Michelle Obama: More Than They Want You to Know

After reading two fine pieces at No Quarter, the first by Bud White and Medusa and the second by TexasDarlin I began to look at some similarities. So while researching into the life of Stokley Carmichael, the mentor of Michelle Obama, the first thing that popped out at me was an amazing similarity between the rantings of Carmichael and the ravings of spiritual mentor to Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright.

It is no coincidence that both Obamas have an affinity for this black separatist mentality. Just consider one of the more radical statements from Jeremiah Wright. The one where he blames the US government of creating AIDS to kill black folk. Now look at what Carmichael stated:

His last words !

In 1967, U.S. imperialism was seriously planning to assassinate me. It still is, this time by an FBI induced cancer, the latest in the white man’s arsenal of chemical and biological warfare, as I am more determined to destroy it today than in 1967.

One should note that this belief of institutionalized oppression predates the work of Cone and his Black Liberation Theology. In other words, it was from The Nation of Islam that Black Liberation Theology had it’s real roots, not from Cone as some would have you believe. Witness this praise from Carmichael to the Nation of Islam.

In 1966, when I had just been elected Chairperson of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, my first official act, was to visit the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. It is then that he ordered all members of the Fruit of Islam to protect me wherever I traveled, anywhere in the world. I am still under that umbrella of protection today, here in Africa, in Guinea. I could never be ungrateful to the Nation of Islam, to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, nor to his incarnation - Minister Louis Farrakhan.

Carmichael was not a real civil rights leader as some proclaim. He wasn’t interested in reconciliation and integration. He was into separation and revolution. Very pro black and anti-white.

Stokely Carmichael, Rights Leader Who Coined ‘Black Power,’ Dies at 57

”When you talk of black power, you talk of building a movement that will smash everything Western civilization has created,” he told black audiences.

~snip~

”We are preparing groups of urban guerrillas for our defense in the cities,” he said. ”It is going to be a fight to the death.”

In 1967 Carmichael became the honorary Prime Minister of the Black Panthers. But after a short time Carmichael renounced the Black Panthers because they weren’t radical enough for him.

Most troubling, and perhaps in Michelle Obama’s eyes most alluring, was his shift away from any alliance whatsoever with anyone white. In a public letter of resignation from the Black Panthers, Carmichael stated as one of his reasons for leaving:

”its dogmatic party line favoring alliances with white radicals.”

Here is a little video about the Black Panthers from a 1968 film called “Off The Pig.” This is what Carmichael didn’t think was radical enough. Pay attention to the chant: “The revolution has come. Off the Pig! Time to pick up the gun. Off the Pig!”

And as aside, isn’t it scary how similar Huey Newton and Markos Moulitsas sound. I mean, they could have been separated at birth.

Maybe this formation of the New Black Panther Party is radical enough for Carmichael and Michelle Obama?

Just take a look at one of the precepts of the New Black Panther Party and remember that they have endorsed Barack Obama for President.

10 Point Platform

We want all Black Men and Black Women to be exempt from military service. We believe that Black People should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that holds us captive and does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black People, are being victimized by the white racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, “by any means necessary.”

By All Means Necessary. Right out of Malcolm X. To quote Fleaflicker:

Will Obama Deny Knowing the New Black Panthers?

By any means necessary? Have you read the Autobiography of Malcolm X? Do these words reflect the intent of peaceable people intent on working together to solve problems? Oh, and who was it that said his favorite book during his formative years was The Autobiography of Malcolm X? Give up? I’ll give you a clue. His initials are Barack Obama.

When one takes a look at Michelle Obama’s college thesis this all comes into very clear view. Because she wondered if it was possible to be around white people without losing her blackness. Again, back to Carmichael:

He was popular in high school, he said, and remembered dating white classmates and visiting Park Avenue apartments. ”Now that I realize how phony they all were, how I hate myself for it.” he said in the 1967 interview. ”Being liberal was an intellectual game with these cats. They were still white, and I was black.”

Now contrast this with Michelle Obama’s thesis.

Michelle Obama thesis was on racial divide

“My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my ‘blackness’ than ever before,” the future Mrs. Obama wrote in her thesis introduction. “I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don’t belong.

So hanging out with white folks made Michelle feel unaccepted. She always had issues with white folk, believing in her words as if:

Regardless of the circumstances under which I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second.

Is this a clue to why she chose to be such an active participant in a black separatist white hating and blaming church for 20 years? Or was it her belief that whites and blacks could never fully integrate so that both respected the other?

Obama writes that the path she chose by attending Princeton would likely lead to her “further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant.”

But what Obama’s thesis does not settle is whether her feeling outside was based upon actual events inside Princeton or rather her own belief system that would of course make her feel on the periphery because Princeton was largely a white majority school.

“In defining the concept of identification or the ability to identify with the black community,” the Princeton student wrote, “I based my definition on the premise that there is a distinctive black culture very different from white culture.”

So in Michelle’s eyes, one’s race determines one’s culture. It is simply a matter of the color of one’s skin that determines the manner in which one is brought up, their belief systems and their morals.

A logical expansion of this would be to say that white people, because of the color of their skin, have a separate innate belief system and have their separate innate set of morals too. In other words, it’s all in the melanin.

What seems most troubling to me is that Michelle Obama doesn’t believe in equality between the races. She seems obsessed with their being separate value systems, not necessarily equal. In fact she seems to believe that they aren’t equal at all.

Perhaps one of the most germane subjects approached in the thesis is a section in which she conveyed views about political relations between black and white communities. She quotes the work of sociologists James Conyers and Walter Wallace, who discussed “integration of black official(s) into various aspects of politics” and notes “problems which face these black officials who must persuade the white community that they are above issues of race and that they are representing all people and not just black people,” as opposed to creating “two separate social structures.”

But aren’t white politician’s held to this same standard? Don’t whites have to account for their support of all races and classes in society? Is it somehow degrading or insulting to demand that black politicians do the same?

Imagine poor Michelle’s horror when her research gave her results that she didn’t expect. But science doesn’t lie.

To research her thesis, the future Mrs. Obama sent an 18-question survey to a sampling of 400 black Princeton graduates, requesting the respondents define the amount of time and “comfort” level spent interacting with blacks and whites before they attended the school, as well as during and after their University years. Other questions dealt with their individual religious beliefs, living arrangements, careers, role models, economic status, and thoughts about lower class blacks. In addition, those surveyed were asked to choose whether they were more in line with a “separationist and/or pluralist” viewpoint or an “integrationist and/or assimilationist” ideology.

Just under 90 alums responded to the questionnaires (for a response rate of approximately 22 percent) and the conclusions were not what she expected. “I hoped that these findings would help me conclude that despite the high degree of identification with whites as a result of the educational and occupational path that black Princeton alumni follow, the alumni would still maintain a certain level of identification with the black community. However, these findings do not support this possibility.”

She hoped one thing and found out another. I imagine she was very disappointed. But rather than learn from what her experiment taught her, she decided to take the opposite track and join up with those espousing a:

“separationist and/or pluralist” viewpoint

Thus her embrace of the Stokley Carmichael, Louis Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright theology.

Black Power

Now we maintain that we cannot have white people working in the black community, and we mean it on a psychological ground. The fact is that all black people often question whether or not they are equal to whites, because every time they start to do something, white people are around showing them how to do it. If we are going to eliminate that for the generation that comes after us, then black people must be seen in positions of power, doing and articulating for themselves, for themselves.

But alas, poor Michelle misses the boat here. Because she is of the mind that her life is one of hardship. And since she is entitled, white folks should give her something.