26 Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized Biographygrad student. He was black, from Kenya and named Obama.” (Chicago Tribune, March 27, 2007)
Ann married Obama Senior when she was 18 years old. They met in a Russian language class,
which may or may not indicate sympathy for Soviet communism (it could have indicated a desire to
join the intelligence community): each one could have been there for many reasons, including
training by a US intelligence agency. One person who knew Barack Obama Senior and Ann
Dunham and their social set in those days is the Democratic Congressman Neil Abercrombie, who
has recalled that ‘while Obama was impatient and energized, Stanley Ann, whom Abercrombie
described as “the original feminist,” was endlessly patient but quietly passionate in her arguments.
She was the only woman in the group.’ (Chicago Tribune, March 27, 2007)
Those who had known Ann Dunham as an independent woman not interested in marriage and
children were surprised by her sudden decision to marry Obama Senior. ‘“I just couldn’t imagine
her life changing so quickly,” said [one such friend], thinking about her independent-minded friend
who had disdained marriage and motherhood.’ (Chicago Tribune, March 27, 2007) Evidently the
irresistible appeal of a husband from the third world had eclipsed Ann’s feminism. Ironically, the
third world turned out not to be the repository of unalloyed goodness which a disciple of Rousseau
would have expected. The original feminist Ann Dunham would soon find herself the victim not
just of a bigamist but of a polygamist who would abandon her and her infant son without a second
thought. Barack Obama today bears the mental scars of this experience.
Grandfather Onyango, back in Kenya, was fiercely opposed to Obama Senior’s marriage. He
wrote the Dunhams a ‘“long, nasty letter saying that he didn’t approve of the marriage.” This
former house servant for the British colonialists “didn’t want the Obama blood sullied by a white
woman.” His main argument was that this American girl would never agree to return to Kenya and
live under conditions of polygamy. Onyango wrote: “How can you marry this white woman when
you have responsibilities at home? Will this woman return with you and live as a Luo woman?
Will she accept that you already have a wife and children? I have not heard of white people
understanding such things. Their women are jealous and used to being pampered. But if I am
wrong in this matter, let the girl’s father come to my hut and discuss the situation properly. But this
is the affair of elders, not children.”’ (Dreams 422)
Ann Dunham may have felt compelled to get married because she was already pregnant. As we
read in one journalistic account; ‘Six months after they wed, another letter arrived in Kenya,
announcing the birth of Barack Hussein Obama, born Aug. 4, 1961. Despite her husband’s
continued anger, Sarah Obama said in a recent interview, she “was so happy to have a grandchild in
the U.S.”’ (Chicago Tribune, March 27, 2007) There is also some question about the documentation
and thus of the legality of the marriage of Obama Senior to Ann Dunham. This wedding may not
have been properly documented, as Obama himself tells us. “How and when the marriage occurred
remains a bit murky, a bill of particulars that I have never quite had the courage to explore,” Obama
writes in Dreams. In other words, this may have been a common law marriage.^5 The implication is
that presidential candidate Barack Obama may be an illegitimate child born outside of wedlock, or,
in plain English, a bastard.^6
A FEMINIST DOORMAT FOR A POLYGAMIST
The later Congressman Neil Abercrombie sensed at the beginning that this marriage was not
destined to last. Obama Senior was self-absorbed and self-centered, and evidently regarded the
marriage as a mere temporary convenience for the time of his stay in Hawaii: ‘Obama was one of
the most ambitious, self-focused men he had ever met. After Obama was accepted to study at