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Home Front: Culture Wars
'Y'all were running from us': Michelle Obama claims 'white folks' are 'afraid' of living in black neighborhoods
2019-10-30
[Washington Examiner] Michelle Obama spoke out against "white flight" in a recent interview, saying she experienced it as a kid and that it remains a problem.

"As families like ours ‐ upstanding families like ours who were doing everything we were supposed to do and better. As we moved in, white folks moved out because they were afraid of what our families represented," the former first lady said Tuesday at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago.

"I want to remind white folks that y’all were running from us ... This family, with all the values that you read about, you were running from us. And you’re still running because we’re no different than the immigrant families that are moving in," she continued. "The families that are coming from other places to try to do better. But, because we can so easily wash over who we really were ‐ because of the color of our skin, because of the texture of our hair ‐ that’s what divides countries, artificial things."

Obama, 55, said she grew up with a "sense of justice" and understood from a young age that white people were fleeing her neighborhood.

She talked about the issue of white flight in her bestselling book Becoming. Obama noted that she grew up in South Side of Chicago while her husband came to the South Side by choice.
Pretty accurate assessment, I'd say. But it implies some sort of fault on the part of whites, rather than good sense. There's a tipping point in racial balance, as two different cultures (not skin colors or hair textures) have to accommodate each other. You can make the different parties white:black, or Christian:Moslem, Anglo:Hispanic, pick a dissimilar pair. 9:1 there's likely no friction, 1:9 the left hand party's feeling outnumbered. It's worse than most with black:white, though Moslem:Christian's not far behind (see Somali neighborhoods in Michigan, and Turk neighborhoods in Berlin, Syrian resettlement areas most places in Germany or Sweden). The more culturally aggressive culture sees the more sedate (as in law-abiding) culture as prey.
Related:
Michelle Obama: 2019-10-29 Kamala Harris Appears To Blame Racism, Sexism For Struggling Campaign
Michelle Obama: 2019-10-25 New York Times Prints Lies by Adam Schiff Witness Made in Secret Testimony
Michelle Obama: 2019-10-22 Chelsea Clinton calls America 'not the country I want my kids to grow up in'
Related:
Obama Foundation: 2019-04-07 New Record: Obama Mentions Himself 456 Times During Berlin Townhall [Montage]
Obama Foundation: 2019-04-07 Barack Obama Warns Progressives Not to Form ‘Circular Firing Squad'
Obama Foundation: 2019-03-05 Obama: There's hope 'if we can train a million Baracks and Michelles'
Posted by:Besoeker

#22  ^ word. "Content of our character, not color of our skin."
- MLK, not a race-baiting opportunist
Posted by: Lex   2019-10-30 22:01  

#21  Before I came to live in a tiny desert town (population: weird), I lived in a majority black neighborhood in a large city (I'm white). Had bars on my windows, kept a revolver close at hand, and had my valuables in a safe - just like my black neighbors on either side. That was just the reality of the place. I liked living there for the most part. Liked to people for the most part. I didn't leave because of them. We ALL left because Mexican and Guatemalan families offered us so much money for our homes that we couldn't resist! I went to Nevada, they mostly went to Vallejo further up the delta.

Personally, as a neighbor I'm never afraid of what any upstanding family of any kind is doing. It's the not-so-upstanding families of any variety that worry me.
Posted by: Secret Master   2019-10-30 21:50  

#20  "Get back here, you racist bastards!"

Like the "Please mentor me at the risk getting #MeTooed" movement, this is about making sure the marks never get away.
Posted by: charger   2019-10-30 18:27  

#19  Plenty of blacks and hispanics in my neighborhood. All the blacks do is argue with each other all the time. Hispanics stick too themselves and do the family thing. My sweet self gets along with everyone.
Posted by: chris   2019-10-30 15:02  

#18  'As families like ours ‐ upstanding families like ours ...

we’re no different than the immigrant families that are moving in...

we can so easily wash over who we really were...

countries, artificial things.'


