Former first lady Michelle Obama condemned white people for fleeing minority neighborhoods just weeks after she and her husband purchased a $15 million estate in Martha’s Vineyard.
Martha’s Vineyard is 95 percent white and just two percent black.
Martha’s Vineyard is almost as white as an Elizabeth Warren rally.
Martha’s Vineyard is whiter than my subdivision here in rural North Carolina.
Martha’s Vineyard is whiter than MSNBC.
During a Tuesday appearance at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago, she said, “But unbeknownst to us, we grew up in the period — as I write — called ‘white flight.’ That as families like ours, upstanding families like ours … As we moved in, white folks moved out because they were afraid of what our families represented.”
“And I always stop there when I talk about this out in the world because, you know, I want to remind white folks that y’all were running from us.” She went on, “This family with all the values that you’ve read about. You were running from us. And you’re still running, because we’re no different than the immigrant families that are moving in … the families that are coming from other places to try to do better.”
Did I mention that Michelle and Barry just purchased a $15 million estate in Martha’s Vineyard, which is 95 percent white?
Oh, and did I mention the Obamas own a second home, an $8 million mansion, in the exclusive DC neighborhood of Kalorama, which is 80 percent white and just four percent black.
Oh, and did I mention the Obamas have a third home, a $5.3 million mansion, in Rancho Mirage, California, which is 89 percent white and just 2.6 percent black.
Oh, sure, the Obamas still own their Chicago home in Hyde Park, which is at least 26 percent black. But you would think they could do better than 26 percent!
I like Michelle Obama. I have always liked Michelle Obama. I’ve never said an unkind word about her, quite the opposite, and while I find her politics ignorant, she was a terrific first lady.
But this is nuts…
Not only is she attacking white people for seeking a better standard of living, which I can assure you (as I will explain below) has little to do with racism, she is also attacking whites after she herself “fled” to 95 percent white Martha’s Vineyard (I will never stop repeating this point) and two other homes in areas where the black population is less than 5 percent.
Worse still, she is putting white people in a position where they can never win, where they are damned if they do or don’t, where they are always and forever racist.
If white people move out of a black neighborhood, they’re racists engaging in white flight.
But…
And this is important…
If white people move into a minority neighborhood, they are also racists for either engaging in gentrification — which is just another form of cultural genocide, donchaknow — or cultural appropriation.
Now I’m going to tell you a little something about white flight, from my own experience…
Because I was poor, back in the mid-eighties, I lived in the inner-city of Milwaukee for two years. My wife and I did not flee (my wife is not white, by the way) because of “icky minorities” (did I mention my wife is not white?), we fled because it was not safe to live there. It was never safe. Over those two years, we had been mugged, robbed, and had our car stolen. That’s why we left.
And when we fled, it was to a community that was still not as white as *ahem* Martha’s Vineyard.
In 2002, my wife and I moved to California for nine years and lived in an East Los Angeles neighborhood that was just four percent white. For nearly a decade, I was outnumbered 96-4 and never gave it a thought because I was not outnumbered. A darker skin tone, an accent, and different religious traditions did not make my neighbors any less American than me, and when I am among Americans I am among my own. We left because predominantly white leftists are destroying California.
Then there’s my poor dad…
He moved to the Northside of Milwaukee in 1980, and spent decades, a lot of money, and a ton of sweat, remodeling his home, building a garage, and paying that home off. He intended to retire there. And yes, there were black people in his neighborhood when he moved in, and for most of his adult life he worked in predominantly black institutions. He never intended to move, and held on for as long as he could… He didn’t flee because of black people. He was not forced to start all over at age 67 because he suddenly decided he didn’t like blacks. He left because he was robbed, because gangs started tagging his house and garage, because it was no longer safe to live there.
You know…
If we’re going to shame people for such things, what does it say to black people when other black people, especially the first black president and his family, reject them? What the hell kind of message is this to send to black Americans, especially when the Obamas can afford the security to live safely in any neighborhood they choose?
And if the Obamas wanted to live in Southern California, why choose Rancho Mirage over Ladera Heights, the Black Beverly Hills, a predominantly black neighborhood as swank as any in America?
Shame on Michelle and Barack Obama. They have the money and profile to make an important statement on this issue, but they obviously prefer to live in overwhelmingly white neighborhoods.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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