You guys know I love to blog, and I really love conversating (It's a word, dammit!) with the crowd. But very few things (your mind is now free to wonder) exceed the thrill of publishing a piece in the Atlantic. This one is about Michelle Obama. I've been working on it for six months. But frankly, to paraphrase Phil, I've been thinking about this moment all my life. Here's an excerpt.
In most black people, there is a South Side, a sense of home, that never leaves, and yet to compete in the world, we have to go forth. So we learn to code-switch and become bilingual. We save our Timberlands for the weekend, and our jokes for the cats in the mail room. Some of us give ourselves up completely and become the mask, while others overcompensate and turn every dustup into the Montgomery bus boycott.
But increasingly, as we move into the mainstream, black folks are taking a third road--being ourselves. Implicit in the notion of code-switching is a belief in the illegitimacy of blacks as Americans, as well as a disbelief in the ability of our white peers to understand us. But if you see black identity as you see southern identity, or Irish identity, or Italian identity--not as a separate trunk, but as a branch of the American tree, with roots in the broader experience--then you understand that the particulars of black culture are inseparable from the particulars of the country.
Pop culture has laid the groundwork for that recognition. Barack Obama's coalition--the young, the black, the urban, the hip--was originally assembled by hip-hop. Jay-Z and Nas may be problematic ambassadors, but their ilk are why those who thought Barack and Michelle were giving each other a "terrorist fist jab" were laughed off the stage. We are as physically segregated as ever, yet the changes in media have drawn black idiom into the broader American narrative.
Please check it out. Also here's a video of my Dad--who I reference often--interviewing me about the piece. I hope you guys enjoy.In 2002, the rapper Ice Cube produced and starred in Barbershop. The movie was a surprise hit, spawning a sequel, a spin-off, and a short-lived TV series. Its success shocked industry-watchers, because it took place exclusively in a black community and seemingly focused on "black issues." But you could find the same characters in any other ethnic community. Think of Michelle Obama's sharp sense of humor and her insistence on viewing her husband as mortal, and how both traits were derided during the campaign as un-first-ladylike and fed the caricature of her as an Angry Black Woman. In reality, her summation of her husband as "a gifted man, but in the end ... just a man" could have come out of the mouth of any sitcom wife on TV.
When I saw Obama in Chicago and took her for white, it was not because of her cadences, mannerisms, or dress, but because of the radical proposition she put forth--a black community fully vested, no DuBoisian veil, in the country at large. A buddy of mine once remarked that Michelle "makes Barack black." But that understates things. She doesn't simply make Barack black--she makes him American.
"I keep saying this: Michelle, Barack, and my son are not abnormal," Marian Robinson said. "All my relatives, all my friends, all their friends, all their parents, almost all of them have the same story. It's just that their families aren't running for president. It bothers me that people see [Michelle and Barack] as so phenomenal, because there's so much of that in the black neighborhood. They went to the same schools we all did. They went through the same struggles."
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
TNC, you know I love you, and I love that my nation is getting to the point where the mainstream includes people of every race, creed, and ethnicity, but I have bad news.
We're nerds, dude.
There's only so mainstream we can GET.
video not linked.
Aargh, I don't have time to read this right now. My beloved Michelle, written about by one of my favorite Bison writers (that's you, T) ... it's too much awesome.
When is this going to be on the newsstands, Coates. You know my Michelle-a-holic self must buy several copies.
Need a date, please.
ok, ok I'll plunk down some coin for the Atlantic hardcopy. But you are right, what so many in the dominant media never understood, regarding the Obamas' appeal, ws that for too many Black folks we know them because they are us. Mrs. Robinson nails it. S much of the media narrative is a bout Black pathology that few recognize that many Black people are actually trying to be the best people they can be and demand much of themselves and others. Well done. Your piece does a great job of resolving the DuBoisian class/cultural dualism.
Congrats TNC. I'll support the print media industry just for you this week.
This is a very good interview. Congratulations on its depth and the obvious warmth of father-son relations.
A linguistic question: How can it be that the father has a much more "mainstream" accent than the son? That goes again all the normal laws of linguistic change.
Good question. The father's a businessman. I suspect that's part of it.
Congrats on the piece Ta-Nehisi...but conversate is NOT a word.
