Mrs. Obama's hostility: a theory

Sounds like the subject of her senior thesis is...herself. How visionary.

Hmmmm...overreacting much, Donny?

Rod, I think you hit on it when you mentioned the woman you met in England in 1987. Her family thought she had risen or climbed too high and had exceeded her "station in life". From the outside looking in (I'm both white and a foreigner), it would seem that this is the crux of the problem in the black community: so many simply resent or cannot relate to the success of other blacks. Michelle Obama has been preventing herself, I suspect for a very long time, from becoming proud of what she and her husband have accomplished, and the country in which they have accomplished it. To show that much pride would have triggered resentment and accusations of selling out.

And what, for goodness sake, is the solution here? If the US elects a President Obama, will it dissolve this endemic resentment?

Okay, I'll play devil's advocate and/or stir the pot here:

After more than 200 years of privileged and rich white males and females, including slave-owners, holding the office/position of President of the United States and First Lady, as well as filling many of the seats in the Senate and the House, I have no problem with a Black male and female who may or may not have a racial burden or grievance or chip on their shoulder occupying those same positions, even allowing that Michelle Obama's thesis may show her to have such resentments (which it in fact may not have, though I'm sure some people might read it as being such).

They are not Saints Silouan and Mary of Egypt.

And ... that quote/extract from Rev. Wright's "Black Value System" sounds very much like the kinds of things I hear/read in the Gospels and Epistles, and in the writings of the Saints.

Sorry, Rod, but you have no idea what it's like to be one of the only people of a major ethnic group, in a larger social organization---particularly one that until 50 years ago stood a good chance of getting lynched. Furthermore you, of all people, should know that being "among the elite" isn't in and of itself a good. Nor is making the ca$h that being Ivy-educated seems to bring about. So why should she stop complaining about being isolated?

While I don't want to equate my experience with that of many African-Americans, this sort of resentment of success is by no means isolated to that community in the US. I come from a long, long line of white dirt poor farmers and laborers. The bitter tension between "wanting something better" and "getting too big for your breeches" as it were, is palpable in my family. I'll never forget the look of disappointment in my grandfather's face when I got accepted to UNC (the school I'd wanted to go to since I was little). I also had the gall to be the only thing worse than an intellectual -- a liberal.

My experience, and that of many of my friends in rural NC, was that aiming too high (IE, out of town and making more than $25,000 a year) gets you a cold shoulder at home, at best. Accounting for the additional pressures of institutional racism and history on the black community, I completely understand Mrs. Obama's difficulties reconciling her success with her identity. I'm not saying it excuses her poor rhetoric, but it does shed some light.

A great deal of the socialization that goes in the Ivy League and its environs is designed to help the elite learn to be the elite ... but with a clear conscience. This is accomplished by taking class more or less off the table as a mans of understanding social life and by emphasizing race and gender at its expense. In secular left-liberal circles moral authority can only come from grievance or from an acknowledgement of the grievances of others -- that is, so long as one cannot be seen oneself to be responsible for someone else's grievance. That would call for repentance and atonement, neither of which are moral actions for which the therapeutic ethos of secular left-liberal circles is very well equipped. The upshot of all this is that the moral atmosphere of the Ivy League and its environs is dominated by a haute-bourgeoisie that absolves itself of guilt due to class-based privilege by being socialized into a moral consciousness focused primarily on gender and race, on the basis of which consciousness it acknowledges the grievances of women, homosexuals, and members of racial minorities in an exaggerated and heavily symbolic way. This is the ritual aspect of a certain kind of secular left-liberal morality, a ritual aspect that suggest some reasons for the quasi-religious fervor of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, which is just as concerned to immanentize its particular moral vision in political terms as is, say, Mike Huckabee's campaign.

The reason for bringing all this up in relation to Michelle Obama is to wonder how all of this might bear on her socialization as an Ivy Leaguer *and* as a someone who, as a woman and a member of a racial minority, epitomizes the sort of person whose grievances Ivy Leaguers are taught to acknowledge in a quasi-religious way and whose absolution they are taught to seek in a quasi-devotional way.

