Barack Obama's memoir focuses in part on his changing understanding of what it means to be black in America. Discuss how his ideas about race evolve over the course of the period recounted in the memoir.

During early childhood, Obama seemed to be mostly unaware of the impact race could have on his identity. As a child in Indonesia, Obama came across an article about a black man who removed the top layer of his skin in order to appear white. Obama was horrified by the idea and came to understand for the first time that being black might come with negative consequences. During his teen years, Obama concluded that racism defined his racial identity, a realization that he found deeply depressing. The next major shift in Obama's understanding of race came in college and in his early professional career as a community organizer in Chicago. As...