This is such FIRE. I will be dashing to the bookstore at lunch time to purchase. My mom is Michelle Obama with her triple degreed self. I aspire to be Michelle Obama when I grow up, even at age 35...
Michelle Obama is my sorors and my homegirls and my cousins, be they engineers and accountants or admins and nurse's aides.
Thank you TNC, for showing America the 'real' sisters who are grinding every day and not the hypersexualized sapphires folks think we are.
TNC....ix-nay on the 'conversating.' My co-worker uses that all the time...e.g, "She refuses to conversate with me." Argh!!
But to the point of the post....i'll definitely pick up the dead-tree version of the Atlantic. Aside from 'conversate,' your pieces & posts are absolutely, freaking beautiful & I have to support you. Keep it up, man.
suberb piece--and I loved the conversation b/w you and your pops (what a likeable cat he is!). initially, I agreed with him about the quote. It bugged me a little too. Maybe because it seemed at first like a cheap way to pull readers in, when your wonderful writing is really the only hook you need. But after reading the whole piece and watching you guys talk about it, I really got what you were getting at. great analysis!
Congrats. I've never really heard much from Ms. Robinson before. Now I can see where Michelle gets her cool.
So I'm lying in bed this morning, fighting the clock radio, and some guy comes on NPR, sounding a little like KRS-1, but talking much more sense, and just POUNDING Bobby Rush's arguments into the sand.
Thanks for getting me up and out of bed. I look forward to reading the Michelle piece.
Sorry, just caught the NPR thread, below.
Slightly off topic, but I love your video pieces. I first discovered your work about a year ago when you did that fantastic piece on Bill Cosby for the Atlantic. Your passion and enthusiasm immediately drew me in and this piece is no different. Great work.
As an aside, good point on Barbershop.
I watched it (and enjoyed it) because my uncle (from an all-white rural farm community) initially recommended it. He did so not because it was any perspective onto any particular group, but because it was simply a really good rental.
You're right, those characters and stories exist in all our communities. I think Ice Cube understood that when he made it-- we have similar struggles over the family farm that he displayed with his shop. Sad that industry watchers could be surprised by it.
Look forward to reading the hard copy.
I love you like a play cousin, but "conversate" is a word like "irregardless" is a word. I don't make the rules, man.
Thanks for sharing the conversation with your father (South Side Story). It is wonderful.
Conversate is most definitely a word. It might not be a word you like, but it conveys meaning. I've never found the proscriptive camp very appealing. Can someone point me to the time when the English language was perfected, both in syntax and semantics?
Good luck with that.
I can't read it now either, but will once I get home tonight. Congrats on the piece. Did see a bit of the video, looks like you lost weight.
Great piece, TNC. I'll definitely pick up a dead tree copy also.
As a black woman, it's hard to say just how much Michelle Obama means to some of us. I could go on and on about it, really (I won't).
I will say this: Black women have faced so many harsh and negative images about what we supposedly are and how we allegedly act, relayed to and about us not only through the MSM but also in "our" own media (BET springs immediately to mind). The images of the baby-mama, the loud angry black woman, the welfare queen, the sassy black woman, etc. get way too much play and sometimes rise to a level of nastiness that is hard to bear.
To see a positive black woman (wife, mother, daughter, friend, and lawyer) get so much attention is amazing to me indeed.
Doug,
I was working on my book and that Cosby piece at the same time--and I'd just been laid-off. I gained, like, 20 pounds trying to get that done. Was a bad time, bro. But good things came out of it.
can't wait to read it!
and i love the word "conversating"... use it all the time (in the right company, of course ;)
This was a lovely, lovely piece TNC.
One thing I would like to see addressed that I didn't hear you talk about - and maybe it wasn't relevant, but I'm not convinced - is how this person gets to prove herself a "positive black woman" through a near-exclusive appeal to traditional motherhood. The point is well-taken that there aren't a lot of "doting black wife and mother" role models out there. But there also aren't a lot of "black women professionals," and yet the latter not a route either she or I can see her taking and becoming "accessible" by it in the same way as she is for this, y'know?
