“Hearing my aunts traffic in such stereotypes, I would try to explain to them the error of their ways. [At this point, Obama has spent a little less than two weeks in his life in Africa.] ‘It’s thinking like that that holds us back,’ I would say. ‘We’re all part of one tribe. The black tribe. The human tribe. Look what tribalism has done to places like Nigeria or Liberia.’
“And Jane would say, ‘Ah, those West Africans are all crazy anyway. You know they used to be cannibals, don’t you?'”