February 19, 2008
This is getting a little silly
Posted by Jamelle under politics, ridiculous | Tags: michelle obama, unpatriotic |Are you kidding me?
Michelle Obama’s remarks were not “unpatriotic.” Here’s what she said:
What we have learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback. And let me tell you something — for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I’ve seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues, and it’s made me proud.
She’s being accused of saying, in effect, that this is the first time in adult life that she has been proud to be an American.
Somehow that is unpatriotic?
The history of African-Americans (and African-American women in particular) in this country has been a history of disappointment. This country has failed African-Americans more times than it is possible to count, and in a few big cases (read: slavery, Jim Crow) has yet to officially own up to that fact. I would expect many black people to have never felt proud of their country. How can you feel proud of a country which refuses to apologize for enslaving your ancestors?
Michelle Obama is probably echoing the sentiment of many blacks of her generation and older; after so much suffering and disappointment, it looks like their country might elect a black man as president. It’s enough to inspire a bit of hope.
February 19, 2008 at 10:34 pm
i am a canadian and have bee following the u.s. elections. i read mrs. obama’s speach and i saw nothing wrong with it. she said for the first time in my adult life i am VERY proud of my courtery. the key word is VERY an there is a big diference between PROUD and VERY PROUB.she dident say she wasn’t proud she said for the first time she was VERY prour. RUSH LIMBAUGH didn’t notice the word very either. come on listen more carfully.
February 19, 2008 at 10:55 pm
No, it’s not a little silly.
It’s stupid.
This is the kind of charge that is made my the radio talkers. Tt was basically all Sean Hannity talked about today, and when Limbaugh wasn’t trying to convince people that hope is bad, he was on about it.
At worst, the comment was undiplomatic. I think it’s closer to being poorly worded. Frankly, the first time I heard it, I took it as, “I have never been this proud …,” which isn’t what she said, but it’s what I’m pretty sure she meant.
Maybe it had to do with the sentiments you’re describing. That would certainly be valid, too.
I’d ignore this one. It will make a lot of noise from certain people on the Right, but there’s no way that you’re going to convince them that Obama isn’t a leftist anti-American Commie, anyway. Normal people will shrug their shoulders and say, “What’s the big deal?”
I’d file this under Things That Won’t Resonate, sort of like the whole hand-over-his-heart thing. Normal people have better things to do than try to parse the words and see whether Mrs. Obama hates the country.
February 19, 2008 at 10:56 pm
*Ahem …*
That should have been “made big by …”
Sorry.
February 19, 2008 at 11:09 pm
This is the silliest thing ever. The reality is that the United States has made a loooooot of mistakes, intentionally more often than not. When it has done good things it’s usually in a totally half-assed way. For example, we might give some aid to third world countries, but it’s not nearly as much as we could be doing. I mean, we wouldn’t be proud of our kid just because he gets a C but HEY he could have gotten an F!
And to say one is not proud does not mean you hate everything your country does. It just means on the whole the country does not live up to its potential. For example, if my uncle George is a homicidal, drunken, chain smoking, pimp but he always pays his taxes and is always kind to his wife and kids, I wouldn’t be “proud” of him. I might be proud of certain things about him but I wouldn’t say I was proud of him overall.
So that’s what she’s saying. And Jamelle’s right. Black people don’t have much to be proud about. Because it’s hard to be proud of a place that doesn’t feel like its yours. I’m sure that most of the time blacks don’t really feel like the U.S. is their country, more like they’re just allowed to live here.
Not that white people have any reason to be proud of the U.S. though. Unless they’re totally aware of, and totally cool with, the discrimination, imperialism, and greed that characterizes this place.
February 20, 2008 at 1:08 am
What is worse is that the media is often misquoting Ms. Obama by leaving out the word “really” from the sentence “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country”. The word “really” makes it clear that she has in the past been proud of her country but the current presidential race makes her “really” proud.
It is disturbing to see the overt and covert ways in which the media is playing a negative role in this election cycle. For more on this, take a peek at http://rutherfordl.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/hardball-needs-to-play-hardball-with-its-staff/
February 20, 2008 at 9:18 am
I still don’t think that it should matter if she said “this is first time I’m I’ve ever been proud of my country”. Even without a “really”.
Can’t we all just stop pretending that the U.S. is some magic fairy tale land? Aren’t we all grownups?
March 4, 2008 at 12:04 pm
I used to never listen to country, but it’s changed a lot over the last ten years or so. And the cowgirls are hot!