I think this ties into the points you've been making recently (or perhaps for longer, I've only read here for six months or so) about the strong strain of black conservatism that exists when it comes to issues of family and sexuality. I wish that point had played into the article as well, because I do sometimes, as a feminist (and this is a white one talking, I want to reveal potential biases) worry about the media (and public discourse) getting too excited about Michelle as a doting wife and mother. I want to be excited about her as a strong, thoughtful person, just like people are about Barack. But maybe we're not there yet.
Just read the Michelle Obama article. You're doing exactly what I want to do--should be finished with my master's in literature in the next month or so, and I am wishing mightily I had your job and the chance to do the pieces you've done. As envious as I am, I can't help but be amazed by how well you've made Michelle's case--and the case of the thousands of women like her. My mother, my sisters, my friends and I identify with Obama because she's just as black as we are, just as hard working and proud and just as American as we are. It's about damn time that the rest of the country recoginize and accept that. Thank you.
Wow! To paraphrase an old Jerry Lee Lewis song, that left me breathless.
I'd like to offer that pop culture--specifically rock 'n roll--has given a leg up to washing away the stinging bite of racism that was etched atthe core of this country's creation. Slaves--both black and Chinese--built this country, but we all know who has suffered the most--not just black folks but women of all races and creeds. That stated, the times have been a'changin for some time, and what most excites me about Michelle--and I have stood just feet away from this beautiful woman--is her softness on the edges, which First Lady Hilary didn't have, and couldn't fool us into THINKING she had, with that lame chocolate chip cookie recipe the Clinton WH proffered after her health care bill died in midair.
Michelle and Barack are in love; there is no denying this from the body language to the verbal exchanges. She is unafraid to tease him and doesn't care if a damn camera is stuck in their faces, she's gonna--gently--put her man on slight blast if warranted. Yet, the Love Light never stops shining in her eyes.
Ta, I take it you meant "laid off".
I could stand to lose about 20 pounds myself after this last year.
Another gem. Excellent article.
Yeah, I did. Fixt.
TNC,
That was an inspiring piece on an inspiring topic. Well done!
BG, this statement,
That stated, the times have been a'changin for some time, and what most excites me about Michelle--and I have stood just feet away from this beautiful woman--is her softness on the edges, which First Lady Hilary didn't have, and couldn't fool us into THINKING she had, with that lame chocolate chip cookie recipe the Clinton WH proffered after her health care bill died in midair.
is kind of nuts to me. So women need to be soft for you to like them?
Great article, TNC. I'm still trying to work-out the themes of the article as they relate to my own experience because they resonate but I haven't pinned down with what exactly.
@Michelle: I'm confused about what you mean about there being "no black women professionals?" Are you referring to what's shown in the media???
Because we ARE here.
I have an MBA in finance and work as a financial analyst. As I type this comment I am thinking of 4 other friends with similar educational backgrounds. And that's just in my immediate circle. And of course, having a graduate degree is not the only qualifier for being a working professional but I daresay we aren't living in the shadows.
Nice piece, Coates. I agree with your dad about your hook, which I must admit is effective, being a little bit of a stretch. I also think that, while your presentation of Michelle as a sensible symbol for the "Newfangled Post-Racial Era" where, gasp - Black people are regular people - is a good vehicle for conveying the sense that racial attitudes and images have shifted, the fact that those attitudes are simply beginning to reflect a reality that's been here all along must not be overshadowed by the anointment of some sort of symbolic personage, as you yourself have strongly argued many times. Not that your article does overshadow the complex reality with an appeal to simplistic symbolism; but I would have edited some of that stuff about her symbolic stature down.
Those are minor gripes; mostly your article was very enjoyable and insightful. It will seem obvious to our grandchildren but it hasn't replaced tired stereotypes in our own consciousness - for all races of Americans - yet: our unique little branches over here are all coming off the human tree and in their intertwined togetherness and paths they make up Americanism.
T-N.C.: No time to read the article now, but maybe my dead tree version will be in the mailbox tonight. (Hint, hint, you all should be supporting The Atlantic by subscribing).
