Michelle Obama Sounds Bitter. Still.

Michelle Obama and her brother spoke at the Obama Foundation Summit yesterday in Chicago, and if you want to put yourself through watching the entire hour plus video of it, by all means, have at it. Specifically though, take a look at the first 12 minutes or so, and even more specifically the 9.35 minute mark:

Do you detect the same bitterness that I do? Even after having the honor of being First Lady of our country, in large part due to WHITE PEOPLE VOTING FOR HER HUSBAND?  You should, what with her saying out loud that she continues to feel a sense of injustice.

Look.  I get that she grew up in a time when racism was far worse in many ways than it is now.  And I also get that I can never understand or truly empathize with her life experience of being a black person. But there are a couple of things really wrong with what she’s saying.

First, this is NOT the same experience that immigrant families in America now face. Americans are, by and large, people who welcome and embrace diverse families into our culture.  What we don’t welcome or embrace are families who bust into our country illegally, pushing ahead of families who are trying to do right by our country and follow our laws.  I don’t know why this differentiation is so difficult for people like Michelle Obama, but it’s an important distinction.

Second, are we to assume that when white people were, “packing their bags and running from” her family and her neighborhood, that it is THEIR FAULT that the community was “left in shambles?”  Someone’s gonna need to explain that to me.  The strength and state of a community is the responsibility of those who are IN IT, not those who choose to leave.

I know Michelle is enormously popular, but to me, she’s one of the most ungrateful and self-important First Ladies we’ve ever had.

YMMV.