Michelle Obama is glad she and Barack never had a son: 'I would've felt for him'

[Michie]

Former first lady Michelle Obama said during a recent podcast that she's glad she never had a son because he would have been like her husband.

Speaking with her brother Craig Robinson and radio host Angie Martinez on a Wednesday episode of her hour-long podcast “IMO,” Obama and the others spoke at length about raising children and the potential dangers of toxic masculinity.

Toward the end of the episode, Obama bristled when Martinez said that she and her husband should have had a son in addition to their two daughters, Sasha and Malia.

Continued below.

Michelle Obama is glad she and Barack never had a son: 'I would've felt for him'

Former first lady Michelle Obama said during a recent podcast that she s glad she never had a son because he would have been like her husband

www.christianpost.com

 

[RileyG]

What an odd comment.

 

[RDKirk]

Everything she and Barack says lately turns black men more and more away from them.

 

[The Barbarian]

I had a colleague, a black man, a CPA, who expressed fear for his son after reading yet another story in which a black security guard subduing a gunman was shot and killed by a police officer arriving on the scene, who assumed that the security guard was the assailant. (The gunman was white).

I said that I thought if I was black, I'd be angry most of the time, given how often these things happen.

He quoted James Baldwin.

“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. ”​

​

 

[RDKirk]

I had a colleague, a black man, a CPA, who expressed fear for his son after reading yet another story in which a black security guard subduing a gunman was shot and killed by a police officer arriving on the scene, who assumed that the security guard was the assailant. (The gunman was white).

I said that I thought if I was black, I'd be angry most of the time, given how often these things happen.

He quoted James Baldwin.

“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. ”​

​

You say "yet another" as though it happened every day. Or even every week. Or even every year.

But it doesn't.

What do we really know versus what we think we know?

How many unarmed black men are killed by police across the country every year? A thousand? Five hundred? One hundred?

How about 10? And no more than the number of white men killed by the police.

Roland Fryer, a black professor of economics at Harvard University in 2016, released an in-depth study analyzing police use of force. Fryer found strong evidence of racial disparities in non‑lethal force (being handcuffed, shoved, tasered, et cetera), but found that there were no statistically significant racial differences in police shootings, including shootings of unarmed black men, when contextual factors were accounted for.

The academic community was outraged, of course, but his methodology was solid. He says that he was astounded by the results of his own study, which conflicted so directly with what he himself believed, so much so that he replicated it three times to be sure.

 

[The Barbarian]

You say "yet another" as though it happened every day. Or even every week. Or even every year.

But it doesn't.

As you suggest, context matters. How many white security guards, subduing a black gunman, have been shot and killed by a police officer, mistaking him for the gunman?

Don't know, but I'm guessing none.

 

[Hentenza]

As you suggest, context matters. How many white security guards, subduing a black gunman, have been shot and killed by a police officer, mistaking him for the gunman?

Don't know, but I'm guessing none.

What if the police officer was black?

 

[RDKirk]

As you suggest, context matters. How many white security guards, subduing a black gunman, have been shot and killed by a police officer, mistaking him for the gunman?

Don't know, but I'm guessing none.

Well, I spent a number of years doing security, and I wasn't killed.

I did get shot at a couple of times, but that was by black criminals.

And I have been shoved around by the police once, and that was by black police.

 

[The Barbarian]

And I have been shoved around by the police once, and that was by black police.

Would black police tend to accept the cultural biases of their fellow officers?

 

[The Barbarian]

A full decade after Illinois mandated that all law enforcement agencies in the state collect and record data about every traffic stop as a means of curbing racial profiling, a study today pointed to continuing signs of troubling racial bias in so-called consent searches by police. The findings, released by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, are drawn from data from the Illinois Department of Transportation, reflecting reporting from Illinois law enforcement agencies during 2013 under the Illinois Traffic Stop Statistical Study Act.
The data reveals, as an example, that statewide across Illinois, African American and Latino drivers are nearly twice as likely as white drivers to be asked during a routine traffic stop for "consent" to have their car searched. Yet white motorists are 49% more likely than African American motorists to have contraband discovered during a consent search by law enforcement, and 56% more likely when compared to Latinos.

Traffic stop data shows persistent patterns of racial bias, according to new report

A full decade after Illinois mandated that all law enforcement agencies in the state collect and record data about every traffic stop as a means of curbing racial profiling, a study today pointed to continuing signs of troubling racial bias in so-called consent searches by police.

www.aclu-il.org

Hard to buck culture, even if one has good intentions.

 

[RDKirk]

Would black police tend to accept the cultural biases of their fellow officers?

This was in DC. Most of the police officers, including the brass, were black.