Loved the video with your father -- never would have placed him as a Black Panther. Guess I need to read your book to learn more about the "unlikely road." Gotta say: I don't think Pops ever bought into your explanation for saying you first thought Michelle was white. As I listened to you, though, I thought of a lady named Eddie Bernice Johnson, a Democratic member of Congress from Dallas. I first saw her in the early 1970s when she was elected to the Texas Legislature, and she had about her the same absence of tension that you attribute to Mrs. O. At the time, this was even more striking, since the civil rights movement was still in full swing, and she was one of the first black women in Austin. Barbara Jordan was there too, but she exuded tension -- eloquent, elegant, but righteously indignant too.
Good article, full of insights. What I find most striking about the Obamas is that they have pulled us all -- black, white, whatever -- around an important corner. What we glimpse ahead down the block, I can only hope, is that they are not extra-ordinary, but merely the foremost examples of the modern reality.
Yes, Tiffany, I mean in the media. I know that you exist. I'm just saying that it isn't what's making Michelle Obama so "recognizable" as TNC is arguing in the article, and indeed, I can understand why: professional women are, like Hillary, immediately typecast as screamers, and it would have played into Angry Black Women stereotypes.
I read the piece during lunch. Well done. I already subscribed to the dead-tree Atlantic to support you and Fallows, but I will get some friends to pick up this issue.
Very beautifully written, Ta-Nehisi.
I hope that Michelle Obama reads it and that you hear from her.
TNC --
Dude, you really got to the heart of it.
I'm a white Canadian man
married to a smart well educated SouthSideWoman.
She has four powerful Aunties who
still live in Chicago,
and they too ...
... are simply American Women.
Thanks for this insightful piece,
I'm sending it to all my family.
Barack Obama's coalition--the young, the black, the urban, the hip--was originally assembled by hip-hop.
An excellent point and what looks to be an excellent article. I'll be picking it up. I agree with you whole-heartedly about it. Perhaps now blacks can be Americans in the fullest sense. I think that's amazing. I never, never thought I'd see the day when black Americans could/would be regarded and regard themselves as a "branch on the American tree."
I am younger than Michelle by nearly a generation and I struggle to regard myself in such a light though I know it is, in a very real sense, my truth too.
I swear, this whole having a black President thing -- no, it's having this black President -- is so much deeper than I imagined it would be. So much more than box-checking, more than vindication, more than fairness, more than cause for pride or relief. It's just psycho-socially immense, you know.
Nice to see you and your dad interact also!
after 12 i'm worse then a gremlin, feed me hiphop and i start tremblin
i love when people refer to her as michelle robinson.
The best small bit I ever read in a murder mystery involved Kate Fansler, the professor-detective, finally deciding she had to ask a graduate student why they weren't hitting it off. The student said, "I guess it's just that I've found that almost all white women are silly." Fansler's reply: "I know exactly what you mean." I called my own (white) mother to read it out loud.
Michelle Obama always strikes me as bringing an important value added to the business of female and American, in the tough impression that real work needs to get done and she plans to do a big share of it, and in the wit that never underestimates the work and in the smile that tells you it's going to get done with some fun. That clearly comes from her traditions and neighborhood, and it's way better than the sugary lame gentility that shows up in my own white Southern roots.
That may be why, when I clicked to the full article and saw the "American Girl" title, I teared up in a way I haven't in weeks. We'll get stronger from recognizing that she's already us.
Wonderful work!
This article is wonderful! Big props to you for the writing, and to the Atlantic for publishing it.
I suspect you'll be receiving real flowers from Michelle Obama once she reads it.
The South Side of Chicago you depict from your interviews is the one I spent the first 27 years of my life experiencing, beginning in the late '50s.
Every chance I get I try to pass along exactly what Marian Robinson said in the last paragraph of the excerpt you posted. The more we can get this across to Americans, the better.
Perhaps more of the traditional media will follow the Atlantic's lead and allow the message to be broadcast.
Again, major props!
I do sometimes, as a feminist [...] worry about the media (and public discourse) getting too excited about Michelle as a doting wife and mother. I want to be excited about her as a strong, thoughtful person, just like people are about Barack. But maybe we're not there yet.
I think about this too, Michelle, and I am a black woman and a feminist. But I do think that the issue with recognizing black women as "soft," "doting," wives and mothers is a bit different than recognizing white women as such. Don't get me wrong, it's all folded into the question of who gets to decide what the "feminine ideal" is and how that plays out in terms of what kind of behaviors are admirable for women to exhibit, but there are different pre-conceptions about 'how black women are' in comparison to other 'kinds' of women.
