Subscribe
NewsOne Featured Video
CLOSE

Barack Obama’s birthplace has been a source of controversy for a long time. That the question, “Where was President Obama born?” is still being asked is ridiculous, considering how forthcoming the president has been about the issue. Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Aug. 4, 1961. He’s the son of white Kansas native Ann Dunham and Barack Obama Sr., who hails from Kenya. While conspiracy theories put forth by so-called “birthers” suggest Obama was born in his father’s African homeland, Obama has produced both short- and long-form versions of his birth certificate—tracking down the latter after people refused to accept the former—and proved that he’s a U.S. citizen and therefore eligible to hold the highest office in the land. It should be enough to silence doubters and haters, but of course, they’re still making noise.

MUST READ: Barack Obama Quotes: His Most Memorable Lines

Obama’s birthplace controversy has perhaps been exacerbated by the fact he moved to Indonesia in 1967, after his mother had divorced Barack Sr. and married a student named Lolo Soetoro. Because young Barack Obama lived in that Southeast Asian country until he was 10 years old, many have tried to portray him as a Muslim, and therefore some kind of terrorist or threat against America. He’s no more either of these things than he is a Kenyan native, but there’s no convincing some people.

Obama’s birthplace will likely continue to be an issue—and not just for nut-jobs on the fringes of society who maintain that the official documents he’s released are forgeries. “”No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate,” Mitt Romney, Obama’s Republican challenger in the 2012 presidential election, said in August 2012, according to CNN. They know that this is the place that I was born and raised.”

MUST READ: On The Ropes? Mitt Romney’s Big White Problem

In August 2009, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs summed up the ludicrousness of the “birther” claims, saying the following: “A pregnant woman leaves her home to go overseas to have a child—who there’s not a passport for—so is in cahoots with someone … to smuggle that child, that previously doesn’t exist on a government roll somewhere back into the country and has the amazing foresight to place birth announcements in the Hawaii newspapers? All while this is transpiring in cahoots with those in the border, all so some kid named Barack Obama could run for President 46 and a half years later.”

Sounds crazy, no?

Want to Keep Up With NewsOne.com? LIKE Us On Facebook!