Michelle Obama, speaking in Chicago on Tuesday at the third annual Obama Foundation Summit, told her audience that “white flight” is something she experienced as a kid growing up on the South Side of Chicago — and that it’s still an issue today.
“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,” she said.
And she went on this vein.
“I want to remind white folks that y’all were running from us,” she said.
“This family, with all the values that you read about — you were running from us,” she declared.
“And you’re still running because we’re no different than the immigrant families that are moving in, 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, attended Princeton University — as her brother also did — and Harvard Law School. She said she grew up with a “sense of justice” and that from a young age, she realized that white people were fleeing her neighborhood.
She talked a great deal about race and her views of it in her memoir “Becoming.”
She’s talked a great deal about race, period.
Related: Michelle Obama’s New Book ‘Becoming’: Readers May Find Her Political Commentary Unbecoming
The Obamas are buying a luxurious 29-acre estate in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, after they’d rented the same home this past summer.
Multiple outlets, including Fox News, reported that the “mega-expensive” estate is right on the beach — and that it has two guest wings, seven guest rooms, and nearly 7,000 square feet.
Although the property is listed at a price of $14,850,000, sources told TMZ the Obamas would be paying “less.”
And regarding the race for the presidency next year, a poll earlier in October from New Hampshire suggested Michelle Obama would lead the field of Democratic candidates for 2020 if she were to enter the race.
A Boston Herald-Franklin Pierce University survey released recently showed that the Democrat field currently is essentially a three-person race — with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at 25 percent, former Vice President Joe Biden at 24 percent, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at 22 percent.
Related: Michelle Obama Says ‘Zero Chance’ She’d Run for President
However, if Michelle Obama were to jump into the race — which she has vowed she will not do — she would immediately vault to the front in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, the survey found.
Here’s a clip of her “white flight” remarks from the Obama summit, via The Washington Examiner.
Share your thoughts below.
Join the Discussion
COMMENTS POLICY: We have no tolerance for messages of violence, racism, vulgarity, obscenity or other such discourteous behavior. Thank you for contributing to a respectful and useful online dialogue.