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Michelle Obama’s Pride
Those who were perplexed, annoyed and/or enraged by Mrs. Obama’s statement that “for the first time in my adult life I’m proud of America” may want to take a look at HBO’s contribution to Black History Month, a documentary about Joe Louis.
Called, without irony, “a credit to his race,” the heavyweight champion was exalted in 1938 for beating the exemplar of Nazi Germany, Max Schmeling, but never accepted as a true American. Decades later, when playing golf in San Diego, he found excrement in the first hole.
As a white child growing up in the Harlem ghetto, I saw how little of the pride that Michelle Obama now feels was within reach of its black residents. Movie placards in store windows would read “Gone With the Wind with Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen,” followed in smaller type by “Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.”
In the 1950s, it took a Supreme Court desegregation decision to let children who looked like Michelle Obama go to school with those who didn’t and, in the years afterward, they were beaten in the streets for marching with Martin Luther King for the audacity of wanting to exercise their right to vote.
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3 Responses to “Michelle Obama’s Pride”
I am a 57 years old white guy and I totally appreciate what Michelle meant. Her husband's popularity reveals how much more open minded and progressive voters have become.
[...] The Moderate Voice – Domestic and international news analysis, irreverent comments, original reporti… wrote an interesting post today on Michelle Obamaâ??s PrideHere’s a quick excerptMichelle Obama’s Pride February 24th, 2008 by ROBERT STEIN Those who were perplexed, annoyed and/or enraged by Mrs. Obama’s statement that “for the first time in my adult life I’m proud of America” may want to take a look at HBO’s contribution to Black History Month, a documentary about Joe Louis. Called, without irony, “a credit to his race,” the heavyweight champion was exalted in 1938 for beating the exemplar of Nazi Germany, Max Schmeling, but never accepted as a true American. Decades [...]
You're a little older than me, Paul. But one side of my family is from Oklahoma and the other is from Tennessee. Visiting family when I was younger showed me what kind of crap black people were still getting well after the civil rights movement. Conversations when no one outside of family and friends are around can be very revealing. Admittedly I just kept my mouth shut and thought “Eewww. God, I'm disappointed in this.”. And a lot of it was after the “New South” meme started. You know, the people saying “Oh, we're moving past that now. The South isn't what it used to be. Things are changing a lot.”. And I thought how you couldn't prove it by what I was hearing.