Speaking to hundreds of graduates of Jackson State University over the weekend, First Lady Michelle Obama launched into what sounded more like a stump speech for her husband rather than an encouraging and uplifting commencement speech to send attendees off into the world that awaits them.
But the nature of her politically and racially charged address was written specifically for the audience she stood before: a historically black Mississippi college. Though it decried the "anger and vitriol" of politics, Mrs. Obama's speech had plenty of its own to serve. But first, she buttered up the audience to rousing applause with a bit of President Obama's accomplishments to ensure his legacy:
"We all know that empathy, that preparation, that moral compass, that relentless work ethic has led to so much progress over the past seven years. We've gone from the brink of another Great Depression in this country to our businesses creating more than 14 million new jobs. Our unemployment rate has been cut in half. Our deficits are down by two-thirds. Our high school graduation rates are the highest on record. Over 20 million more people now have health insurance. And people in this country are finally free to marry the person they love.
"And on the global stage, the vast majority of our troops are home today and our country isn't putting our heads in the sand on climate change. No, we are leading the way to stop it. I could go on and on, but that's the progress we've seen under this president. That's the kind of change we all hoped was possible eight years ago."
Then enter the evil Republican Party, who in her assessment, has tried everything within its power to stop this "progress." This was the part of her speech where she invoked divisive language to denounce the terrible divisive language in politics; the part that crescendoed as Mrs. Obama related her husband's Republican opposition to those voices that opposed blacks during the civil rights era. (It must've slipped her mind that her and her husband's own party was responsible for that.) Again, she knew her audience well:
"We pay endless attention to folks who are blocking action, blocking judges, blocking immigration, blocking a raise in the minimum wage. Just blocking! We are consumed with the anger and vitriol that are bubbling up with folks shouting at each other, using hateful and divisive language. And then there are the countless times when that language gets personal and is directed at my husband; charges that he doesn't love our country, the time he was called a liar in front of a joint session of Congress. The nonstop questions about his birth certificate and his belief in God!"
Mrs. Obama went on to complain that too many people spend too much time with their own kind, whether that's with like-minded friends on Facebook or preferred news programs that "tell us only what we want to hear." (Presumably a slam on Fox News, while forgetting the VAST choices in liberal media doing the same.) Given that, she said, it's not "surprising" that people disagree with others and that attacks are becoming more personal (read: racist).
"Those age-old issues," Obama continued, "that have always roiled our country."
"The problems a lot of folks would rather brush under the rug," she said. "Those challenges are still with us today. We can't deny it."
Mrs. Obama noted that despite the echoes of racism in these "volatile times," at least they aren't as racist as they used to be:
"No longer can we be barred from a university or hotel or arrested for sitting at the front of the bus, or forced to use a separate bathroom or water fountain because of the color of our skin."
Yeah, that was fifty years ago. And thanks in large part to your husband, the racial tension and animus are worse than they've been since then.
Watch video from the audience below:
