My Response to the Email Going Around About Michele Obama

This is a response to an email that someone forwarded to me today. The email is attacking Michele Obama's thesis that she wrote when she was 20 years old at Princeton. It has been circulating for a while but I decided that today was the day to finally break my silence about it.

I first want to attempt to establish my own personal feelings about some of this before I back it up with fact. As I read your email, I know that it is no coincidence that you sent it to me today. You see, just this morning, my daughter and I were reading together about a black family living in Mississippi at the height of the depression. As I choked back tears, I had to explain to her the difference between lynching and hanging, though at that point it was difficult to even speak with the lump that sat in my throat. I had to explain to her how a black child might have felt when receiving her first book at the age of 12, a book that had been documented on the inside cover to be owned by 10 other white children until the condition of it was poor enough to be handed down to a Nigro child. We discussed why the black children had to work on plantations when not in school, couldn’t ride the school bus, and went to a school separated from whites. We talked about how the basic human rights of education available to whites was not available to black children and how that would effect their chances to prosper and where did that leave the characters in the book and their future children and grandchildren. And that was all before we even got to chapter 3. So when I read in your email where someone states:

"Michele Obama clearly has a chip on her shoulder."

I can only think that this statement was made by someone without a heart and without knowledge and without concern for humanity but only for a concern for himself. I believe I am not alone. I believe that many white people, completely removed from the civil rights movement carry a burden for the descendants of the slaves (just as we also carry a burden for the descendants of the holocaust). We are fooling ourselves to think that if you weren’t a slave, then you shouldn’t be affected by it. This brings me to an obvious present-day example of when Bill O’Reilly states:

"I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts that say this is how the woman really feels.”

Wouldn’t you have a “chip” on your shoulder, is there no part of you that would be angry, doesn’t she have the right to be hurt, being a descendant of slavery and living in a world where people say things like this on a daily basis? Damn straight she probably has a chip on her shoulder! And so do I! How sad that people feel that she doesn’t deserve to be publicly hung so long as she isn’t “angry” or have a chip on her shoulder. So long as she isn’t an “uppity negro” as they describe in our book, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, where black people were described as “uppity” if they actually felt like they deserved to be treated like a human. And Jack, I know you know all of this and none of my passion about this is directed at you, I am merely speaking to everyone out there who making these statements and well, I get a little crazy when I read about it.

Okay, so now on to some facts. First of all, I don’t believe the first lady actually has to have any qualifications other than knowing how to purchase a good suit and smile at the media but reality is that the white house has seen some pretty awesome first ladies come and go from Eleanor to even Hillary (regardless of how I feel about her personally). But damn, if anyone has ever been more qualified for the position than Michele Obama then I’d like to see some resumes. Her education and her experience are so incredibly significant and impressive. I mean, come on, can we just sit and laugh for a minute at McCain’s wife’s qualifications and experience?

When it comes to Michele’s thesis, I first have to say that the quotes are taken out of context of course. How many people who are appalled by her statements have actually read her very long and dry thesis? Not fun reading and I seriously doubt many have even gotten through the first 50 pages. In her thesis, Michele conducts a survey of 89 black Princeton graduates. Some of the quotes are presented as Michele’s personal philosophy but when you read her thesis, you realize that it is merely speculation about what her surveyed respondents felt. To dissect her thesis is more involved than taking a few statements out of context and saying that that is what she stands for. This is not a black militant procolmation. She was 20 years old and writing about cultural alientation in a society with racism within her educational institution and about her fight for inclusion. This was based upon material that was part of her graduate program and from her classes taught in her course of study. This is not a random paper she wrote out of hatred.Let’s just for a moment take a look at some of Michele’s experience graduating from Princeton . After getting her undergraduate from Princeton and her Law degree from Harvard she went to work for the white mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley and at the University of Chicago under a white university president. Her actions speak louder to me than anything. In addition, she met Barack, where they both worked as the ONLY african americans at their law firm.

Also in the email it states:

"PS: We paid for her scholarship."

If we are going to say this like we personally paid for her scholarship then let’s also be fair in saying that she has been a taxpayer for 20 years.

The last thing I want to address is the hullabaloo over this statement that she made:

“For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.”

She is not saying that she has never felt proud of her country. She is saying that for the first time, she is REALLY proud of her country. Small words, huge difference. As a nation, we are debating using torture as a tactic to get prisoners to talk. We’ve seen our Presidents be sexually inapprpriate out of marriage with a young girl and lie about it, we’ve seen our Presidents continue to send troups to Iraq while over a million people die in our hands, we’ve gone through the Iran contra affair and watergate and countless other embarrassing moments in US history. How can anyone be really proud while knowing all this? She is merely saying, in light of the past , now she now feels hope, now she feels really proud because we are not allowing this behavior to continue. I feel the same way. She’s being honest and transparent, two virtues that past presidents and first ladies have not held and she’s expressing opinions shared by many people of her generation. What she’s saying is meaningful and powerful and directed at politics. I believe that Michele is patriotic. I believe that she loves America and pride and love don’t necessarily have to go together. I can love something that I am not proud of. Now let’s look at her quote more in full context:

"What we've learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback and let me tell you something, for the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I've seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues, and it's made me proud. And I feel privileged to be a part of even witnessing this, traveling around states all over this country and being reminded that there is more that unites us than divides us..."

She’s not even saying at any point that she was un-proud. She’s saying that through it all, she’s finally feeling really proud. And the fact that people will take one word or one statement from her speech and use it to try to twist her intentions and destroy her integrity is sad.

Well, I hope that has shed some new light on things. You know me… I’m speaking as a human, not as a politician or as someone who even knows anything about politics. I’m not quite sure why I get so emotionally involved in this stuff. Last night some friends started discussing the war and I felt my eyes well up and my blood pressure started to rise because they were talking about how our military doesn’t have any rights and they can’t shoot people unless shot at first. When I started to question their statements they said “whose side are you on?”

Over a million Iraqi’s are dead.

They didn’t even know there was a side!