Michelle Obama’s Slavery Roots: Why Should We Care?

Well, why is this something by which to be impressed?  Why should there be a CBS segment dedicated to her ancestry?  And lastly, is Michelle Obama’s story typical?

Despite the slight hint of sarcasm in the introduction of this article, I am attempting to get to the bottom of why this should be such a fascinating discovery for many people.  Michelle Obama’s family history of slavery and rape is not unknown to most “African Americans.”  The main difference between Michelle Obama’s story and the story of the average descendent of slaves, is that she knows more of her history than most people do.  Her fame makes it more interesting to look into her history.  It seems CBS is trying to make this look like some kind of triumphant “rags to riches” story that shows how dramatically the States has changed since the time of her Shields ancestory.

Image via Wikipedia

Unfortunately, I believe that although Barack Obama’s presidency has made it rather obvious that race relations in this country have changed dramatically, I also believe that his presidency has shown just how divided this country still is.  All this hateful rhetoric about “taking the country back” is just one example of the ways people code their racism with some weird form of blind patriotism that really doesn’t make any sense.  The video below will serve to further illustrate my point:

This singer, Chris Cassone, basically compares the death of three thousand people at the hands of the Taliban to what they think are the political injustices occurring within “their” country.  Who, exactly, are they taking the country back from?  What kind of people?

So, if the ultimate point of CBS’s vaguely interesting cover of Michelle Obama’s ancestry is supposed to give the audience a clue about the steps this government has taken in completing the American story, then they better realize that there’s plenty more  story to be told.  Maybe when I see an East Asian American president or a woman president then I’ll begin to think that we have taken some major strides in race relations in this country.  And while everyone is patting themselves on the back for being so progressive–y’know, voting a black man into office and everything, we can just completely forget about all the other kinds of people that get left out of the dialogue.