Dreams from My Father: on Welfare & Poverty

Inner city problems are the painful truths

South Side Chicago had never fully recovered from this racial upheaval. The stores and banks had left with their white customers, causing main thoroughfares to decompose. City services had declined. The boarded-up homes, the decaying storefronts, the aging church rolls, kids from unknown families who swaggered down the streets - loud congregations of teenage boys, teenage girls feeding potato chips to crying toddlers, the discarded wrappers tumbling down the block - all of it whispered painful truths Source: Dreams from My Father, by Barack Obama, p.144 Aug 1, 1996

Exorcise the ghostly figure that haunts black dreams

If the language, the humor, the stories of ordinary people were the stuff out of which families, communities, economies would have to be built, then I couldn't separate that strength from the hurt and distortions that lingered around us. And it was the implications of that fact, I realized, that had most disturbed me. The stories that I had been hearing from the leadership, all the records of courage and sacrifice and overcoming of great odds, hadn't simply arisen from struggles with pestilence or drought, or mere poverty. They had arisen out of a very particular experience with hate. That hate hadn't gone away; it formed a counter-narrative buried deep within each person and at the center of which stood white people-some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives. I had to ask myself whether the bonds of community could be restored without collectively exorcising that ghostly figure that haunted black dreams. Source: Dreams from My Father, by Barack Obama, p.179 Aug 1, 1996

*The above quotations are from Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, by Barack Obama, published August 1996.* Click here for definitions & background information on Welfare & Poverty. Click here for more quotes by Barack Obama on Welfare & Poverty.
*2008 Presidential contenders on Welfare & Poverty:*
*Republicans:* Chmn.John Cox Mayor Rudy Giuliani Gov.Mike Huckabee Rep.Duncan Hunter Sen.John McCain Rep.Ron Paul Gov.Mitt Romney Sen.Fred Thompson	*Democrats:* Sen.Hillary Clinton Sen.John Edwards Sen.Mike Gravel Rep.Dennis Kucinich Sen.Barack Obama	*Third Parties:* Green: Rep.Cynthia McKinney Socialist: Brian Moore Independent: Mayor Mike Bloomberg
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