Obama's Half-Brother: ‘A Lot Of That Stuff Barack Wrote Is Wrong’ - The Free Patriot

Obama's Half-Brother: ‘A Lot Of That Stuff Barack Wrote Is Wrong’ - The Free Patriot

Obama’s Half-Brother: ‘A Lot Of That Stuff Barack Wrote Is Wrong’

Posted by: Corey Pepple Posted date: December 19, 2013 

President Barack Obama’s half-brother is publishing a new autobiography that outlines the domestic abuse that was the theme for his earlier novel, which highlighted an abusive parent in their late father. In fact, Mark Obama Ndesandjo wants to “set the record straight” about some of the lies President Obama told in his 1995 memoir, “Dreams From My Father.”
Ndesandjo also recalls his random but intense encounters with his brother over the years in “Cultures: My Odyssey of Self-Discovery.” The self-published book will be released in February. In “Dreams From My Father,” Obama tries to learn more about their father, an absent figure, after learning of his death in a car accident in 1982 at age 46.
Ndesandjo’s book arrives four years after his novel, “Nairobi to Shenzhen: A Novel of Love in the East.” Just like his first book, Ndesandjo wanted to increase awareness of domestic abuse by using his family as an example, although he stated in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday that the president’s family has not welcomed his public airing of private matters. Ndesandjo spoke in Guangzhou on Thursday to help launch the book .
When questioned how he would describe his relationship with his brother, he stated, “Right now it’s cold and I think part of the reason is because of my writing. My writing has alienated some people in my family.”
Although he feels their relationship is distant, “I hope that my brother and I can really hug each other after he’s president and we can be a family again,” said Ndesandjo, who has a resemblance to Obama. Just like the president, Ndesandjo has a white American mother, Ruth Ndesandjo, a Jewish woman who was the third wife of Barack Obama Sr.
A portion of the book’s profits will go to children’s charities, including Ndesandjo’s own foundation, which helps disadvantaged kids by using art.
In his upcoming book, Ndesandjo recounts alcohol-fueled beatings of his mother at the hands of his father. He recalls one time his father held a knife to his mother’s throat for taking out a restraining order against him.
Ndesandjo and Obama didn’t grow up together. Ndesandjo grew up in Kenya and went to the U.S. for college, earning a bachelor’s degree in physics from Brown University, a master’s in the same subject at Stanford University and an MBA from Emory University.
The book details Ndesandjo’s first encounter with his half- brother Obama, who was visiting Kenya in 1988. They didn’t hit it off very well.
“Barack thought I was too white, and I thought he was too black,” Ndesandjo stated. “He was an American searching for his African roots, I was a Kenyan, I’m an American but I was living in Kenya, searching for my white roots.”
The 500-page book includes an appendix of alleged factual errors in Obama’s 1995 memoir, “Dreams from my Father,” such as quotes inaccurately attributed to Ndesandjo’s mother.
“It’s a correction. A lot of the stuff that Barack wrote is wrong in that book and I can understand that because to me for him the book was a tool for fashioning an identity and he was using composites,” Ndesandjo stated.
“I wanted to bring it up because first of all I wanted the record to be straight. I wanted to tell my own story, not let people tell it for me,” he stated.