She's practically saying it all herself.
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-10-30 12:48  

#17  Michelle and Barack lived in Hyde Park by choice. Their house was across the street from a synagogue.

They moved there in 2005

Interviewer didn't ask about this I guess.

Posted by: lord garth   2019-10-30 12:38  

#16  With all them black folks getting shot for just filling up with gas, wouldn't this be a good thing?
Posted by: swksvolFF   2019-10-30 12:12  

#15  Like the white truck driver during the LA riots? Or the Korean store owner??? They ran because "Your" people do not respect the law and they hate.
Posted by: 49 Pan   2019-10-30 11:40  

#14  So when are you both moving back to a black ghetto neighborhood, bitch?

Never? Then go fuck yourself.
Posted by: DarthVader   2019-10-30 11:20  

#13  Whites leave: racism!
Whites return: racism!
Whi- ...: racism!

RaceRaceRaceRaceRace, 24/7 All race all the time, race is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know.

This specimen has never done a day's work in her life. Her entire career and that of her husband is a story of race-opportunism and exploitation.
Posted by: Lex   2019-10-30 09:48  

#12  while her husband came to the South Side by choice.

Political grifter seeking his rotten borough.
Race hustlers, the pair of them. Mike seethes with resentment; Zero the opportunist makes connections with even shittier people: Ayres the terrorist. The race-baiting nutjob preacher. Jarrett the professional Grifter-Hack.

God, what shitty people our political class has thrown up these last 30 years.
Posted by: Lex   2019-10-30 09:44  

#11  Gentrification going very strong in Atlanta. Sporadic pi**ing and moaning, but I've not heard of anyone burning their handsome real estate offer letters or closing checks.
Posted by: Besoeker   2019-10-30 08:34  

#10  I understand their new, 15 million $ house is in a middle of a black neighborhood.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2019-10-30 08:08  

#9  Someone should ask her what gentrification means. Oh, that's when whites move into black neighborhoods that are no longer hell-holes. The opposite of white flight which is when whites (and blacks that are able) leave neighborhoods they see going down hill fast.

Race is not a factor, economics is, but I wouldn't expect someone who sees everything through teh filter of race to understand that.
Posted by: ruprecht   2019-10-30 08:05  

#8  Plenty of actual Africans in my neighborhood. Both my neighbors in fact, they are nice, good people. Even got asked to clear their backyard when their husky went crazy (He had a new possum friend cornered and was excited). We are nice to our neighbors and they are nice to us. Our neighborhood has many nationalities in it and yet we find they are all also proud Texans. They don't want ferals infesting our neighborhood anymore than we do.
Posted by: Silentbrick   2019-10-30 07:47  

#7  But sadly, when we make a conscience effort to be friendly and get along, she is still not happy. I somehow doubt she will ever be happy.
Posted by: Besoeker   2019-10-30 07:39  

#6  while her husband came to the South Side by choice.

IOW, he chose the South Side as an easy mark for his 'social justice' BS
Posted by: Bob Grorong1136   2019-10-30 07:36  

#5  Did she mention how they destroy the schools?
Posted by: Uleck Spererong9442   2019-10-30 07:35  

#4  They never do address the flight of upper and middle class blacks from the inner city to the suburbs. Desegregation allowed that and when it did the environment that would not tolerate destructive and self limiting behaviors disappeared. Look in the mirror!
Posted by: Procopius2k   2019-10-30 07:34  

#3  I think the whites should fight instead of flee. Drive the coloreds into their ghettos and deprive them of the right to over-representation on basis of color. Their tribal culture of disrepect and revolt should be mocked, insulted and crushed into accepting nationalism as the main.

There should exist at least a modicum of armed and opposing civilian population that seeks this outcome. Someone from whom only the State can save wakandans.
Posted by: Dron66046   2019-10-30 06:05  

#2  No I won't. I may see Iranian nuclear or biological strike - but not Wakandan conquest.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2019-10-30 04:01  

#1  Prey fleeing predators.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2019-10-30 03:40  

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