Michelle Obama Watch

The interesting thing about these (yes – desperate) critics is that they are never specific about who or what they think Michelle should be grateful about or to. They are just smug in their assurance that she (like other people color) has earned and deserved nothing unlike them.

Think about it: Who or what do these critics have in mnd when they discuss her alleged “ingratitude?” They are NOT picturing people that she would be grateful to like her Black American parents and her Black American ancestors. They are definitely not thinking about Black American soldiers that have fought in every war this country has known and they certainly aren’t thinking about the enslaved Black men who literally built the Capitol and other important D.C. sites including the White House itself.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0762745363/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Are they picturing Americans like Ida B. Wells whose anti-lynching crusade earned her death threats and assaults on her character as a Black woman?

Are they thinking about Charlotte E. Ray, the first African-American female lawyer in the United States?

How about Richard Allen, the founder of the AME church? The man who began the church because he was thrown out a white one?

How about the Americans featured in Douglas A. Blackmon’s book Slavery By Another Name (http://www.slaverybyanothername.com/) – Black men falsely arrested and sentenced to hard labor for non-offenses like “changing employers without permission” who were then forced into hard labor camps for months and years on end between the Civil War and WWII?

What do these critics that are so concerned about gratitude think became of the families of these men?

And what of the people who imprisioned them? What kind of “values” did they pass on to their families? Do you think their descendants are “bitter” or “ungrateful?”

I don’t want to hear anything about who these people deign to be “bitter”, “ungrateful” or “un-Patriotic.” Just like far too many before them, they are satisfied with double standards and ignoring entire swaths of American history and American people and they are finally LOSING.

And I am truly grateful for that!

This lack of respect for us black women has been going on for centuries. it is painful and terribly infuriating. I am exhausted dealing with it and feel that it definitely takes a toll on our health.

Melody McCloud of the Atlanta wrote a nice piece on this entitled “Black Women Deserve Respect” . At the end she quotes Zora Neale Hurston: “We’re either the mules of the earth or as free as the freest white man.” I think she left out the part where we are treated like “that dog that some people feel like they just have to kick”.

(http://problemchylde.wordpress.com/2006/10/01/black-women-deserve-respect/)

-Me-

@Tanesha: I understand what you’re saying, but I firmly believe that just because there’s no law against something doesn’t make it a “right.”

Until very recently, there was no law on the books in Washington state against bestiality. Did that mean folks had the “right” to run around doing repulsive things with animals? It turns out the answer is no, and I think that’s a good call.

There are different ways to define a “right,” but in the context of a democracy, I’m thinking about a social contract model where certain rights are protected by the society, but they are correlative to certain duties (not to harm others being one of them) we must fulfill in order to keep them protected. If you fail to uphold your part of the bargain, then you are subject to certain limitations of your rights as a result. In other words, there’s a relationship between what you put in and what you get in a democracy, and so I’d argue that no, there isn’t a “right” to be derelict in your democratic duties. Sure you can do it, but it’s not something that is “justly due” to anyone who expects to live freely in a thriving, just democracy.

In any case, my point was that it’s not a persuasive to say, “Wait a minute…hey! But what about my right to freeload?” Whether that’s a right or not, if one is fighting behind a banner that says, “BE LAZY AND UNINVOLVED! SCREW THE GUY RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT WHO EXPECTS MORE FROM YOU AND JUST MIGHT INSPIRE YOU TO DO BETTER!” then imo, that person doesn’t have much of a cause.

Just furthering the comment:

“Actually, we DO have the right to be cynical, apathetic, and uninformed. It’s not necessarily the best thing to do, but there’s no law against it.”

….YET!!

You can bet there will be if ‘they’ make president.
Another great quote from her:

MICHELLE OBAMA when asked by a reporter from a black magazine about racism and the first black president: “I don’t lose sleep over it, because the realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know. So, you know, you can’t — you know, you can’t make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen. We just weren’t raised that way. ”

Racism?
You can bet ‘racism’ will be ON THE AGENDA if the Obama’s get in.

Susan,
Is obvious that you are Republican. Nothing that Michelle Obama says is going to be receive by you impartially and you are going to tweak every single word. I heard Michelle comment about being proud. She meant to say she was very proud, more proud than usual, of the energy and youth of the people participating in the Democratic process. I know it, you know it, but you are not going to explain it that way because you want McCain to win…. of course.
“extremely narcissistic and self-centered.”?
If you express yourself like this, I wonder what your opinion about G.Bush is? Somebody that thinks he is the only one that can think what to do about Iraq, that he is never wrong, that he is “the decider”….
You are attacking Michelle for one sentence and disregard all her accomplishments in life. I can see you are not a fair person.

It’s gotten beyond old and stale when anti-white commentators bring up slavery, again and again, when anyone criticizes the “poor,” “holy,” ‘African-Americans”
.
Every race has been slaves at one time or another, and they were treated as bad or worse than blacks in America. Nobody cares about slavery anymore, and that included many black people who’ve made a fine life for themselves. Everyone, except left wing anti-whites and blacks with their hand outs, wanting white money.

Could it be “the lack of respect for black women” is something black women actually have earned with their obnoxious behavior?