Wednesday, April 23, 2014

The African family President Obama embraced during and after winning office in 2008 has gone largely ignored since, The New York Times reports.

Obama Keeping Distance from African Relatives

Image: Obama Keeping Distance from African Relatives  
Malik Obama, the older half-brother of President Barack Obama, holds an undated picture of Barack, left, himself, center, and an unidentified friend in his shop in Siaya, eastern Kenya.
Wednesday, 23 Apr 2014
By Melissa Clyne


The African family President Obama embraced during and after winning office in 2008 has gone largely ignored since, The New York Times reports.

"Barack is almost trying to leave behind the family that he so passionately engaged in those early years as he moves through the presidency," half-brother Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo told the Times.

While campaigning for president as an Illinois senator in 2008, Obama went out of his way to include relatives from his Kenyan father’s side in his campaign. When he won, a delegation of African relatives attended the 2009 inauguration and received VIP treatment from the history-making first black U.S. president.

In 2004, just after Obama won the Democratic primary victory for the U.S. Senate, there was a second publishing of his memoir, "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance." In it, he recounts growing up as a biracial child, the son of a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya. The book – originally published in 1995 as Obama was preparing to launch his political career — details his journey to Africa, where he met his father’s side of the family. Obama forged relationships with several family members from his father’s side.

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