Vote Your Intellect

Accusation: “Barack Obama’s lied when he said his ‘father was a goat herder’.”

Accuser: AudacityofHypocrisy.com

Details: Barack Obama’s father was, in fact, a goat herder.

His grandfather owned a farm in the village of Kogelo, in Kenya, and was considered an affluent man… in his own village. Unfortunately for the people of Kogelo, “affluent” means something entirely different there than what it means here, in the United States.

According to FoxNews.com (link here), “Nyangoma-Kogelo [is] a tiny village tucked away in the rural west where chickens roam free and tiny boys in rags tend their flocks […] Local newspapers reported that the dirt road leading to his 85-year-old grandmother’s house was leveled.”

A tiny village. Chickens roaming free and boys in rags tend their flocks. This is where Barack Obama’s grandfather owned a farm, and where his grandfather’s second wife - Sarah Onyanga Obama - still lives.

According to About.com’s genealogy of Barack Obama’s family tree, his grandfather was a cook for missionaries in Nairobi, which is precisely what Obama claims in his book, Dreams from my Father. And while he did in fact go on to become considered an “affluent” man in his village, what precisely does that mean?

BBC NEWS Nairobi corresondent Muliro Telewa actually paid a visit to the “ancestral homestead” where Grandpa Obama lived, and where Obama Sr. grew up. Villagers there describe how Barack Obama Sr. herded goats in their village. Furthermore, we get a better picture of the “middle class” home via a photograph of Sarah Hussein/Onyanga Obama, standing in front of one of three buildings that make up the so-called “affluent” housing of the Obamas of Kenya.

The small red brick building that she stands in front of is one of three such buildings. When compared to the mud and grass-thatched huts of many who live in Kogelo, having a home made of brick, with a corrugated metal roof, is a sign of “middle-class affluence.”

According to BBC News, “The compound has three houses built from red bricks and corrugated iron - a sign of the middle class in rural areas,” and as they speak with Sarah Obama - herself considered “affluent” in her village - she, “pulled out a small sack filled with maize and poured it on the ground to dry in the pounding tropical heat.”

In the United States, even those considered at ‘poverty level’ can claim homes that are larger than a one-floor, red-brick hut with a corrugated metal roof. And it is rare to see even a homeless American pounding his or her own corn on the dirt ground. This is what Obama detractors are claiming as ‘privileged’.

Eventually, Barack Obama Sr. left the small village of Kogelo - and his father’s three-hut farmstead - and pursued his education. However, being well-educated by no means negates the fact that he was a goat-herd, was raised in an environment which would be considered sub-poverty in the United States, and was born to a man - Obama’s grandfather - who was a cook.

Conclusion: VYI.com can’t honestly tell you why this rumor persists, and can only imagine that someone discovered that Obama’s grandfather was considered “affluent”, and ran with it like a kid with scissors.

Status (fact, fiction, or spin?): Complete fiction. Barack Obama’s father was a goat-herd, and his grandfather was a cook. Eventually, his grandfather came to own his own farm, but we can see that the so-called “affluence” this gave him approaches sub-poverty level by American standards.