This might go some distance toward explaining not only Michelle's Obama's defensiveness -- the chip of the shoulder that all of us have to some degree -- but her *grandiosity.* It can't be easy to maintain one's humility when one is surrounded by those who not only reinforce one's defensiveness but ask one for absolution in a way that elevates one's moral standing in ways which bolster one's pride, at least one's pride in oneself and in those one has allowed to get close to oneself.

Then again, it might not.

I understand that Michelle Obama's feelings are very human. But I still find it more than a little rich to contemplate someone who has, in terms of social and material status, progressed far beyond what the vast majority of Americans of all races can and will achieve in life, and who nevertheless feels that her country has been unfair to her.

And I certainly understand that there's more to life than measuring yourself by your financial and social status. That's one of the theses behind this whole blog -- the idea that there are more important things in life than assuring one's material success as an individual. I guess what irks me about Michelle Obama is that she seems to have a lot of psychological trouble dealing with her advanced social and economic status, so she's managed to racialize it, or at least to have internalized an unfortunate thought: that her achievements in raising herself to a higher level of material and financial success come at the cost of some essential part of her identity.

If she had framed this in class terms instead of racial justice terms, or even in religious terms, I don't think it would be so controversial, or potentially controversial. It's the clues, though, in her statement that there has been nothing in America to make her "really proud" till now, and in the kind of mentality she showed in her senior thesis, that make me wonder just what on earth it would take to make Michelle Obama grateful for the opportunities she's been given. Her attitude, insofar as she still holds to the beliefs she articulated as a Princeton senior (which she may not), strikes precisely the kind of nerve that Bugg identifies.

I am reminded of a book that came out some years ago called "Volunteer Slavery," written by a black female journalist who worked at the Washington Post. She wrote of her unhappy experiences at the Post. I read one of her essays, and I thought her a privileged whiner. The idea of having a WaPo byline is the dream of all American journalists. She achieved that dream, and yet without any sense of her own ridiculousness, compared her experience working at the Post to slavery. Of all things! Granted, all journalists, myself included, bitch constantly about our jobs. But to compare one's privilege, working as a writer at one of the world's greatest newspapers, a job thousands and thousands of journalists would crawl over glass to have, to the experience of Africans forced into bondage and beaten, raped, tortured and killed by their captors, is to indulge in a level of narcissism and self-dramatization that is unutterably comic.

To be clear, nothing I've heard from Michelle Obama suggests that she holds those same views. But I see similarities. As somebody who was denied a job because of the color of my skin and my gender, and was told so by the newspaper to which I'd applied -- they thought themselves virtuous -- I have very little patience for this sort of thing.

My goodness, Rod, even more presumption: I guess what irks me about Michelle Obama is that she seems to have a lot of psychological trouble dealing with her advanced social and economic status, so she's managed to racialize it, or at least to have internalized an unfortunate thought: that her achievements in raising herself to a higher level of material and financial success come at the cost of some essential part of her identity.

You are talking about the woman today, or the 22/23-yr old who wrote those words? Are you clear on that?

Francois, them's a lot of fancy words to dress up a load of masturbatory crap.

You know, I think I've put my finger on it.

What Michelle Obama faces is a very American dilemma: negotiating one's psychological rootedness in a highly mobile society. She faced, and faces, particular challenges because she's African-American, but many of us, whatever our race and social status (unless we're born to the top) will face the same sort of challenge. I was just thinking about the fall of 1988, when I moved to Washington, DC, to do an internship. Not long after I got there, I was invited to some get-together on Capitol Hill -- Young Democrats (which I then was) or somesuch thing. I worked myself up into such a fit of status anxiety on the walk over there -- I'm not smart enough for these people! I'm not! I won't fit in! -- that I got to the door of the building, then turned around to walk home.

This was not the fault of the Young Democrats. It was all about my own self-imposed sense of inferiority.

But see, I was already going places no one in my family, stretching back to when they first arrived in this country, had ever gone. It was almost overwhelming. It was a very petty drama in the grand scheme of things, and I learned to overcome my own insecurities. But that afternoon in Washington, DC, 20-year-old me was paralyzed by them.

