OBAMA: A pain in the particulars

In Tuesday’s column, Sholeh Patrick made a statement I thought peculiar: “It still pains to reflect how Mr. Obama’s ancestors may have arrived here.”

Here is my understanding of the situation: Mr. Obama’s (white) mother’s ancestors arrived here generations ago, and probably came by boat, like most of our European ancestors. His (black) father’s ancestors all lived in Kenya, and his father was raised in Kenya, so one can only assume that any members of his father’s side of the family who have been to the United States arrived fairly recently, and traveled either by cruise ship or airliner. Did I miss something? I fail to see how either of these could be considered painful.

While I don’t mean to trivialize Sholeh’s point — that the practice of slavery is horrible — I do think that a journalist owes her readers the consideration of verifying the truth of a statement when making a very specific statement.

BRIAN STOBIE

Post Falls