In the interest of helping my readers, I just finished reading Michelle Obama's senior thesis. There's an hour of my life that I will never get back.
What on Earth would make me do such a thing? Two things that happened today made it clear that Obama is trying to redefine herself to the American people as a woman who holds mainstream ideals: A New York Times article, Michelle Obama Looks For a New Introduction and her appearance on The View.
In the Times article, Obama dismisses rumors of the alleged "whitey" tape.
“I mean, ‘whitey’? That’s something that George Jefferson would say. Anyone who says that doesn’t know me. They don’t know the life I’ve lived. They don’t know anything about me.”
Actually, while I don't believe such a tape exists, I have been struck by the fact that nobody has come out saying, "I know Michelle Obama, and Michelle Obama would never say those things!" That's because everyone has seen how people talk in that church she spent 20 years attending.
The Times article then says that a columnist at Slate, Christopher Hitchens, claimed "with scant evidence" that Obama's ideas were at one time influenced by black separatism. It then quotes from her thesis:
“The path I have chosen to follow by attending Princeton,” Mrs. Obama wrote in the introduction, “will likely lead to my further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society, never becoming a full participant.”
The Times also quotes a Princeton professor who says her thesis is being misread. So I decided to read it for myself.
First off, there is plenty of evidence that Obama is influenced by black separatism at the time of the writing. She praises the ideas of separatists like Stokely Carmichael and the work of the "Black Power" movement. Black separatist views color all her judgments of what is "positive." Also, people who define everything in life in terms of a "black community" versus a "white community" are almost exclusively separatists.
The bigger issue, given that her adult life shows that she has worked well with different people (including whites) is just how out of the mainstream it is in its liberalism. "Liberal", as defined by Obama in the thesis, means "open-minded." I rarely find many liberals who are open-minded to my thoughts. She describes herself as growing more "conservative" during her time at Princeton. By "conservative" she apparently means "greedy," because her example is that she finds herself looking forward to a high-paying job after college.
Good qualities, to Obama, include a desire to help the black community above any other community and sympathy toward the black lower class. These ideas constitute "a positive relationship with the black community." In fact, she argues that a separationist is more likely to have a realistic impression of the plight of the black lower class. We are left to assume that dealing with people based on the content of their character, as opposed to the color of their skin, would then be construed as having a negative relationship with the black community.
And I'm sure that helping someone out of the prison that is a life of welfare is not what she means by help. But that's probably because she's so "open-minded."
If you're looking for anything in the thesis that is openly inflammatory and racist towards white people, you won't find it.
If you're looking for anything that fits the beliefs of mainstream America, you won't find it either.
As to her appearance on The View, I thought she came off well. There was no reason to think she wouldn't. She's an intelligent, good looking woman. She has learned from years of practice and assimilation with people outside the "black community."
If only there wasn't so much evidence that she hasn't preached what she's practiced in life. Or raised her children under the guidance of a pastor who preaches the opposite of what she practices. Don't be deceived.
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