Race, America and Michelle Obama, cont'd

Because people tend to stop reading threads after they drop off the list to the right, and because some interesting stuff is continuing to be posted to the Michelle Obama/theory thread, I want to continue it here, on a new posting. Here's something thought-provoking that just went up from a reader named Danielle:

I'm white and American (and crunchy con); my kids are black. (and please, "black" is still used; if you're going to comment, let it not be to that) I have lived in both worlds to some extent. I have experienced prejudice when with my children, directed at me by both black and white (though anecdotally, usually by the latter). And still, when scooting about town on my own, I am fully treated of the majority race without question. The reactions are quite different whether I am with my children or not, even the looks received when riding in a car together or not.

I believe majority race folks cannot know what it is like to live a minority existence because "you don't know what you don't know." I don't even know fully what my children experience now they are out and about on their own. A gf looking for a birthday card 12 years ago for my son was reduced to sorrow and anger because she could not find one that had a black child on it. It was nothing she had ever thought about or looked for before because it hadn't entered her radar. Since then, card selections have improved , but a white person's experience still is different in many ways large and small. So much is taken for granted that never even enters a majority-race person's mind. There is pressure from all sides upon the societally-"successful" black person, much weight to bear emotionally and psychologically, and very few mentors to show one the way through it all.

I am one that believes that one ought not be defined by the color of one's skin, yet I can still understand Obama's angst, even with an ivy league degree, even with her salary. Money does not solve race issues; some might say it compounds them. And what is money going to accomplish, really, if one can't even find a suitable birthday card (or hair care and skin products, or a medical provider knowledgeable about one's racial differences)? In America, race matters, still. That affected Obama's wife 20 years ago, and it almost assuredly affects her today. That's not an apology for her, but reading some of what is said here, some haven't thought through the dailiness of it all.

I've read lots on racial issues over the years and I keep coming back to Daniel-Tatum's "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" Not sure it's in print, but worth the read if only for the chapter re: the thought differences between a majority- and minority-race person.

It's easier, I think, to discern anxiety and conflict having to do with race in the US, but much more difficult to do the same over class. Ever notice that if you bring it up in political discussions, how many people jump to accuse you of practicing "class warfare"? Americans are extremely touchy on the subject of class, and I think we train ourselves to suppress noticing class differences. I was talking with a friend today about race and class, and he said that the kind of behavior that many whites identify as "black," in the negative sense, is in truth mostly a function of class. If you factor out economic status, you'll find that lower-class whites have most of the same mores and behaviors associated with them. But it's even harder to talk openly and honestly about class in this country than it is to talk about race. Don't you think?

I wonder to what extent the status anxiety Michelle Obama endured at Princeton had to do with class (she came from a blue-collar family), versus race. Any readers of this blog go to a high-status college though coming from a non-upperclass background? How did you fit in? What was that like for you?