 

[RDKirk]

Former first lady Michelle Obama said during a recent podcast that she's glad she never had a son because he would have been like her husband.

Speaking with her brother Craig Robinson and radio host Angie Martinez on a Wednesday episode of her hour-long podcast “IMO,” Obama and the others spoke at length about raising children and the potential dangers of toxic masculinity.

Toward the end of the episode, Obama bristled when Martinez said that she and her husband should have had a son in addition to their two daughters, Sasha and Malia.

Continued below.

Michelle Obama is glad she and Barack never had a son: 'I would've felt for him'

Former first lady Michelle Obama said during a recent podcast that she s glad she never had a son because he would have been like her husband

www.christianpost.com

Michelle has been saying a lot of things over the last few years that indicate she doesn't respect her husband.

I was intensely annoyed when she claimed to have been a "married single mother" when her children were young because Barack was always at political meetings...

...doing what was necessary to become President of the United States, making them millionaires and giving their daughters access to the highest societies in the world.

 

[Michie]

Michelle has been saying a lot of things over the last few years that indicate she doesn't respect her husband.

I was intensely annoyed when she claimed to have been a "married single mother" when her children were young because Barack was always at political meetings...

...doing what was necessary to become President of the United States, making them millionaires and giving their daughters access to the highest societies in the world.

She’s extremely spoiled. I really am not a fan of her’s… more so now. She keeps talking about her husband’s ego. I think her’s might be a bit more to grapple with. One thing I can say about Obama is he always spoke of her in glowing terms. Never said anything against her publicly. That more than I can say for her.

 

[FireDragon76]

Michelle has been saying a lot of things over the last few years that indicate she doesn't respect her husband.

I was intensely annoyed when she claimed to have been a "married single mother" when her children were young because Barack was always at political meetings...

...doing what was necessary to become President of the United States, making them millionaires and giving their daughters access to the highest societies in the world.

I think it just reflects the dawning realization that the cultural narrative of personal success has run its course and people are starting to see it as hollow. They haven't quite put their finger on the solution yet, but they are searching.

After all, what did Obama really accomplish? Changing the world, or simply managing (less Neo, more Architect, to use a Matrix metaphor)? The systems-logic informed managerial neoliberalism wrapped-in-respectability approach lost its moral and existential weight in 2020 when the Q-Anon Shaman stormed the Capitol with his buddies.

 

[RDKirk]

I think it just reflects the dawning realization that the cultural narrative of personal success has run its course and people are starting to see it as hollow. They haven't quite put their finger on the solution yet, but they are searching.

She wasn't being that deep. She was in the company of a group of working-class women all complaining about their husbands who were spending too many hours working to support a family.

The difference was, her husband had become President of the United States, and their husbands were bus drivers.

One of those women was not like the others.

 

[Aldebaran]

What an odd comment.

It sure is! And I'm sure Barack probably wish he did have a son, as evidenced by when he once said, "If I had a son, he'd look like Treyvon" (referring to a black guy who was shot after attacking and trying to kill another guy).

 

[FireDragon76]

She wasn't being that deep. She was in the company of a group of working-class women all complaining about their husbands who were spending too many hours working to support a family.

Just because a person is working-class doesn't mean they can't perceive the system is based on hollow ideology that lacks gravity. That's why increasingly, many people are starting to quietly rebel against the logic of the system, such as having few or no children.

 

[RDKirk]

Just because a person is working-class doesn't mean they can't perceive the system is based on hollow ideology that lacks gravity. That's why increasingly, many people are starting to quietly rebel against the logic of the system, such as having few or no children.

You missed the point. The point wasn't about those women, it was about Michelle Obama kvetching as though her situation was the same as theirs.

But okay.

 

[RDKirk]

That's why increasingly, many people are starting to quietly rebel against the logic of the system, such as having few or no children.

Regarding fighting against the system in that way, I sympathize with the lack of money, but it's going to make the matters worse.

The retired generation always, always, always depends on the economic activity of the working generation. That's been true for all of human existence, and it will be true in the future, no matter what economic system there might be.

Unless the plan is to go Soylent Green.

 

[FireDragon76]

Regarding fighting against the system in that way, I sympathize with the lack of money, but it's going to make the matters worse.

The retired generation always, always, always depends on the economic activity of the working generation. That's been true for all of human existence, and it will be true in the future, no matter what economic system there might be.

Unless the plan is to go Soylent Green.

It's really a question of justice and equity, not a lack of resources. Changes in the workfore like automation have increase productivity, corporate profits, and so on. Eventually, there is going to be a reckoning, people won't put up with immiseration forever. Opting out of the system's logic, even in quiet ways (not having children), is a way to disrupt the system.