Here's the thing: I never interpreted, expressed or reified my status anxiety as a matter of grievance. That's the thing that's so off-putting about Michelle Obama's views, or at least what appear to be her views: the derive from a sense of grievance. It's not that difficult to understand that a young black woman from a working class family who finds herself at Princeton will experience serious anxieties trying to fit in. Had I ended up at Princeton, I would have had anxieties too (a friend of mine from high school who went to another Ivy League school was so consumed by these anxieties she lived in a state of depression for most of her college career). But I would hope that I would have had the sense of proportion, to say nothing of the grace, not to feel that I had been done some great injustice.

I think you miss the point a bit Rod. So 4 years into Princeton, from all I've heard, she has proven to herself that she is capable of accomplishment and should "fit in". But she, a 23-yr old, also sees that for some people (who probably speak very loftily about social justice no doubt :-), no matter what she's accomplished and how she's conducted herself, she'll be "black first". I can see how this would make one angry. The feeling that no degree of success or accomplishment would ever be enough. Takes a bit of time to get to the maturity to stop caring what other people think about you. Give the 22/23-yr old Michelle a little bit of slack.

Missed your post while I was typing.

Re: The College Years
It might just be class anxiety combined with racism (subtle and not so subtle). Maybe it's a double whammy. You've made it to a place where your supposed to be judged by your abilities (something you CAN control) and you find yourself judged and excluded not on your own merits but because of the color of your skin and your social class. Very harsh.

I think it'd be very easy to fall into bitterness. A constant need to forgive judgmental strangers whose communal acceptance you're interested. I'll never really comprehend it but I can imagine. Tough stuff to keep reaching out. Especially when you don't think anyone (of a certain subtype)is reaching back.

This rather feeble attempt to smear both Obamas is simply Republican campaigning. Using a "Belief-religion" base doesn't change your literary genre. Religious people often refer to spin as lying.

Because Michelle Obama's race doesn't appear to have hindered her ability to realize her professional ambitions, and to go as far as her talents would take her. Not so with me.

How do you know this? Maybe she wasn't awarded partner as quickly? Maybe she didn't get into the firm she really wanted because they didn't want an African American woman? Maybe she was denied opportunities at her firm because of her race and gender?

Would your career really be in a much better place if you were still a movie critic instead of a conservative columnist and author? Would you have risen inside the conservative opinion elite if you hadn't ended up at your job in the New York conservative press?

You have racial grievances. She has racial grievances. You have been successful despite your single incident of discrimination in your lifetime. She's been successful despite hundreds or thousands of similar unjustices in her lifetime.

But I've done very well anyway, so I don't have a lot of room to complain.

And Michelle Obama would say the same thing.

Rod -

Regarding your last comment, I think Michelle Obama has issued a statement that the "proud of my country" remark was intended narrowly to refer to the level of citizen engagement in the political process, but didn't come out that way. Of course, you can doubt her sincerity if you want to, but she has attempted to clarify the remark.

I'm guessing my atempt to comment here was denied because of the links I included; I'll just try a quick summary.

1) As others here have pointed out it's disingenuous to use Ms. Obama's salary and financial success as evidence that she has nothing to complain about; money isn't everything.

2) Black students in march in Waller Texas had to stage a protest march after the county removed early voting stations from their campus; the fact that this can still happen in America today is one of the reasons it may be difficult for any African American to feel "really" proud of their country.

3) Relying on a racist hack like Steve Sailer to prop up your opinions doesn't help your case...ever...

ChuckDFW, Clarence Thomson, you guys are going to have to work to understand that someone's criticism of a candidate you like is not necessarily a "smear." It is possible to raise questions about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, and whoever else, and to do so legitimately. It's called politics.

"Because Michelle Obama's race doesn't appear to have hindered her ability to realize her professional ambitions, and to go as far as her talents would take her. Not so with me. But I've done very well anyway, so I don't have a lot of room to complain."

Yeah, she basically sounds like someone who needs a noble excuse for why some people didn't like her. I guess if I went to some Ivy League money pit I'm sure I would feel like a fish out of water too. But since I'm white I have to come up with some other reason why I'm good and they're bad.

FTR, that reason would be that they're a bunch of snooty liberal damn yankees. LOL.

Face, the competitive world is full of people (men, women, blacks, white, whatever) who are always going to stand in your way, stab you in the back, and take credit for your work. It's because many people, but especially competitive people, are out to win at all costs, and will use whatever leverage they can to get the advantage. Any advantage, not the least of which is the psychological advantage of making you feel like you are less than.

