mathabane's half-thruths as literary license but as the reader moves along it becomes clear that the author is using a writer's advantage to cover his own moral faults.
The picture the author draws for his audience is one in which he is the hero, single-handedly overcoming the impossible barriers laid before him by his white oppressors. The facts, however, tell a different story. Mathabane had tremendous support in his climb out of poverty. Take his grandmother for example. On at least one occasion she gave her last cent to feed the author's starving family. She was instrumental in putting the young man in school and seeing to it that he followed through on his education. She introduced him to the white world where he made the connections that would eventually be his passport out of nativistic poverty. Throughout most of the book the author praises the unselfish sacrifices made on his behalf by his dear sweet grandma. At least that is his attitude until we reach the point in the book where Mathabane begins to have financial success. At that point he makes the incredible statement that her only interest all along was to make him successful so that she could live off of him in her old age!
I could hardly comprehend what I was reading! He threw his grandmother, the woman to whom he owed everything including life itself, right off his gravy train! What kind of man are we really dealing with here? All doubt dissolves when we get to Chapter 33.
Throughout the book up to this point the author has been careful to convince us that he is a devoted son to his mother and a doting older brother to his siblings. But at Chapter 33 the monster reveals himself in his full stature. He has gotten himself a little job and his pockets jingle with coin for the first time in his life. Early one morning his father wakes him up and asks him for a loan of 30 cents for bus fare to get to work. At first the boy lies to him and tells him he doesn't have the money. But the father saw him counting handfuls of money the night before. Still the boy refuses to give his father bus fare to get to work. He begs the boy. No! He bargains with him: 'Just 15 cents then for the one way trip to work. If I have to I'll sleep on the shop floor if I can't get the money to get home.' No! Finally, rather than part with 15 cents he got out of bed and went to his grandma's house.
What a piece of work! This creep who claimed to love his mother and siblings absolutely refuses to give his father 15 cents so that he can get to work, keep his precarious job and feed his famly. He'd rather see them all starve than part with a cent of his precious money.
At the end of the book he finally rids himself of his family when he wheedles a scholarship out of some wealthy white guys and flies off to America to become rich and famous.
"Kaffir Boy" is an important book, but not for the reasons that educators imagine. The book is a fine example of how the application of critical thinking skills can reveal an entirely different reality than the one a writer thinks he is creating for us. If the German People, for example, had applied critical analysis to Mien Kamphf they could easily have detected the mad man behind the words. Interspersed between the tale of "Kaffir Boy" is enough genuine information to create a picture of what apartheid was really all about - a story that the Western media has never squandered a single drop of ink on.
But our goal was to reveal this author to see if the steamrolling of his grandmother had some of the same motivations as Barack's steamrolling of his grand mama. I believe there is a correlation. I see two giant egos determined to aggrandize themselves by standing on the bodies of any human being who could lift them just a little bit higher. Barack has disguised his ego in a typically perfectionist manner, but lately the mask has been slipping. First there was his wife out of who's prideful mouth came the implication that her racist country had kept her down. Kept her down? This millionare who had attended the finest universities in the nation? Whose husband was the number one candidate for President of the most powerful nation on earth? None of this and more is enough to satisfy her gigantic ego? And now Barack himself throws his grandmother to the dogs of racism while refusing to disassociate himself from purveyors of hate?
I see a definite picture developing here that does not resemble the one Barack has been eager to create for us.

posted on Mar 21, 2008 11:01 AM ()

Comments:

Obama's grandma got run over by a reindeer...er, a train!
comment by whereabouts on Mar 29, 2008 10:40 AM ()
I was a Madison Ave operations research executive. When one of my bosses learned I was writing a spy novel, he asked. "Am I in it?"
It's common to show one facet to the world and throw your heart into a novel three hours every evening.
The other side hates the Constitution, free speech, the ordinary citizen, our troops and Obama in ascending order. If he survives the election cycle, it will be a miracle.
Welcome to MyBloggers.
comment by bumpedoff on Mar 22, 2008 10:43 AM ()
Jeez...now I'll have to read the book first
comment by strider333 on Mar 21, 2008 10:10 PM ()
Your point was very well made. Excellent post.
comment by pecan on Mar 21, 2008 11:46 AM ()

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