Well, we know that Obama's father was a communist, and we know that most of his associates in the last decade and a half have been communists, but it turns out that even growing up, Obama's childhood mentor was a communist. It turns out that Obama, while growing up on Hawaii, was close to the poet Frank Marshall Davis, a lifelong communist. Obama mentions Davis in his book, Dreams From My Father, but only ever calls him "Frank." I do find it odd that he failed to disclose the full name of such a famous poet. If I ever write an autobiography, I'm not going to talk about some poet named Fred who influenced me -- no, I'm going to say that it was Frederick Turner. So why does Obama fail to mention who this guy is? Even in his autobiography he's trying to hide his connections to communists. There is only one reason why he would do that, which is that he's trying to hide those associations. And the only reason he would try to hide those associations is if he agreed with their agenda.
The poems of Davis I read did not exactly spell out a communist agenda. He's fortunately too good a poet for that. Which is not to say that he doesn't spell out some social concerns of his. He's too good a poet for that. So if Obama was sitting around listening to this guy read his poetry, it seems to me that Obama could have said that he had the immense privilege of having known Frank Davis, whose poetry was incredible, even if, looking back, he didn't exactly agree with his politics. But that didn't happen. Instead, we have Obama hiding who Frank really is, figuring the media would be too lazy to try to find out. Well, he was mostly right about that.
4 comments:
Obama didn't identify "Frank" by his full name in his book because he identified a number of people only by their first names. This is common practice in a memoir.
Don't buy it. Not when you are talking about someone who is famous, a significant literary figure. I stand by my example. I might call Fred by his first name only after the first mention of his full name and who he is, but I would certainly mentioned his first name and who he is. In the autobiographies I've read, full names are used. For example, in Dali's autobiography, he says that he was introduced to Picasso "by Manuel Angelo Ortiz, a cubist painter of Grenada", and he doesn't refer to them as Pablo or Manuel, respectively. So I don't buy it. It is an odd omission.
In Obama's book, however, he refers to casual acquaintances ONLY by their first names. At the time Davis was not famous (or infamous). All of Frank's casual acquaintances referred to him by his first name.
You're his son, so I'll have to take your word as to his fame at the time. Of course casual acquaintances refer to each other by first names, but most people don't write memoirs or autobiographies, either. Obama associates him with several other well-known writers, and gives their full names, so again, I find it odd that he would leave the reader guessing as to whom it was he was talking about. From what I know of the genre, it's not a common practice in the genre to only mentioned people by their first names -- you always establish who they are. Exceptions would of course be immediate family, though even who they are is always established. After all, unless the reader is a close friend or family member, the reader doesn't know who these people are unless the author tells them who they are. If Obama did only call him Frank for less than deceptive reasons, that just makes him a bad memoir writer -- which I can't rule out as a possibility.
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