It's wrong. It sucks. But it is. Get over, it ain't ever gonna change.

The white guy in power who's a scum bag will use race, sex, or anything he can to intimidate. The same for the black gal in power who also happens to be a scum bag.

It's not a white/black thing.
It's not a man/woman thing.
It's a right/wrong thing.

Rod, I know you're catching flak from some posters, but you're on to something here. Keep digging on this issue. Peggy Noonan in her WSJ column today ("Try A Little Tenderness") echoes some of the insights you've drawn from examining the "mind of Michelle."

We need a President and First Spouse who unabashedly love this country and what it stands for. Everyone is entitled to self-doubt, angst and the occasional chip on the shoulder. But the President is not just "everyone." The President we elect is not only a head of government but the head of state ... and the First Couple need to understand the symbolic importance of their role. We expect them to advance and defend American interests first. Putin will speak for Russia and Sarkozy for France (and that is their job) ... but the American President (and Spouse) need to speak for ALL Americans (including the vast majority of us who've been proud of this country since we can remember).

I was astonished, incidentally, by the seeming lack of academic rigor displayed in Michelle Robinson's senior thesis. I, too, was a working-class kid who graduated from an Ivy-League college but I am unimpressed by her choice of thesis topic. How can you learn anything about the world if you don't reach beyond your own experiences and grapple with the remote and unfamiliar? Her choice of topic allowed Obama's wife to remain locked inside her own world (of black Ivy-Leaguers). If she had chosen a topic outside of her experience, I would have respected that. Instead she took the path of least resistance and essentially wrote about herself. Her thesis adviser at Princeton failed this young woman by NOT challenging her to venture outside her comfort zone. Judging, too, by the language of what we saw of her thesis, a reasonably competent high school senior could have written it. What, then, was the point of attending Princeton?

I've already made an utter fool of myself posting on this topic on the American Scene. I probably should have learned a lesson, but I'll repeat the essence of my take here.

Though I'm a white conservative Republican, I understand Barack Obama's appeal. In fact, I voted for him (early) in the Texas Democratic primary today (just like Rod, I live in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, and since John McCain has the GOP nomination sewn up, I figured I'd like to help choose the Democratic nominees for some of the local offices), though I almost cetainly won't in November.

I know what his strengths are, and they're impressive. But I think one of his BIGGEST strengths is an erroneous perception that he's a man who can move America "beyond race," that he's a biracial man who's comfortable in both white and black America and can somehow bring everyone together.

I think Obama's record and his own words suggest this
perception is sorely mistaken. The fact that a man who was
raised in a white middle class family SOUGHT OUT a black
nationalist church is telling. It suggests that his race
is, in fact, very, very important to him. It suggests that
he was not fully at ease with middle class white America,
and that he craved a sense of belonging that he thought he
could only get from other Africans and Arican-Americans.

That doesn't make him a bad person, of course. It just means
that he is not the person much of white America thinks or hopes
he is. Barack and Michelle Obama have NOT moved beyond race. Their
ideas on race shape them and their attitudes to a large degree.

So, vote for Obama because he's smart. Vote for him because he
shares your positions on the important issues. Vote for him because
he'll end the war. Vote for him for any number of good reasons- but do NOT vote for him because you think he can bring about some
kind of racial reconciliation and harmony in America, because he
hasn't achieved that kind of harmony in his OWN mind, heart or family.

Is Michelle only proud of half of her husband?

Last time I looked, Barack has a white mother and Michelle has a white mother in law. Her children have a white grandmother.

Michelle's position is based squarely on the racism of the past that she has within her still. Blacks can use this racial card whenever they see fit to use it. It's a sham. A pure delusion. The only racists left in this country have distinctly dark skin. Neither of my children have the slightest care about the color of their friends, and both my children have white parents.

"80% of Black voters" voting for Obama and the numbers of white youth rallying and fainting at his socialist propaganda rallies, proves that racism is alive and well in one community and dead and buried in another. (Psycho-sociological manipualtion is quite well too I notice in the Group Think behaviors at Obama rallies. The rise of the National Democrat Socialist movement is creepy. I guess real history isn't taught at Harvard, and we are all doomed to live in its repeat.