Recognizing a black woman as this version of the feminine ideal is rare. Think about it. There are few such representations. On the contrary, I would say there are far more representations, at least regarding middle-class images, of professional black women than doting moms. The professional black woman seems to be a species of "strong black woman" and that's a stereotype that has a lot of impact and staying power. It's also cut many ways both positive and negative.
On the one hand, the popular narrative is an acknowledgement of the fact of black female endurance and perseverance in the face of incredible obstacles. That's a legacy I claim with pride.
But it is also a stereotype that puts the undue burden of invulnerability and even invincibility on the idea of responsible black womanhood. That's clearly a myth and, if Melissa Harris Lacewell is right, it's a myth that is psychologically and politically damaging to black women.
That makes the characterization of Michelle as "soft" and motherly (but not in a mammy-like way, in a someone-desirable-who-is-someone-desirable's wife way) very complex to evaluate. It is a very, very different way to view black womanhood -- one that acknowledges the (basically pedestrian) complexity of black womanhood in a way that is rarely celebrated. And in a way that humanizes black women. On the other hand, it's viewing black womanhood according to a standard that is arguably quite narrow and deeply flawed.
It's a funny thing. It does speak to Ta-nehisi's point about the all-Americanness that Michelle is able to project. I can't think of a black woman in popular memory that could command the all-American woman narrative that Michelle seems to carry off with ease and panache . That seems to me very striking, even if the definition of all-American-womanhood needs updating.
Anyway, thought provoking. Thanks.
Coates,
I have never thought of Michelle Obama as White. When I hear her, I hear myself. I grew up in a Black neighborhood with both my parents. My parents both worked, but my parents were always around somehow. We lived next door to my mother's brother and sister. Another uncle lived a few blocks away. And an aunt lived maybe a mile. Family dinner was Wednesday.
I went to the Black grocery stores in the neighborhood. The parks were safe, and your parents never thought about danger when they let you go outside. I think I was probably part of the last group of Black kids that the parents' only instructions to you were: you better be in this house by the time the streetlights come on. I never saw anything White about Michelle Obama's upbringing. I saw the Invisible Black America that has always existed.
That said, good article.
PS-your father continues to be too cool for words.
Just read this through--wonderful work, TNC. I don't have any wondrous insight to add or specific comments. It's just damn wonderful work. A beautiful piece of work.
Thank you.
TNC, let me add my kudos for an excellent article.
I really liked when you talked about leaving your black circle and moving into the white world.
I am a suburban middle class white guy. I grew up in the burbs outside New Haven CT. I got myself into a little trouble in my late teens and was given the option of going to a Job Corps program. I stepped from the white into the black world. I had no idea what a game of spades was, the electric slide, and a whole host of other things that would be considered black culture. At this particular Job Corps program the staff was mostly black, the person in charge was black, it was run by a black owned company. I had never been in a position where I was the minority. it took me a month or so before I had a handle on how things worked. I spent the first month there just observing everything. The white dudes were not like me, most were poor, and they had huge chips on their shoulders, or they came from the hood and were Eminems in training. I ended up playing in their intramural basketball league and being taken under the wing of one of the cool guys on campus, and never looked back. I ended up with two of my best friends for life from that experience and I ended up working for the same Job Corps as a counselor after I graduated college.
Being in the Job Corps program for a year plus and then working there for four years left me with knowledge few white people ever get, and it left me with an appreciation for black culture and I can boast that I have won two spades championships, and a dominoes trophy, I can do the electric slide, I know my hip hop, and R+B, but I also never appropriated the culture. No one would ever mistake me for Eminem, but I knew Rakim was the greatest rapper even when he was still with Eric B.
I guess what I am trying to say is I came from a stable background where I knew little about races other than my own, and I thought that part of your article was what jumped out to me.
I also love reading history I am not aware of and now I am looking for books about Chicago's South Side.
