Mark Obama Ndesandjo, one of two of Obama Snr's seven children not pictured in the only Obama family portrait photo released by the family has published an autobiography that is to be released in February 2014 (the other missing sibling in the family photo is George Hussein Obama who at the time of the photo had taken to a life of crime, but has since rehabilitated himself).
One of the aims of the yet-to-be-released autobiography is to set the record straight on some of the statements Barack Obama made in his own memoirs with regards to their father, Barack Hussein Obama, Snr and Ndesandjo's mother, Ruth Ndesandjo. Ndesandjo is adament that Barack Jnr has gotten "a lot wrong" (surprise, surprise). The younger brother should know given that he grew up with and was raised by his father whereas the president did not and was not (Obama Snr left Ann Durham when Barack was only 2 years old, and Obama Jnr confesses he recalls nothing of his father in his infancy).
Ndesandjo was raised in Kenya but is a US citizen and has been living and working in China since 2002. He graduated from Brown University, studied physics at Stanford University, received an MBA from Emory University, speaks fluent Mandarin and is (among other things) an accomplished pianist. Check out his talent in a video posted on his Foundation's homepage (found about a third of the way down the page on the right) and in the video below.
Halachically a Jew, Mark says of his relationship with his older sibling that it is "cold" at present, attributing the chill in part to his writing about family history, but also because "Barack thought I was too white and I thought he was too black … he was an American searching for his African roots, I was a Kenyan, I'm an American but I was living in Kenya, searching for my white roots."
What is notable about this state of affairs between the siblings is how Obama made such a huge effort in the 1980s after learning of the death of his father to seek out and establish lost familial roots and ties with those on his father's side (who are mostly Muslim), yet he seems to be able to find nothing in common with the one sibling who reaches out to him with which he can build a relationship, instead giving a cold shoulder. Why is that? Is it because of Mark's wanting the truth to be told about his/their family's past? Or could it be because of his Jewishness perhaps? His non-Muslimness? His "whiteness"? What then?
Above: Mark Obama Ndesandjo (right) and his wife with half-brother, President Obama.