By the way . . . slavery is rampant on the African continent, as we all sit and type away. It is very "Afro Centric." The slavery in Europe today is distinctly secular (Humanism driven) and predominatly pederasty for sale.

I'm "hoping" that Barack Obama does not get elected if he is the Democrat nominee. But if that nightmare of an ad campaign comes to fruition, Mr. and Mrs. Obama will have 1461 wake-up calls from reality, before they will be asked to "move on" by another election.

And anyway . . . who exactly annointed Harvard grads as the leaders of Americans?

"Rod, I know you're catching flak from some posters, but you're on to something here."

Sure he is. Conservative angst. Desperation. Fabrication. Political competitiveness at all cost.

At some point one has to concede this is an empty well and it's time to move on. The subjective attempts to get into somebody's true feelings, motives, etc., is an interesting pseudo-psychological exercise. And maybe a provocative remark like this titillates the right (or more accurately, the anti-left). But isn't it time to ask, "Is this getting us anywhere?" come to the responsible answer of "no," then move on.

Rod, the fact you've commented five times on this thread probably shows you're getting shoveled in deeper rather than digging yourself out if it.

First of all, I think it's ridiculous to go overboard divining the content of Michelle Obama's soul based on one stupid statement. Yes, it was a dumb thing to say, but unless you can really back up that that is what she truly believes, then I think it would be reasonable to cut her some slack. George Bush says five asinine things a day. Do we really think he wants gynecologists to practice love on their patients or for people to put food on their families or for wings to take dream? These people stand up and make a million extemporaneous statements a day, it's like a series of landmines waiting to dog them as they open their mouths. Some people get extremely good at not making asses out of themselves and at phrasing every word with great care. Notice how good Hillary Clinton is at this point. But it's just a stupid statement and she corrected it.

On the other hand, Cindy McCain did not exactly cover herself with glory with her catty response. It's nice that Cindy feels that she is proud of her country. On the other hand, as a husband-stealing, drug-stealing should-be felon, she hasn't exactly lived a life that would make her country proud of her. Until she can behave up to the standards of a Michelle Obama, who the hell cares what she thinks?

If we're going to make an issue of candidate's wives, then I would like to ask a few more questions, just to keep things fair:

1) Is she the candidate's first, second, or third wife?

2) Is she a trophy wife (i.e., is she at least 15 years younger than the candidate, and did they meet while he was still married to a previous wife)?

3) Is their any sign from her past that she ever had any ambition other than to marry well?

Compare Michelle Obama to Cindy McCain. I'm just sayin'.

"It is possible to raise questions about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, and whoever else, and to do so legitimately. It's called politics."

Of course -- although one can question the quality of the politics, especially when it echoes the 90's penchant for 'demonization' of the other side. Somehow I'm convinced that this 'raising of questions' will continue way beyond any real usefulness -- and I'm encouraging you to consider that. (That's called reader feedback. Ok?)

I'm quite sympathetic to Michelle Obama concerning her senior thesis. I graduated from Princeton in '84, one year ahead of her. (No, I didn't know her.) It was easy to feel like an outsider at Princeton. That was true even for me -- a male WASP who went to a private school and grew up with money. My only outsider attribute was that I was from Texas, so there was a lot of East coast stuff that I didn't understand when I showed up there. By my senior year, I had found my niche and felt very much at home at Princeton, but that process took quite a while. Obviously, she started from the position of being an outsider in ways I can barely begin to understand.

One other thing to bear in mind: the process of writing a senior thesis involves a lot of interaction with the professor who is your thesis advisor. A saavy senior writes what her thesis advisor will want to read. I have no idea who Michelle Obama's advisor was, but there's certainly the possibility that she was encouraged in the direction of the sentiments expressed in her thesis.

I cut her very little slack for her recent comments, btw. I think Peggy Noonan's column hit the nail on the head.

I wouldn't vote, or not vote, for Barack Obama based on what his wife thinks about her blackness and personal identity. But Obama's candidacy raises a number of interesting questions about race and American culture. This blog doesn't aim to be comprehensive; I write about things that strike me as interesting.

"Daniel wrote: "I would hate to be judged by the things I wrote in my undergraduate thesis."

"I would hate to be judged by the things Daniel writes today."
"Posted by: Max Schadenfreude"

I would hate for conservatism to be judged by Steve "all those inferior dark-skinned folks" Sailer. But, hey, Rod thinks he's Holy Writ.

