OBama Doesn't Want This Getting Out...

[BIAD]

Sit down Mystic and I hope your back problem is subsiding.

Before reading these articles below, it would be a good idea to reset your current world view to what it was in 2007.
We were two years out from Barack Obama taking his first term as President and potentially, could usurp Hillary
Rodham Clinton's stamp of being the first of something.

Obama would be the country's first African American President and there's the rub.
An effective candidate -some might say, that would attract the black vote and as long as Hillary didn't scream
about the it being an all-man's world, Barack would secure the Democrats a sizeable block of votes for years
to come.

Slavery was always a hot topic during the 2008 Presidencial race and even though the facts showed that Obama's
ancestors owned slaves, it's a subject best left alone. To accuse a black Presidential-hopeful of being a white
supremacist-slave owner and card-carrying clan-member would be ludicrous, but that would mean feminist-favouring
media were wasting a perfectly good bullet.

Hillary was side-lined and it seems she was given a guarantee that next time around, she would get top-billing in the
Democratic race for the White House and there'd not be another 'vote-sensitive' candidate to spoil her run.

Enter The Guardian with their article below.
The feminist newspaper can't use the tricks of 2016 due to his skin colour, Obama gets a pass when discussing
racial oppression. You can't ruin the 'all-blacks-are-in-poverty-and-we-should-feel-sorry-for-them' narrative because
Barack Obama is a successful Senator and wealthy.

They can't taint his rival with being a man-hater, because of the much-needed male votes and even though many of the
mainstream media would normally jump at the chance to call the political enemy a hater of women, Hillary -by her sex,
represents women!

It was a quandary. It could be reported and give a nod to the only female in the 2008 Presidential race, but it would have
be done sensitively. Barack Obama's ancestors couldn't be seen as whip-wielding tyrants, it would have to hint towards it
and immediately twist it to get him out of there.
A different time and a different agenda.

................................................
Original piece from 2007.

Obama told of family's slave-owning history in deep South.

An amateur genealogist has revealed a surprise in the family tree of the black contender in the
race to be the Democrats' presidential candidate.

The following correction was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday March 11 2007. 
The article below was incorrect to claim that the Rev Al Sharpton's slave ancestors 'were owned by the
late politician Strom Thurmond, who once stood for President on a staunchly racist, segregationalist
platform'.

Al Sharpton's great-grandfather, Coleman Sharpton, was a slave owned by Julia Thurmond,
whose grandfather was Strom Thurmond's great-great-grandfather.
...........................

'It is a question that few thought a man aiming to be America's first black President would ever
have to answer: did your family once own slaves?


But that question is now likely to be asked of Senator Barack Obama, who is bidding for the 2008
presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, in part on the appeal of his bi-racial background.

As the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, Obama has seemed to embody a
harmonious vision of America's multiracial society. However, recent revelations have thrown up an
unexpected twist in the tale.

Obama's ancestors on his white mother's side appear to have been slave owners. William Reitwiesner,
an amateur genealogical researcher, has published a history of Obama's mother's family and discovered
that her ancestors have a distinctly shadowy past.

Reitwiesner traced Obama's great-great-great-great-grandfather, George Washington Overall,
and found that he owned two slaves in Kentucky: a 15-year-old girl and a 25-year-old man.
He also found out that Obama's great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Duvall, also owned a
pair of slaves listed in an 1850 census record.

They were a 60-year-old man and a 58-year-old woman.
In fact, the Duvalls were a wealthy family whose members were descended from a major landowner,
Maureen Duvall, whose estate owned at least 18 slaves in the 17th century.

The news comes at a time when Obama is engaged in a fierce battle with Senator Hillary Clinton to
woo black voters in their bids to get the Democratic presidential nomination. It also comes ahead of
appearances by both Clinton and Obama today in Selma, Alabama, to mark the anniversary of a
famous 1965 civil rights march.
This is hardly the best time to be exposed as the descendant of slave owners.

Reitwiesner has posted his research, which he warns is a 'first draft', on his website, wargs.com.
However, the news is unlikely to be a serious political problem for Obama, despite the fact that some
black commentators have accused him of not being a real black American.

Nor is he likely to be alone in finding out that his white ancestors once owned the ancestors of his fellow
black Americans. America, like Britain, is caught in the grip of a frenzy of genealogical research.
Dozens of websites have sprung up, allowing fast and easy access to all sorts of historical records and
prompting many Americans to research their family trees.

