Obama’s Father
Obama’s father is clearly a literal person, but, across the narrative, he becomes much more tangible as a symbol. Specifically, “the Old Man” is situated as a complex and provocative symbol of the enduring social complications of racism. As a Black African equipped with a US education who marries a white woman, Obama’s father is almost at times a too-perfect collection of the contradictions inherent in producing irreconcilable racial tensions.
The Man in Life Magazine
A photograph in Life Magazine of a Black man who used bleaching cream in an effort to “peel off his skin” becomes an instantly unforgettable symbol of the seamy underbelly of racism: the engendering of self-revulsion among Black people toward the pigment of their own skin. Obama frames this symbolism as the “hidden enemy” of racist influence.
Bleaching Cream
Cream used specifically for the intended purpose—by no means always achieved—of lightening skin pigmentation becomes the central symbolic representative of the commodification of racist self-revulsion. The symbol is complex and complicated beyond words as companies run by white executives make products sold at the retail level by Black store owners to customers eagerly hoping to alter the very foundation of their identity: their physical appearance. Along with bleaching cream come such other assorted sundries ranging from hair straightening products to clothing which are purchased by those in Black society specifically for the hope of mainstreaming themselves into white society by looking like them.
Biblical Survival Stories
Obama specifically singles out some of the Bible’s greatest hits—David versus Goliath, Moses and the Exodus, Daniel in the lion’s den—as symbols of the African American experience. All these stories tell of misery, hope, survival and ultimately the reward of freedom and victory over oppressors.
Dreams
Dreams are less a symbol than an example of a recurring motif that runs throughout the narrative. Obviously, this motif is initiated even before one opens the book with its placement in the title. The title suggests that the myriad references to dreams and dreaming within the text all connect back to Barack’s father in some way and, indeed, this idea is the linchpin connecting all those myriad descriptions of dreams together.