The Politico.com has this as their lead story now, and have links to the thesis (in four parts). Here's the story with the links.

As an independent, when I started reading the Crunchy Con blogs I guess I was mistakenly envisioning a type of compassionate conservatism; one where racism wouldn't haunt the text. I am deeply saddened because of the anti-immigration sentiment of the blogs, and now it seems that nothing Michelle Obama says or does will suffice. Good Lord, put yourself in her shoes, or the shoes of an immigrant trying to feed his family. Yeah, maybe Ms. Obama has overreacted and probably has a streak of black militism in her. And haven't we also benefitted over the years and centuries of White Imperialism. What do you want of Michelle? Should she repent of her not feeling proud, and cow down to the great white god of individualism and haughtiness? Perhaps, Mr. Dreher, you should write her a letter and explain to her how she should act properly in public. And then write an open letter to Mexican and Central American immigrants about how they should all go back to their countries and just get a job.

So to pose critical questions about the public statements of the wife of a presidential candidate, made while she was campaigning for him, is racist? To criticize immigration is racist?

We're going to be in for a long election season here on this blog.

In addition, I don't see that you have ANY answers to the greater problems that affect developing countries.

This is, alas, too true. I also have nothing constructive to say about the chronic Scenicruiser menace, nor a plan for slowing the proliferation of bottle-green jackets, and I eat too many wine cakes from Holmeses and I pretend that nobody can tell. But baby doll, let me tell you, you want someone to crusade for Moorish dignity, I'm yer man!

"And then write an open letter to Mexican and Central American immigrants about how they should all go back to their countries and just get a job."

And how does Mexico treat illegal immigrants from Central America?

I don't have time to read all the comments, but I just have to put in my two cents. One of the things that most white people do not understand about african american culture, as a general rule, is that african american culture tends to inculcate a certain sort of tenacious attachment to particular ideas and ways of doing things. White culture has always valued being flexible, able to adjust to changing situations, take advantage of opportunities, etc. These things historically didn't work for black americans. For black americans, success wasn't the goal - survival was. So children were disciplined harshly and expected to learn quickly - errors in judgement, youthful indiscretions, impulsiveness could be deadly - ask Emmit Till. And one of the most important lessons an african american child was taught was don't be fooled into thinking you can be an exception. Don't think you're smart enough to be valued for your brain, or good enough to be respected. They (mainstream white culture and powers that be) won't give it to you, so don't set yourself up to be embarrassed and look dumb. Follow the rules. Stick with your own kind and you'll be safe. Know the rules, follow the rules that the larger society has set up for us and don't get your hopes up - the rules aren't going to change for you.

When a person is raised this way (out of necessity, mind you, not due to a rejection of mainstream values, but due to being excluded from the benefit of those values), it tends to create a person who is not flexible, doesn't adjust the the circumstances around them, etc.

This is the reality many african americans are working from. And it puts their way of thinking in direct conflict with white americans. Whites say, "the past is past, I didn't have anything to do with it, let's move on." Blacks say, "don't you forget what happened to that boy who whistled at that white woman. He paid with his life for not remembering what his momma taught him." Whites say, "that was an isolated incident." Blacks say, "don't think you're special. Don't think that couldn't happen to you." And on and on. Then each side, refusing to understand where the other is coming from, accuses the other of acting in bad faith when faced with what seem to them to be incomprehensible reactions to the same events.

And unity in the black community isn't some sort of marxist class thing! Maintaining unity in the black community was necessary for survival for a very long time. So sorry that black folks didn't immediately drop that ingrained value just because we white folks said we'd let them into our party, if they could behave themselves.
When a person is forced to endure living under abusive, dysfunctional circumstances, they develop coping mechanisms to survive. They do what works to minimize their suffering while under an abusive hand. What happens, however, is that once they get out of that dysfunctional situation they continue doing those same things which helped them to survive the abuse. Only those things are no longer appropriate for the challenges they are facing. And either they realize what they are doing and learn new ways of acting and coping, or they do not understand what is happening, continue to cling to no longer useful ways of surviving and suffer for it.

