Michelle Obama Watch

Hat tip to @FakeMichelle on Twitter. Oh Oh, remember the Black Artists Association being upset that the First Lady didn’t pick a Black designer despite the fact that the BAA doesn’t actually represent Black designers. Well now some folks in Oakland San Francisco (Thanks Cee Cee) are upset about First Lady Michelle Obama’s visit to San Francisco and the Bret Harte Elementary School. It appears that they failed to heed the call for volunteers to build a playground IN THEIR OWN NEIGHBORHOOD and were miffed when they were forced to peek over the fence while the First Lady built a playground with the 500 volunteers who signed up to build a playground. Their point of contention appears to be that had they known the First Lady was going to be there, they would have volunteered to build a playground IN THEIR OWN NEIGHBORHOOD:

San Francisco Supervisor Sophie Maxwell and other African American leaders in the Bayview are not at all happy about how this week’s visit by first lady Michelle Obama was handled.

“The people in the neighborhood had to climb fences to even get a look at what was going on.”The people I have talked with felt very disengaged and somewhat offended,” Maxwell said.”All these people supposedly doing something for (neighborhood residents), and they didn’t know anything about it,” Maxwell said. SF Gate

Oh really? That’s not what one of the volunteers says. They say the NEIGHBORHOOD knew all about the playground, they just didn’t know First Lady Michelle Obama would be one of their fellow volunteers.
Jackie Williams is a a longtime Bayview gardening and youth program activist. She worked at the event and says that the call for volunteers for playground construction went out weeks ago and she signed up.

“They knew about it, honey,” Williams said. “They just didn’t know the president’s wife was going to be the there.” SF Gate

See, the people in the neighborhood should have signed up to volunteer to build a playground IN THEIR OWN BACKYARD and then maybe they would have been inside the fence instead of outside.
OH yeah, she looks really “disengaged” hugging this throng of young children.
Dear Black folks of the Bay Area, I can understand your disappointment, HOWEVER, its hard to argue that the First Lady isn’t passionate or concerned about Black folks issues when every other day she’s hanging out with students from DC Schools. By the end of this term, I suspect every school child in DC will have hugged Michelle Obama Come on now! Disengaged?

But yeah, if Michelle Obama came to town, I’d be disappointed that I didn’t get to see her I was on the front row when she made a surprise appearance at the morning session of the Black Caucus at the DNC in Denver. She wasn’t on program, I just went for the heck of it. I bet the people who got there late were miffed they missed it I trust that Sophie Maxwell will be leading the group that maintains the playground for the neighborhood now that all these meddling outsiders that built a playground IN HER NEIGHBORHOOD move on.

Posted by Gina