Michelle and Barack Obama want everyone to know that they have suffered the horrors of racism. And the reality of the horrific racism in America is that it’s so horribly, horribly… slightly inconvenient and mildly annoying.
Barack Obama was a black man that lived on the South Side of Chicago, who had his share of troubles catching cabs,” Mrs. Obama said in the Dec. 10 interview appearing in the new issue of PEOPLE.
“I tell this story – I mean, even as the first lady – during that wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf. Because she didn’t see me as the first lady, she saw me as someone who could help her. Those kinds of things happen in life. So it isn’t anything new.”
Being asked to assist someone in getting an item from a shelf at Target is just exactly like living in the Jim Crow south, I guess. Worse, the Empress is miffed that the lady in the story didn’t seem to realize she was in the presence of the Great Michelle Obama. No Empress should be asked to stoop to help a peasant.
Curiously, neither mentions the role race may have played in getting preferential treatment in college and law school admissions; much less the political advantages of melanin.
Boo freaking hoo! I cry myself to sleep every night thinking about how horrible the Antoinettes’ lives have been. It’s totally clear to anyone that can admit the truth that they have reached their prominent positions PRECISELY because of their skin color! It certainly isn’t due to their intelligence or their experience.
It’s truly sad that identity politics categorizes the Obama kids as victims because they’re black and female and the son of a poor white, struggling farmer (or other “unglamorous” or low paying job) as an oppressor.
How far we have fallen.
HRH should go shopping with me sometime. Having done retail management in my youth I must have a “look” about me that makes people ask me for help in a store. Perhaps because I’m white? Or 6’2″? Suddenly I feel so oppressed. I think I’ll do some therapy shopping at Target, now if I can only get a cab.
I suspect that the First Couple would label me as “White”. If I make the mistake of wandering into Target in a dress shirt, or worse a tie, it is inevitable that someone asks me where to find something.
When I was a little younger and more mischievous, the answer would always be an assertive “Aisle 3” without missing a beat. I have no idea if the aisles were even numbered. Life in the Information Age isn’t about getting answers, it’s about asking the right questions.
The US is so racist that a black man was able to become president? Who drives the cabs in Chicago? Pakistanis & Arabs?
These people don’t listen to themselves. No self-monitoring.
Many times over the years I have been asked for help on the presumption that I am somehow employed with the establishment or the presumption that I am sentient or on the presumption that I would be glad to lend a helping hand.
The fact is, I am always glad to lend a helping hand even it means finding the person who can actually help. However, some people have thorns. If you “intrude” upon them in the mildest of ways they may be highly offended and feel their personal space has been invaded.
I like Kate and William and precisely because they embody the spirit of noblesse oblige which is: “the inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility toward those less privileged.”
One of the reasons Duck Dynasty appeals to so many of us is because the Robertson’s still know how to keep it simple and pay attention to the basics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__m0LWg7ph8
I “hope” for Michelle to find “change” in her self and to discover the joy of being a friend to man.
This coming from the same administration whose chief aide, Valerie Jarrett, mistook a four-star general for a waiter at a WH dinner.
Hypocrisy, thy name is liberalism.
Regards,
Peter H.
Ahh, the new standard of oppression, “…Excuse me, do you work here?”
This happened to me just a few weeks ago. Until this moment I had never realized I was being racially oppressed.
I mean, how could a 6′ tall blonde, blue-eyed guy realize that small, old white woman was oppressing him by asking for help to get something from the top shelf?
So a commoner had the impertinence to speak to a Royal Person unbidden? What an outrage.
I wonder if the Brits are up for swapping Royal families.
I don’t know – when my short body needs something from the top shelf, I don’t look for somebody black. I look for somebody tall…maybe…5’11’ (Michelle Obama’s height)
Anderson Cooper says his ancestor deserved to die and that its awesome he was killed by a black. To bad it didn’t happen to his parents before they breed . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHxmO5QdinY
Being over 6′ I have helped lots of people get things from top shelves, and been overhead paged by name for lifting help. I have even opened jars at other peoples parties. I thought being black was the reason they got into Ivy league Law schools but couldn’t pass the law boards, but it turned out like the Clintons they had to give up their licenses.
Dressed in tuxedos on a cruise ship, sitting at a table all by ourselves, people thought we were executives for the cruise line. We thought it was funny. I guess we should have been outraged!
Well, don’t wear khaki pants and a red top in Target. People will ALWAYS assume you work there! Duh!
Funny how her handlers spend all that time (and taxpayer money) getting her photographed at soup kitchens and afterschool programs and whatnot so everyone can see our Gracious Empress caring for her pets, but when one of them asked her for an unscripted 10-second favor, that’s an affront to her dignity.
But wait, Michelle’s story of oppression just gets more interesting. Via Tom Maguire at JustOneMinute we learn that at the time, she told David Letterman a different version of the event:
in re taxi drivers; the reason the taxi drivers don’t want to pick up black people is because they don’t want to go to an area where they might be robbed or murdered. that is not racism, it is common sense. why is it that the easily offended black people are never angry at the people that make the cab drivers afraid to go into these areas? couldn’t be because those people are “brothers” and the easily offended are too racist to be mad at their “brothers” could it?
Twenty years ago I lived in Philadelphia two-blocks from a notorious crack-corner on the border between the gentrified Parkway and the “minority” Spring Garden neighborhoods. It was convenient since my employers’ offices were just 5-blocks away, but if I when I went to the gay bars downtown I had to walk-home the 2-1/2 miles since most taxis would not take a fare into that area after the Police started to confiscate cars of those who patronized the dealer’s corners…including taxis.
If I walked over the the theater-district a few blocks from the bars, I sometimes could get a cab if I showed the driver my ID showing that I actually lived there, but often it was a long, cold walk through deserted streets. Once I could afford to keep a car in the city, I used to park it at my office 5-blocks away, and walk-home from there late at night. It made “dating” almost impossible.
Taxi drivers don’t want to pick up people in bad neighborhoods, because they don’t want to be robbed or killed. I’m very white and nerdy looking, and yet this has happened to me too on the South Side of Chicago. After 20 minutes of taxis passing me by, one finally stopped and cautioned me that in that neighborhood cabbies were unlikely to stop for anyone.
Conclusion: It’s raaacist to want to not be murdered.
I thing MO was more upset about the thought of her actually working more than anything else. How dare she appear to be working. Her idea of work was being a Jackson hire in Chicago and sit at her desk looking at fashion magazines all day.
My 5′ 103 lb. Asian self was asked by a 4’10”, much older, heavier, white woman with a cane to get the last loaf of Jewish rye bread off the top shelf at the very same establishment The Mooch experienced her hateful, traumatizing racist treatment. In a move reminiscent of Spider Man, I scaled the shelves and retrieved that loaf of bread. Little did I realize, I was the victim of racism. Is there a lawyer I can call to get in on some big class action suit?