My Evening with Michelle Obama

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Though Michelle claimed to have written a new self-help book, the interview focused largely on politics. Regarding the Obama White House years, Michelle declared, “We set the bar high with hope.” She constantly referred to everything from health care to the economy to foreign policy as things that “we did,” meaning she and Barack. The idea of a co-presidency came as news only to those who don’t pay attention, which was just about all of the audience. In fact, in 2008 Michelle was the co-candidate with Barack. She crisscrossed the country making fiery political speeches to huge crowds for months, stating what she and Barack were focused on what they would do in office. It was only when Michelle went too far over the top with her comment, “For the first time in my life I’m proud of my country,” that the public backlash required a new strategy. That strategy was to put Michelle into the background with the laughable excuse “Michelle hates politics.” This strategy successfully cast the highly political Michelle Obama as just another First Lady, a role that continues to this day. The media choose not to notice that she is even more instinctively eloquent, authentic, and political than her husband.

Racial issues were covered to a great extent in the interview. Michelle’s attempt to become accepted and relatable with Black Americans is clearly one of the main goals of her books and tours. The reason for this is that Michelle wants to cement support from Black voters with whom she has little in common with, her newly platted braids notwithstanding. As I chronicle in my new book and film of the same name, Michelle Obama 2024, Her Real Life Story and Plan for Power, Michelle spent her childhood running away from the Black community for her education. Later, as the Black “front woman” for the Mayor of Chicago and then University of Chicago hospitals, she exploited the community that she had been avoiding. These endeavors are ones that Michelle never speaks about on tour, and certainly ones she wants to keep from Black voters.

Nonetheless, Michelle spoke freely about “growing up as a Black woman” and “my DNA as a Black woman.” She repeated the canard she had been racially profiled by her high school counselor regarding her Princeton application, a story I exposed as phony, given that the counselor was a church-going Black woman! Michelle talked about growing up Black, saying she experienced racial “cuts” her whole life. She told of how difficult it was to be held back in life and to feel she didn’t belong, due to her skin color. All this is of course total nonsense. Her skin color got her into an exclusive high school, Princeton and then Harvard Law.

As Michelle got into a groove with her racial “cuts” talk, she went off script and asked Oprah about her childhood as a Black kid. Oprah responded, “Oh, I was one of two Black kids out of 2,000 students.” A pleased Michelle went for affirmation of her racial “cuts” narrative, “And did you feel the cuts?” Oprah answered honestly, “no, there was never anything like that.” The air went out of the room for a few seconds, and Michelle quickly changed topics. Oprah is ten years older than Michelle and grew up in the South, yet experienced no racism. Oprah made it in life on her own abilities and never needed to allege racism to get ahead. Michelle, on the other hand, has made a political career making up racial slights.

In a deliberate homage to Democrat party woke political forces, Michelle used the metaphor of her young daughters sharing an apartment in Los Angeles to launch an attack on traditional marriage. Michelle said she wanted all kids to understand that all types of lifestyles are fine, and that marriage is no more a valid life aspiration that any other lifestyle. Having a family was not something necessarily that brings happiness, she said, using Oprah herself as an example, awkwardly exclaiming, “Oprah’s happy!”