I view the world through the concept of culture as understood in anthropology. I have spent 45 years visiting Japan to learn more about culture
All of which led me to think about the recent historic confrontation between American president Obama and Israeli prime minister Netanyahu over giving Iran nuclear weaponry.
We have Obama whose father was a second generation literate from a cattle and fishing tribe and a mother who was an angry communist who was strongly anti-American. Netanyahu had both parents from a society that has been literate for a 100 generations. He had served in his national army and his brother had died serving in the army of Israel to save civilians.
That led me to remember Barack Hussein Obama's tribe, the Luo. The Luo live around Lake Victoria where David Livingstone had been ill and livng for 7 years in the 1860's. He met a search party sent out to find him, led by Henry Stanley, where the famous 'I presume' phrase comes from.
Why do I know about this? One summer as a grad student I was hired to read all 136 books and maps on pre 1900 Africa in all languages for professor Miracle who wrote the first economic history of Africa. I found all the economic references in about 100 books and maps. I read the works of J.H. Speke, a great British explorer, who found the headwaters of the Nile in Lake Victoria, which he named. His find was disputed, expecially by David Livingstone, who went on a separate expedition. Speke was right from the beginning.
When Barack Obama Jr. refers to the American slave past and his connection he is wildly wrong. Nearly all American and Atlantic slaves came from West AfricA and most had the traditions of humor and Brer Rabbit. Obama's family was from East Africa where slaves were sold and traded by Arabs to Arabia and had little or no sense of humor.