The Barack in Me

The Barack in Me: An Inspirational Novel for Young African American Males

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Outside the Capitol, Malia, then six, had twirled a little dance just for him.

Barack and Me «

Later, inside the Capitol, he got kisses from Sasha, then three. That day was the first day documenting his first year in the Senate. Jeff Zeleny, the political reporter for the paper, and I were preparing a series of major stories throughout the year, tracking how he adjusted to life in Washington. The plan was for me to spend as much time as I could with him between other assignments. After only 24 hours, I had already begun thinking a crazy thought.

The senator was not from a famous or political family. His father was from Kenya, his mother from Kansas. His name was Barack Hussein Obama. But he had a gift. I thought to myself. Could I be observing the future US president?

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I imagined how that photograph of him seated at his stale bureaucratic desk in his drab government office might compare with a future one of him sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Thus began my professional relationship with Barack Obama.

I shadowed him extensively during his first year in the Senate. We got to know each other and understand how we each worked. In , I accompanied him on a congressional delegation trip to Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. I remember trying to make a telling photograph of him walking around Red Square unrecognised, just in case that scene could never be repeated as he became better known. In , I documented him on a family trip to Kenya, the country where his father was born. Thousands of people gathered to try to catch a glimpse of someone who at the time was still a lowly freshman senator.

I covered the start of his presidential campaign in During that summer, however, I resigned from the Tribune to start a new life as a photojournalism professor at Ohio University. His incoming press secretary, Robert Gibbs, called me on a Sunday night in early January to offer me the job as chief official White House photographer. I remember telling Gibbs that to do the job, I needed to have access. All the important stuff, the moments when decisions are made. Even if it was classified. On paper, the job is to visually document the president for history.

But what, and how much, you photograph depends on each individual photographer. I thought I knew what I was in for.

Previous presidential photographers had taken a lot of ceremonial pictures and few candid ones. Okamoto pushed the bar and photographed seemingly everything Johnson did. But everything can change the moment a president sets foot in the Oval Office. I had a plan for how to make it work for both of us. I would explain to him and everyone around him why I needed to be in every meeting, every day: My job was to be the observer, not the participant.

But it was damn hard. It is a job meant for someone with some experience, and a lot of youth and energy. Ideally someone in their mids, maybe earlys, tops. I started the job when I was Someone — I think it was Andy Card , White House chief of staff under George W Bush — once described working at the White House as trying to take a sip of water from a fire hose that never shuts off.

Obama and I shared a lot of time together. It was 10 to 12 hours a day, five days a week and sometimes six or seven. I photographed every meeting, every day, every place he went to. I watched his speech at the Democratic National Convention while deep in the throes of college application essays. It was a speech that I needed to hear, a speech that felt as if it were specifically for me.

Before I knew it, I was working on Capitol Hill in as a college intern for Senator Ted Kennedy, where I would occasionally catch a glimpse of the then-Senator Obama traveling on the underground monorail from the Senate to the Capitol floor. I reveled in the excitement when he announced his presidency that February. I volunteered for that campaign in in New Hampshire, taking to the streets of New England with a megaphone following his victory, and hoping to one day be a part of his actual staff.

In , looking for a way out of graduate school, I applied for a job as a blogger in his reelection campaign — and I almost got that job, before then not getting that job. My current job — the second attempt to drop out of graduate school — is a result of not getting a job with the Obama campaign. Living in New York is a result of not getting a job with the Obama administration.

And my slow crawl away from politics and toward writing is a direct result of chasing — and never quite catching — the world that surrounds President Obama. The chase has felt never-ending. But in a way, I owe everything to the chase. We were a diverse group. The age gap spanned 30 years, and we were from different parts of the country, with different levels of access to the president, different writing styles, different experience levels, and wildly different outlets. Each one of us had something specific we wanted from the experience, but as we boarded the plane, and then sat on the plane together and talked, it was clear that this was bigger than simply a coveted assignment.

In our part of the cabin sat five black journalists, preparing to talk to a black president — five black journalists that were greeted by the black senior adviser to the president, Valerie Jarrett, and black national security adviser, Susan Rice, all headed to the very black Selma, Alabama. Yes, we each had our jobs to do when that moment finally presented itself with the president. But until then, there was time to just enjoy the occasion. We learned about each other, cracking jokes and telling stories. Others complained about Air Force One not having a Selma bootleg.

Collectively, we shook our heads as we settled on the James Brown biopic Get on Up as our in-flight film. It rumbles with such force that we were told attempting to record the roundtable on our personal devices would be a challenge, and that the stenographer would have a transcript of proceedings ready for us later that day. In terms of size, it appeared to have swallowed two double-aisled commercial airliners.

It has wheels, it has wings, it takes off, and it goes into the air. There were stairs everywhere, and so many rooms. And many of these rooms had doors. The floor plan felt like a labyrinth of narrow walkways, leading to beige area after beige area. Both times I left my part of the cabin by myself, I got lost.

It was a cop-out question.

A question anyone could have asked. So I knew what I had to do. I needed to change a word here, move a sentence there, make it more concise, but I knew it was absolutely the type of question I was asked here to put forward. Still tinkering more than an hour into the flight, we were alerted that we would be taken to a conference room in two minutes, and that we should get ready. The chase was back on. I was just hanging out with my new friends.

But just like that, we were walking through the cabin and into a conference room, and there was the president, ready to shake our hands. I stared at my question, wondering if I should have worn a tie, desperately trying to figure out what to do with my elbows.

Stop what you’re doing and watch this video of Barack Obama singing “Look What You Made Me Do”

Leaning on the table feels sloppy, but I need to lean in to listen and the table really helps with that. But what do I do with my hands? And is my mustache curling into my mouth? I was listening, still thinking about my question. As the White House veteran, Ryan 1 went first. I paid attention to how she asked her question, how long it took, and whether it overlapped with mine.

Is that a sentiment that you are commonly aware of? And does it at all inform kind of how you want to wrap up your presidency? And I guess if you were trying to advise someone in this climate that wanted to make some change or have an immediate impact, would you advise them into getting into politics? Well, I mean, let me say a couple things about that. The notion that I would describe that as a bill targeting African-Americans not only does not get — help it get passed, but it also then ignores all the white folks who are also struggling, and all the Hispanic folks who are also struggling.

And my job is to build coalitions of like-minded people who care about the same issues I care about. You can write a great book. You start a wonderful business. You start a non-profit. Those are all meaningful ways of advancing the cause.

Here’s the amazing video in all its glory.

Those are all political issues, and to avoid them makes no sense. The truth of the matter is, is that we live in a society where you got to work with others and not everybody is going to agree with you all the time.

T his was the only moment on the morning of March 7, , when I was completely at ease. The moment when the president and I were talking. As the roundtable continued, we began our descent, and I kept thinking about how bizarrely normal it all felt. Being in the plane. Being in the room. Attempting to challenge the president and the president challenging me back.

As the plane touched down, the president was still answering the final question, from Blow. It was clear we needed to leave, but the president was not done. Everyone in the room braced the contents of the table to prevent them from sliding off during the landing, but the president kept on answering, as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

His unflappability is an art. He never got defensive, even as he defended himself. He never raised his voice, and he never rushed his thoughts, occasionally pausing to make sure he was saying exactly what he intended. The moment he walked out of that room meant it was a race to get off Air Force One as quickly as possible.

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