African Americans lived under terribly abusive conditions well into the lifetimes of most Americans. It is insane to think that they did not as a society, develop their own ways of coping and surviving which are different from what the rest of America was doing. Rod has often argued that we westerners are wrong to think that people coming from other cultures will automatically abandon what they believe is right and what they know about how the world works, simply because we white Americans do it differently. Yet there seems to be a perpetual blind spot to this same process at work in African Americans.

And Rod, class jealousy is unbecoming of a Christian man. Michelle Obama's monetary and professional success do not immunize her from struggling with the more important issues of life. As someone who claims to value these transcendent values over materialistic things, you should know better.

As I wrote here, The future Mrs. Obama seemed unwilling to allow her beliefs to follow the results of her research. Her research demonstrated that the majority of black graduates of Princeton did not believe there was a meaningful distinction between black and white culture in the US in 1985. Rather than admitting that this supported the antithesis to her thesis, she concluded by saying she was disappointed in her survey respondents.

Can an intellectual habit or misperception be repaired by changing systems, by changing governments, or does it need to be repaired in the hearts and minds of those who believe in a bogeyman who does not exist?

Her senior thesis wouldn't be of much interest if it didn't resonate with her comment the other day about how she hasn't been really proud of her country till now.

If you were black, what would you have thought about Katrina?

As a fellow Southerner (or at least Appalachian--essentially the same thing), Rod, I think I know exactly where the English woman, A., whom you mention, was coming from. I have been blessed to have a very supportive family that has always valued education (my parents and I all have master's degrees, and my sister is a PhD). However, I know all too many people from my home region whose attitudes towards higher education (even plain old state colleges, let alone Ivy League!) rage from skeptical to outright hostile. You said that "as an American" you had difficulty grasping this type of attitude. Based on my experience of people I know and have observed in my region, it makes perfect (although sad) sense to me. Without pushing the analogy too far, I have always thought that many of the attitudes of poor Southern/Applachian whites are very similar to those of poor Blacks (remember how Bill Clinton was the "first Black president"?).

It would be wonderful if everyone could follow their path in life without being criticized by those of their home culture as "selling out", "getting above their raising", and such--if we could be who we are and be accepted for it. Unfortunately, for many subcultures, white and black, this is not how it works. I can certainly sympathize with Michelle Obama in many ways.

That makes sense. I can sort of understand where she is coming from. I'm white, but my family isn't very wealthy at all. In fact growing up had the government not provided welfare to help us out we'd never have had enough money for food (and that was with our grandparents helping us out financially and both parents working where they could...not that it was my parents fault, the area's economy had broken down at the time due to it's reliance on the oil industry and when the refinery left that hurt the city a lot....and my mom been an employee of the company and after a few years my parents finally accepted that they weren't going to get jobs like they had before with that income and finally went and asked for assistance. I was young, but I remember it). So imagine my surprise when I told them I wanted to go to college. I thought they'd be thrilled, which they were until they realized I would have to leave home. I got convinced to go to a local community college instead and stay at home and help out the family. While at the college I took some courses in the hopes of someday going off to the bigger colleges (a goal I haven't given up)..figuring it didn't hurt to take them (though explaining to my parents who thought they were "unnecessary" classes was difficult). However being the only openly gay student did make me feel strange. I'll admit that there was a part of me at the time that kinda wished I hadn't said anything. It seemed like all the "open-minded" students and teachers did their best to try to prove how open-minded they were. In one class the teacher used an example of a married couple and then also switched and added a same-sex couple to make the same example. It was almost like they thought I wouldn't understand the example unless it was somehow made "gay"...which seemed strange to me. And things like that happened a lot. I never really focused much on the fact that I was gay, it didn't really occur to me. Nor did I focus a lot on my family's income level. And here I was surrounded by people who did seem to focus on it, who were constantly reminding me that I was difference. It was frustrating. I can't say I wasn't "proud" of my country, though I'll admit that sometimes I'd read about things that were happening in the legislature to pass laws that were very anti-gay and I'd feel less proud of my country. I still hold on to the ideals of what our nation was founded upon and I'll admit that it took me some time to realize that such ideals means that we have to strive for them everyday, that our nation didn't just wave some magic wand and suddenly became everything it hoped to be. That citizens have worked to have a working government, protect their rights, and strive towards realizing the ideals our nation was founded upon of individual liberty and equality of all humanity. For me I quickly went from feeling less proud to realizing what an honor it was to be part of such a great experiment and to realize that it really is a challenge. Learning about other places in the world and meeting people from other places and learning the differences made me realize how unique our nation must have seen when it was first founded...and made me realize that there were probably a lot of people in the world saying that it couldn't be done and people getting discouraged each time something happened that seem contrary to the ideals set forward for the nation. So in a way I can understand when Mrs. Obama says that for the first she is really proud of America. I'll admit that I am really proud, too. It is not to say that I wasn't proud before...but it's sort of like the difference between being proud of a family member just because they're a family member and then being really proud of the family member because they've achieved some great accomplishment. I'm proud of America like I am proud of my family, but when it does something great, when it moves forward and makes history for itself and gets a little closer to realizing its ideals...I get really proud! I don't completely know from which perspective Mrs. Obama meant and in a way perhaps that's why we see so many different people responding to her comments so differently. I have heard people get offended and others who seem to understand her in some way and others who just don't care either way that she said it and a small few who think she has put the cart before the horse in being "proud". What I realized when listening to other people talk about this (and reading their blogs) is that we're all approaching her comments from our own perspectives and life experiences and so whatever she meant by what she said only she can say, we're just going to imply our own understanding to her words. Some will get upset, some will get offended, some will understand in some way, some think she's getting ahead of herself with her pride, and some are completely apathetic to the whole thing thinking that too much fuss is being made over the entire thing. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and helping us try to get a glimpse of where she might have been coming from.

