From a poorly written article in the Washington Post.
In his memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” he recounts a watershed moment of his own — a “revelation,” a “violent” awakening, an incident that “permanently altered” his “vision.” Twice he tells how as a 9-year-old he went to the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia (a country where his mother had taken him to live) and came across a Life magazine article about a black man who had tried to whiten his skin through some sort of chemical process. The result was a disaster.
“I felt my face and neck get hot,” Obama wrote. “My stomach knotted; the type began to blur on the page.”
The child had, for the first time, confronted racism and its hideous consequences.
Only there is no such issue of Life magazine. So says the Chicago Tribune, which has gone through the Obama memoir with commendable thoroughness.
The Tribune, and the Post writer, are correct. It was not in Life Magazine. It was not in Ebony Magazine, as the Senator, when told no such Life article existed, himself suggested.
No, it was an article in Time Magazine.
Yes yes. He misremembered the name of a magazine he saw as a child. C’mon, guys. It’s not like he wrote A Million Little Pieces.
Edit: A poster at DailyKos suggests it might have been Look magazine, which had a similar article around the same time. However, without the actual article, I’m sticking with Time Magazine.
