Dear Editor,
I read Mr Bisram’s recent letter about Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy. While on this subject, has anyone noticed, from a distance, his wife Michelle’s strong resemblance to Condoleezza Rice – the same smile, height, slight figure? She is self-possessed but don’t tangle with her.
Looking at Mrs Obama, I wish I could read her thoughts on her husband’s bid for the Presidency. In his book The Audacity of Hope, Senator Obama mentions how, shortly before their marriage, he took Michelle to Kenya on a meet-the-family visit. She “was bursting with excitement about the idea of visiting the continent of her ancestors”. They had an enjoyable time at first, visiting his grandmother, wandering through the streets of Nairobi, etc. Then she “saw how suffocating the demands of family ties and tribal loyalties could be…” and finally admitted that she “never realised just how American I (Michelle) was”.
In his letter Mr Bisram states “…all American Presidents except two have been White Anglo Saxon Protestants… only John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan have been of Irish stock. Only John Kennedy was of a Catholic background.”
By coincidence, I had just received an e-mail from a friend in Guyana (thank you, Gem) which poses the question “A ‘Black’ man, a Moor, John Hanson (1781-1782) the first President of the United States?” The article goes on to list a further six Presidents, stating that “Washington was definitely not the first President of the USA but the first under the Constitution as followed today. He was really the eighth President. The six Presidents following John Hanson were:- Boudinot (1783), Mifflin (1784), Lee (1785), Gorman (1786), St Clair (1787), Griffin (1788). Which means the first seven Presidents of the USA (including the alleged black one) “are forgotten in history”.
Herein lies a subject worthy of research.
Yours faithfully,
Geralda Dennison