Sorry, Michelle Obama's racial guilt doesn't wash with me. For over 50 years I've straddled two races, two cultures (three if you count my childhood years growing up in Switzerland) and been on the receiving end of prejudice from blacks, whites, and latinos in this country. If Obama is guilty about her success or her race, then she needs to deal with it - and not use it as a cudgel to browbeat the rest of us. Frankly, as a multiracial, multicultural person (those little "race boxes" on forms don't even begin to adequately address my hybrid situation), I'm disgusted with Obama's embrasure of only part of his racial heritage - to me it's a political ploy and shows a man uncomfortable in his own skin. I also wonder if his choice of congregation was more M.O.'s doing than his own.

I find you so very ready to jump on Michelle Obama. I know what she meant. I am 71 years old and remember as a very young child growing up during World War II. It made a huge impression on me, and I have always loved my country. I must explain however, that loving my country and being proud of it are not the same: I have NOT been PROUD of my country for a number of years. Much as a parent always loves a child but does not always condone that child's actions and is not always proud of them, so I feel about my country. I find the evangelicals so very, very prejudiced, bigoted, racist, and closed-minded. In sum so very much the polar opposite of "what Jesus would have done." My later years have been affected adversely by what I have seen the all-so-holy evangelicals doing. So, go ahead, ask me if I am saved? You decide. To be saved, must I march up an aisle to some preacher? I think not. I was a nun for 14 years of my young life. I was baptized, of course, as an infant. I grew up very devout and happy. I followed the evangelical counsel to give what I had and follow Jesus. Must I walk up an aisle still? Have I accepted Jesus and my Lord and Savior? Oh, Please!
I grew up in the south, and my mother, a brilliant, published woman, taught by word and deed. She decried the busses that were segregated and made a point of sitting in the back, but only if there were enough seats for the segregated people who HAD to sit there, also. After years of travel, I was sent to Alabama where I marched. Yes, MARCHED. Since 2000, I have NOT been proud of my country. I know of the chicanery that is behind the politicians, the LIES that have been spread on FOX news channel, that are swallowed with glee by evangelicals. Not only are you ready to believe these things, but you SPREAD them. Do you not know how evil it is to spread false rumors? Is this what Jesus would do?
I have had it with your sanctimonious, anti-science, mind sets and your delusions of rapture. Jesus would love you, but HE would NOT approve.
Amen.

Until you can so closely be related to a slave, you will never understand. Until you can so closely be related to someone segregated within society, you will never understand. Until you can so closely be related to someone hanged for being different, you will never understand. Until your heroes and leaders are killed for what they believe in, you will never understand.

The author of this piece has had a sheltered life and will never understand until everything he knows is stripped away.