Obama's half brother recalls their abusive father

[PrivatePractice]

Did you guys see this article??

President Barack Obama's half brother has broken his media silence to discuss his new novel — the semi-autobiographical story of an abusive parent patterned on their late father, the mostly absent figure Obama wrote about in his own memoir.

In his first interview, Mark Ndesandjo told The Associated Press that he wrote "Nairobi to Shenzhen" in part to raise awareness of domestic violence.

"My father beat my mother and my father beat me, and you don't do that," said Ndesandjo, whose mother, Ruth Nidesand, was Barack Obama Sr.'s third wife. "It's something which I think affected me for a long time, and it's something that I've just recently come to terms with."

Like his novel's main character, Ndesandjo had an American mother who is Jewish and who divorced his Kenyan father. The novel, which goes on sale Wednesday by the self-publishing company Aventine Press, is one of several books in the works by relatives of the president.

President Obama's parents separated two years after he was born in Hawaii in 1961. The senior Obama, a Kenyan exchange student, divorced the president's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, in 1964 and had at least six other children in his native Kenya.

For the past seven years, Ndesandjo has been living in the booming southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, and has refused all interview requests until now.

Ndesandjo, who said he attended Obama's inauguration as a family guest, declined to discuss his earliest memories of the president or describe their relationship over the years. However, he said he plans to meet his brother in Beijing when the president makes his first visit to China on Nov. 15-18.

"My plan is to introduce my wife to him. She is his biggest fan," he said.

Shortly after divorcing the president's mother, Obama Sr. met Nidesand while studying as a graduate student at Harvard University. Nidesand returned with Obama Sr. to his native Kenya in 1965, where Mark and his brother David were born and grew up. David later died in a motorcycle accident.

In Kenya, Obama Sr. also had four children with his first wife, Kezia, some of them while he was still married to Nidesand. Nidesand and Obama Sr. eventually divorced amid allegations of domestic abuse. Nidesand returned to the United States and later married a man whose surname Mark Ndesandjo took.




Obama's Half Brother Recalls Abusive Father

[PrivatePractice]

Obama Sr the wife beater:

YouTube Video

[KILL PROPAGANDA]

That dude just wants to make money off his brother's fame.

So suddenly he is called Mark Okoth Obama, yet just a few months ago he had even dropped his Obama name. That's just cheap.

[A.M Nafusi]

I think folks need to let Obama Sr. rest in Peace. Bure Kabisa.

The man did what he could with what he had. He was a starter.

I don't like it when people go attacking a dead man, yet he can not defend himself.

And I thot they were intelligent.

[KEMINOKANA]

Originally Posted by KILL PROPAGANDA

That dude just wants to make money off his brother's fame.

So suddenly he is called Mark Okoth Obama, yet just a few months ago he had even dropped his Obama name. That's just cheap.

I don't think money is an issue for him. Going by his academic pedigree, he could be turning in more than that book could. Since Obama the pres never saw the father, it's good we hear from the kids who did. Dead or not, the Obama family at large will continue being scrutinized to fill unanswered questions. Hey, no matter what we say, Mark is Obama's bro and Obama was his father so you have no right to criticize his actions.

[al-zalzalah]

Originally Posted by A.M Nafusi

I don't like it when people go attacking a dead man, yet he can not defend himself.

completely unrelated to this thread, but how about when that dead man is hitler? or a slaver?

back to this thread, in "african culture", or so we are told, it is taboo to criticize an elder no matter what. so i'm kinda thinking that may be one of the reasons why our "big men" can do anything with impunity. you criticize "the man" while he is alive, you get assassinated (ethnic militia), thrown into jail (political dissident) or disinherited (family). seems like the only option left is to criticize a man who's passed on.
kwanza nafusi you were the one semaing that african men were tyrants and violent. mbona change of heart? because this is the president's father? or because violence becomes sanitized when the doer dies? anyway, me i was not there. so i don't jua what cut. benefit of the doubt type of thing. but i will say that even if evidence turns up proving that obama sr was not physically abusive, that track record of his of abandoning wives and kids all over is not an endearing one.

btw, what's the origin of this name "ndesandjo"? i've only seen it once before, in a TZ context.

