1983 "I would occasionally pick up the paper [Louis Farrakhan's 'The Final Call'] from these unfailingly polite men, in part out of sympathy to their heavy suits in the summer, their thin coats in winter; or sometimes because my attention was caught by the sensational, tabloid-style headlines (CAUCASIAN WOMAN ADMITS: WHITES ARE THE DEVIL). Inside the front cover, one found reprints of the minister's [Farrakhan's] speeches, as well as stories that could have been picked straight off the AP news wire were it not for certain editorial embelleshments ("Jewish Senator Metzenbaum announced today’Ķ").

Dreams From My Father, p. 201
1984 When he was a community organizer (age 22 prior to going to law school) he happily cooperated with Rafiq, a former gangster turned Nation of Islam. He even believed that Black Nationalism was a "good therapy" for Blacks. That was also the reason he supported Wright ("Dreams...," p. 190-200). For he shares Michelle's sentiments of alienation, came to believe that race should trump everything and it should be anti-white:

"all the black people who, it turned out, shared with me a voice that whispered inside them -- You don't really belong here."

"In a sense, then, Rafiq was right when he insisted that, deep down, all blacks were potential Nationalists. The anger was there, bottled up and often turned inward. And . . . I wondered whether, for now at least, Rafiq wasn't also right in preferring that that anger be redirected; whether a black politics that suppressed rage towards white generally, or one that failed to elevate race loyally above all else, was a politics inadequate to the task."

"It was a painful thought to consider, as painful now as it has been years ago. It contradicted the morality my mother had taught me, a morality of subtle distinctions -- between individuals of goodwill and those who wished me ill, between active malice and ignorance of indifference. I have a personal stake in that moral framework; I'd discovered that I couldn't escape it if I tried. And yet perhaps it was a framework that blacks in this country could no longer afford; perhaps it weakened black resolve, encouraged confusion within the ranks. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If (black) nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, of the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence."

"If nationalism could deliver. As it turned out, questions of effectiveness, and not sentiment, cause most of my quarrels with Rafiq."

In other words, Barack was willing to sacrifice his mother and his typical white grandparents on the alter of black nationalism. His sentiments were in line with those of Rafiq, the Nation of Islam activist. That is the reason he chose a black nationalist church run by Reverend Wright, who explained to him during their very first meeting ("Dreams...," p.284): "Life's not safe for a black man in this country, Barack. Never has been. Probably never will be." 1995

1995 In Dreams From My Father, Obama meditates on Farrakhan, finding: "If [black] nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.