That can throw up some very surprising results. In fact, last week Obama was not even the only black
politician to find out some unusual personal history. The civil rights campaigner, the Reverend Al Sharpton
was stunned to discover his slave ancestors were owned by the late politician Strom Thurmond, who once
ran for President on a staunchly racist segregationist platform.
The pair might even be related.

The news prompted Sharpton to issue a statement about his private agony at the revelation. 'Words cannot
fully describe the feelings I had when I learned the awful truth. Not only I am the descendant of slaves, but my
family had to endure the particular agony of being slaves to the Thurmonds.'

Obama's campaign team have handled the news of his family's slaving past a bit more casually and a lot
less emotionally, issuing a statement saying such a family background was 'representative of America'.

That is certainly true. Slavery was the economic bedrock of the American economy in the South before the
Civil War. It would come as no surprise that anyone tracing their family roots back to the pre-war South
would find that his descendants had owned slaves.

But more edifying discoveries can come from looking at the past too. Another of Obama's ancestors,
his great-great-great-grandfather, Christopher Columbus Clark, fought for the Union army in the Civil War.
As a result Obama can also lay claim to relatives who risked their lives to end slavery. 'While a relative owned
slaves, another fought for the Union,' said Obama spokesman Bill Burton in a statement.

Perhaps it is just another case of Obama's complex past showing that he can have it both ways...'

The Guardian:



................................................

Former First Lady Michelle Obama’s Irish slave owner roots.

'Michelle Obama’s original Irish ancestor has been traced and named as Andrew Shields, an Irish immigrant
who fought in the American Revolution as a Georgia resident.
Andrew Shields was Michelle Obama’s great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather and his family was
slave owners.



Michelle Obama’s great-great-great-grandmother Melvinia was a slave who had children by Charles Shields,
grandson of Andrew Shields, the Times reveals.

One of those children, Dolphus Shields, born in 1859, was Michelle Obama’s direct ancestor.

It is not known in Ireland where the Shields came from but it was likely Northern Ireland as the family was Protestant
and there was considerable Scots Irish emigration to the American south at the time.

This article in The Times is adapted from “American Tapestry:
The Story of the Black, White and Multiracial Ancestors of Michelle Obama” by Rachel L. Swarns, a book released
in Summer 2012. Swarns used DNA technology to prove the links.

The book traces dozens of white relatives of Michelle Obama, none of whom knew of their connection through slavery
to the First Lady. Most were shocked to learn the connection and hoped that the Shields-Melvinia relationship was
not one of rape and coercion but love.

"You really don’t like to face this kind of thing,” said Mrs. Joan Tribble, whose ancestors owned the First Lady’s
great-great-great-grandmother.

“To me, it’s an obvious love story that was hard for the South to accept back then,” said Aliene Shields, a descendant
who now lives in South Carolina, pointing to the fact that they had several children together.
Melvinia was just 15 when she gave birth to Dolphus in 1859. She was an illiterate woman who was confined to work
in the fields by the Shields family.

The Times first reported the Irish link to Michelle in 2009.

Megan Smolenyak, the same genealogist who discovered that President Obama’s Irish roots go back to Moneygall in
County Offaly, has discovered that Michelle Obama's family tree has a large Irish branch.
Smolenyak traced Michelle's heritage back to the young slave girl Melvinia Shields, who was once traded for $475.
Melvinia became the property of Henry Shields in 1852.

Smolenyak said the young girl still haunted her. "It's still jarring to see dollar signs associated with human beings," she said.
Michelle's Irish roots were one of the major findings in Smolenyak's research. Smolenyak spent nine months researching
the former First Lady's family tree in conjunction with The New York Times.

Smolenyak began the project just before Obama was named president and she said she hoped that her discovery will
please the former First Lady. "The vast majority of people are happy when their heritage is just kind of handed to them,"
she said. "She's got a really rich ancestry.
This would be my fantasy: that she's clicking [on the Web site] through all the branches of her family tree, sitting there with
Sasha and Malia and Marian Robinson, and I hope they're pleased."

In 2007, Smolenyak found out where in Ireland Obama’s family came from after tracing Obama’s third great-grandfather
on his mother’s side, Fulmoth Kearney, who journeyed from Moneygall in County Offaly to the U.S...'

* Originally published in 2012.

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