Originally Posted by KILL PROPAGANDA

So suddenly he is called Mark Okoth Obama, yet just a few months ago he had even dropped his Obama name. That's just cheap.

you can't blame him for being conflicted about his identity, though, can you? it's hard enough being a mixed race kid. lakini being a mixed race kid who's father's from a different country and abandoned yall (so it's not like you'll bump into him at the corner store), and then from what you know you used to hit your mom? i'm just imagining the kind of racist and "your father hated you so much he couldn't stand to be near you" slurs he must have endured, and the experience of growing up as a black-jewish kid in a predominantly white congregation (assuming he followed his mother's religion, if she was religious).
is it surprising that he's settled in a neutral country as far as his identity is concerned and that he's married a woman from a completely different culture from his own parents' cultures? maybe obama's presidency and example are forcing him to come to terms with his own conflicted past and to accept his identity as his father's son. benefit of the doubt, right? let him use this "okoth obama" name. after all, it is his to put on and take off like christmas lights if he so wills.

[A.M Nafusi]

@al-Z
It is not just about keeping African men on the narrow, one has to consider the circumstances in some cases. Don't go around accusing me of things I have not said...eeish. Now, are you also chipping in just because Obama is president?

I sympathize with Obama Sr.'s situation. He had to decide whether to follow his mother or not at an early age. Next, he was under a tyrant father who predicted only doom for him. He pulled himself by his bootstraps, going where there was no way. He returns only to have the GOV curfew him for his achievements. A human being's faith at times runs out. That he turned to the bottle for solace is almost understandable. African men do not show emotion so they gotta take it elsewhere.

This Mark here had refused to acknowledge his roots for a long time. In the book "Dreams from my father", he told POTUS that he had no interest in things Kenyan. He was probably angry at his father, understandable. But we can not say that his mother Ruth was an angel thru and thru. It is written that when Sr started having job problems, Ruth began mistreating the kids that were not hers.

The way I see it, Mark's anger was from his mother's poisoning. It is for these reason that I have tonnes of respect for POTUS' late mother. Despite his dead-beatness, she always painted him positively. Obama has admitted that he tried to live upto the intelligence and charisma of this 'great man' he did not know. Again, it has been said that Sr constantly communicated with Ann following up on Barry's progress. At times, he disapproved when POTUS perfomed poorly.

That is what a good parent does. U do not posion a child against the other parent. Ni nyinyi mulikosana, si mtoto alikosana. It is only Mark who has said his father beat him. Auma and Roy who knew him longer have said nothing of the sort.

Ruth's anger at Obama senior made her change the children's names to Ndesandjo, her Tanzanian second husband. That was a woman scorned. When the younger son rebelled and went to live with other Obamas, dying in a motorcycle accident entrip to bail his half brother Roy out of jail, Ruth Ndesandjo never forgave the Obamas. Heck, she refused them funeral attendance.

KILLP is right, this embracing Okoth Obama name is just seeking to ride on POTUS fame. If he is conflicted, he should seek answers from his mum. Obama senior, in all his weaknesses, he always encouraged his kids to know each other. That Ann Durham made an effort to communicate to Auma's mother tells you that the man may have had it rough, but he had something Admirable about him.

Obama senior is not the only man the GOV of Kenya ran to the ground. How is one to survive when no one in his country can hire him, he can not leave, and his wife expects the same nice things?

[KEMINOKANA]

Ajiambo,

Admit that Alza got you on that one. You run your mouth too much. Now you are suddenly excusing wife beating when in another thread you were up and down like a monkey saying nothing justified wife beating. So how do you know that the man who killed his wife in New Zealand didn't have his own reasons for doing so? What an haphazard joke you make of yourself.

[chotadipo]

Kemi,

AM Nafusi is right on this one. She did not say she is giving Obama sr a pass for beating his wife, what she is pointing out is that this pot head in China should not use that as an excuse to make millions from his late father. Dreams from my father clearly gives us the set-up fo Mark's family. The woman was a bad woman trying to break the cohesivness of the larger Obama family. Mark was not even interested in meeting Obama, and he says in his book, that Mark was trying to pull him off his heritage by looking down on africans. Sorry Mark you did not get your Dad's havard genes. Learn to live with that.

[Pothole]

Originally Posted by chotadipo

Kemi,

AM Nafusi is right on this one. She did not say she is giving Obama sr a pass for beating his wife, what she is pointing out is that this pot head in China should not use that as an excuse to make millions from his late father. Dreams from my father clearly gives us the set-up fo Mark's family. The woman was a bad woman trying to break the cohesivness of the larger Obama family. Mark was not even interested in meeting Obama, and he says in his book, that Mark was trying to pull him off his heritage by looking down on africans. Sorry Mark you did not get your Dad's havard genes. Learn to live with that.

I also agree with Nafusi and Cotadipo's analysis. This Mark Ndesanjo guy is an opportunist. How does a grown up man who happen to know his biological father only too well stick to his mother's other lover 's name. ATI ndesanjo? Bogus