I have just been reading a few blogs where the blog writers have expressed disbelief that a person could not know that their relative is living in a housing project and in this country illegally. They have been really hard on Obama for this. As a woman who does not know one living person on her father’s side of the family, I want to explain to you how it could happen.

My story isn’t so unfamiliar. I was born to an unwed mother and a ‘papa who was a rolling stone’ father. For those of you who don’t know what that means, it means that he was a whore. Unfortunately, my mother was one of many and she didn’t even know it. By the time she did figure it out, I was already on the way. As I grew up, I saw my father only a few times. In fact, there were actually women that I knew growing up who were ‘friends’ with my dad if you get my drift. They saw him more than I did.

One day, as a little girl, I was walking up the street to the corner store. A guy was walking down the street and he was looking at me really, really hard. He was almost studying me. I was a little girl and I got scared so I started running. He didn’t take his eyes off of me. He started running after me. WTF??? I started running faster but he was a tall guy, in good shape and he caught me very, very quickly. He asked me to look at something. I told him I didn’t talk to strangers (DAMN! Did I just open my mouth and talk to a stranger????)! He showed me a picture and asked me if the guy in the picture was my father. It was. The guy told me that if the guy in the picture was my dad, then he was my brother! I gasped. I have a half-brother?? OK. We walked back to my house and I introduced him to my mom. We talked and played for a little bit and then he left. I have seen him about 2 times since then and that was about 25 years ago. I probably wouldn’t know him now if I saw him. I have been pretty successful in my life, but I couldn’t tell you if he was living on the streets or had more money than I have. I can’t tell you one thing about him today. It’s sad, but it’s completely true.

But wait. My story doesn’t end there. When I was about 16, I heard from some family members that I might have a sister somewhere. I went to my grandmother and asked her if she knew anything about this. She said that she didn’t know my sister’s name, but she had heard that I did have a sister. I went to my dad and found out her name and then I went looking for her. Turns out, she had been going to a school that was RIGHT around the corner from me. It also turns out that many of my friends in my neighborhood knew her. I sent word to her through some of those friends and she told them it was OK for them to give me her number. We met. She is one year older than I am. We kept in touch for about 6 or 7 years after that and then we had a falling out. We haven’t spoken since. That was about 7 or 8 years ago. Again, I don’t know what direction her life has gone in since we last spoke. I don’t know anything about her.

Wait…that’s not all. A few years ago, I came across a website that allowed me to look up information about every legal proceeding in the area where I used to live. I looked up my dad’s legal cases just for fun and I came across a woman who sued him for child support. I have never heard of this woman or the child she had with my dad. That is yet ANOTHER brother or sister out there that I don’t know about. I haven’t spoken to my dad in about 7 years so I haven’t asked him anything about it (it’s unlikely he would tell me the truth anyway!). 

Other than these people, I don’t know one person on my father’s side of the family. I saw his mother, my paternal grandmother, two times in my life before she died. I don’t know my paternal grandfather. I don’t know about any aunts, uncles, cousins or anyone else. I could be living next door to my cousin right now and wouldn’t know it. It’s not that I want it to be this way, its just that even with all of the resources I have at my command, I wouldn’t even know where to begin to find out about my father’s side of the family. My dad is a very dishonest person so going through him would be very, very difficult to say the least.

So when someone like Obama says that he doesn’t know about his aunt’s status in this country, I can completely understand why. His father was like my father – a whore to put it mildly. Sadly This is a common problem in society today. Too many unwed parents and too many fathers with too many children that they really never wanted. In Obama’s case, his mother did marry his dad, but it just goes to show you that marriage is no guarantee that a person will be a good father. People are trying to make this a political issue, but really this is a family issue. Obama’s father had 4 wives, probably countless sexual partners and many, many, many children. He spread himself around way too much. It’s obvious that his aunt didn’t come to him and say anything to him about her status. If he is like me, he has a lot to do. If one of my family members on my mother’s side calls me and asks me for money, you know what? I send it to them. However, I have no idea what they are doing from day to day. I know the general areas that they live in, but I don’t know their personal business. I live over 1000 miles away from my mom’s family in an area where I have NO family.

So for all of you who want to throw stones at Obama, let me ask you something. Do you know exactly what all of your family members are doing? Do you know everything they have done? Do you know about all of the problems they don’t tell you about? Do you know when they pay their bills? Do you know when they don’t pay their bills? Do you know when they lie to other people?

Let the one among you who has no family issues cast the first stone. Personally, I understand Obama’s plight…..all to well.