Also, about that conversation with your father, you quoted Bill Cosby, and I disagree with him. Black folk have always had to carve out a world for themselves. You listen to the Elders, and yes, there was segregation, but there was an entire world where they existed amongst themselves. My mother grew up in Jim Crow Mississippi and my father in Jim Crow Tennessee, yet, they remember a world of support under suppression. Up North, I listen to Elders about Chicago ' back in the day', and the thing was yes, they were redlined, forced into certain communities, but the thing was, everyone was there, from the lawyer to the bum, and they remember something positive about that. About having all those eyes look out for you so by the time you got home after doing something wrong, your parents weren't the first person to repremand you, they were the last.
I have an African American friend, a woman who grew up in segregated "Bombingham" Alabama. My friend's father and others in their segregated neighborhood all kept shot guns and rifles in their homes, to protect their families and homes from their fellow Americans. One of her childhood friends was one of the "Four Little Girls." My friend's father and mother doted on their precious little girl, giving her unconditional love and support. Her parents also worked long and hard in their church and community, folks said that its hard to find a Black child who went to college from their community that wasn't helped along the way by my friend's father. Later, my friend went on to earn advanced degrees and serve at the highest levels of academia and government and like her father did in Birmingham, she started an after school program for children in the defacto segregated neighborhood of East Palo Alto, Ca. In the last eight years she has become one of the most famous and most examined woman in the world. And yes, my friend's name is Condoleezza Rice.
Now before the haters get started, hear me out. I do not know Mrs. Obama but I do know Condi and marital status and politics aside, from what I've seen and read, as African American women, they probably have more in common than one would imagine. Professional drive, personal discipline, almost limitless intelligence, love of family, lively interest in fashion, and almost identical hairstyles! But what they appear to share most of all is a steely determination to define themselves on their own terms.
This last will serve Mrs. Obama well when she becomes the nation's first African American First Lady. As Barbara Bush's press secretary and the first African American WH press secretary, I can tell you she will need to summon every bit of that determination to both avoid the pit falls that surely await her and put her own unique stamp on a position that is shrouded in the traditions and mythology of our nation's racist past. As an Obama supporter (I sent money in '07) I wish Mrs. Obama and her family godspeed.
Ms. Perez,
I always appreciate your comments. The one that sticks out the most for me is the one about the cost of Obama's campaign, and how he was fighting against 300 years of stereotypes, so he needed every single penny.
Coates,
I forgot to add that I'm jealous. I've always wanted to meet Timuel Black. He's a hero of mine. I don't want to call him the Black Man's Studs Terkel.
So, I'll just say that Studs was the White Man's Timuel Black. The man just drips knowledge.
I always wondered if Timuel Black and John Hope Franklin had ever met. The two of them know so much about the Black experience: Black - the Northern, Franklin - the Southern.
I knew that I could sit for hours listening to the two of them.
@rikyrah 6:55 PM
I could have written that comment with the only change being that my parents were Jim Crow Birmingham.
When we reminisce about our childhood in Chicago, my older brother always mentions that one of the worst things to happen to the low income members of the black community was the desegregation of Chicago in the late '60s.
As you mention, prior to that we all lived and thrived together. As a child back then you really thought three times about doing something wrong. Whether you did was dependent upon how many butt whippings you were willing to take BEFORE your parents got a hold to you. Talk about a deterent. The good 'ol days.
Once the middle class blacks were able to buy homes in neighborhoods on the far South Side, such as Morgan Park, Beverly and the like, the poorest blacks were left to fend for themselves in the inner-city.
After that happened, city services in the inner-city decreased, schools suffered and crime increased. Unfortunately, media coverage focused only on the inner-city blacks. The only time a "middle-class" black family was featured was after someone had burned a cross in their newly acquired yard.
With Obama's win, I'm thinking that the traditional media will finally begin to balance the coverage. This article by TNC gives me hope.
I mean, it can only be right around the corner before TNC is being interviewed on the morning shows instead of Ann Coulter. Right?
rikyrah,
What a nice surprise, thank you so much. TNC is my favorite site, both for our host's incisive, thoughtful and sometimes way funny commentary and that of posters like you.
Rik,
Thanks for all your comments. I've gone over that "white" thing like 100 times, mostly cause--as you can tell--my Dad hated. I hope, though, by the time you get to the end of the article, folks understand that there is so much more there, and that the statement isn't supposed to be taken literally, or even in the sense of "acting white."
Also. Tim Black is god. That is all.
