When Michelle Obama told a Milwaukee campaign rally last February, "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country," critics derided her as another Angry Black Woman. But the only truly radical proposition put forth by Obama, born and raised in Chicago's storied South Side, is the idea of a black community fully vested in the country at large, and proud of the American dream.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Coates on Michelle Obama
Everything I know about black people I learn from Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new story in the Atlantic:
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Loved this one! Thanks for sharing it. I could relate perfectly to the seniment that Michelle expressed in her thesis that got so much criticism. I grew up in a predominantly Jewish area and never considered myself a minority or different in any way from those who surroudned me. It wasn't until I moved to the south that I became aware of my otherness.
“When you grow up in a black community with a warm black family, you are aware of the fact that you are black, but you don’t feel it … After a certain point you do just kind of think you’re in your own world, and you become very comfortable in that world, and to this day there are African Americans who feel very uncomfortable when they step out of it … This is a society that never lets you forget that you are black.”
Replace black with Jewish and you've hit the nail on the head for me. I wonder if those who didn't grow up in a similar minority bubble can relate to this though. I can sense Tom's reluctance to accept the fact that Judaism, for most American Jews, is a culture more than a religion.
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