Ta-Nehisi,
What a pleasure to receive my copy of The Atlantic in the mail and to find your wonderful article in it. I continue to be a big fan and daily reader of your blog. Your postings and your readers' comments really expand the boundaries of my world (and often make me chuckle), and for this I thank you all. Ta-Nehisi, you are a beautiful writer and a beautiful person. The interview with your dad was A+. He's a real class act, too. A belated thanks for travelling to Massachusetts last fall.
Ta-Nehisi,
great article. The black south side is "leaving the room". Or at least a good portion of the working class/middle class portion of the population. In the 1980's those folks started leaving the city at an accelerated pace following the paths of the whites who left decades earlier.
They have largely gone to the south suburban area and to a lesser extent a few western suburbs.
The middle class black areas on the south side are largely becoming less middle class and more "thug". Chatham, which is a great middle class black neighborhood is experiencing serious problems. Hyde Park and Kenwood where the Obama's lived and worked is largely mixed race.
The following is a good resource to give folks an idea of what some of these neighborhoods look like. Search terms like "Chatham", "South Shore", "Bronzeville", "south side" etc.
http://flickr.com/photos/yochicago1/alltags/
There is a dead military theorist by the name of John Boyd who liked to say every solution creates another problem. Tearing down the highrise public housing in Chicago, which needed to be done, has adversely affected many middle class black areas. Ending segregation, which anyone outside of Bobby Rush or the ghost of Jesse Helms might consider to be a "good", had adverse effects on the cohesiveness of the black community.
I venture to guess that the "South Shore" of Michelle Robinson's past is past and frankly was probably not as idyllic as she remembers it. She was lucky to have had family which protected her from much of the "bad" that existed in and near the "South Shore" of her youth.
There were solid middle income jobs well into the 70's at nearby steel mills that provided great opportunities for men, and they were largely male, to make great incomes. Those jobs were largely gone by the 80's.
Oh well. I grew up in nearby white areas in the 70's and most of my compatriots blamed "blacks" for everything wrong. Of course the word "blacks" was not the word used.
Now that we have a black President in 13 days I look forward to being able to truly blame at least one black man for my problems.
He can't do any worse than the current occupant of the White House.
TNC
I have a bone to pick with you about this article. Particularly with your 'hook' where you say that you thought 'listening' to Michelle, describe her idyllic youth and wax nostalgic about her youth made you think she was white.
I think your rationale, especially coming from a black 'educated' person, conveys a profound ignorance on your part regarding black middleclass, and working class, as well as perpetuating the mainstream stereotype that blacks are poor and uncouth.
Were you truly unaware that hundreds of thousands of blacks growing up in the 60s came from intact homes with solely the father working in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland as well as Buffalo, NY? If so, what created such a profound cultural gap for you?
The instant I read your rationale, I realized that had Michelle been the color of Beyonce,Halle or Alicia, you would have dissed her and rejected her story on the basis of her being 'uppity' or an elite or bourgeousie?
So my question to you TNC, why are you publishing an article that perpetuates the terrible stereotype of blacks not coming from workingmiddleclass homes where moms stayed home? If you were unaware of this you need to read up on our culture and not perpetuate these socioeconomic myths.
Michelle's story is familiar to hundreds of thousands of blacks who grew up in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. It is not NEW.
I really resent that you as a young black person are actually going to put this ridiculous notion back out there in there in the mainstream. Because it is the same nonsense black children have to endure when they are called 'white' in their neighborhoods, simply because they care about academics.
You have done our culture a disservice by putting forth this perspective as pervasive WITHIN our own culture.
I expect this from whites but not from an educated man who writes about sororitys and being educated at a HBCU. Somewhere along the line you missed out on the significance of black pride and more importantly the deterioration of black communities with the advent of drugs and out of wedlock births.
Unbelievable that you actually are publishing this for mainstream consumption as a black perspective.
Mr. Wit: As a white guy, I was a little puzzled and intrigued by that opening graf. By the time I finished the piece (a good one, TNC, the reason I bought the issue), I understood his point entirely. It was a point well made, and said a lot about the external and internal realities of growing up black in America in a certain time and place.
But you? You either didn't read beyond the first few grafs, didn't understand it, or are just being a troll.