Michelle Obama talks to teens about the idea of Community

[Matariki]

I like and admire her more and more. Both of them. Damn, we lucked out.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/10/first-lady-obama-tells-te_n_165797.html

<snip>

The First Lady made her first solo trip into the neighborhood. She visited Mary's Center a community health organization in Adam's Morgan. The most interesting part of the visit came in the last fifteen minutes of the nearly hour-long visit. She sat with a group of 9 teenagers ages 16-18 who attend after-school programs at the center. A transcript will be available, but here's the best part. It came in response to the fifth and final question from one of the students who asked: "Why did you want to come out and meet us?"

This is the best part of my day, short of being with my own kids. I was raised to believe that when you get you give back...We've been visitors but now we live here. This is our community now. We were taught you have to get to know your community you're in, and you have to be a part of that community and you have to get to know it in order to be actively engaged in it. D.C. is our community now and it's our home. Barack is real busy right now so I figured I've got the time on my hands and while the kids are in school, I figured I would come out and hear about programs and meet students." She described all of this as if the man she called Barack were an ambitious accountant, not the man who on the previous evening had given the prime time press conference amid the fancy chandeliers.

"I was somewhat where you are. I didn't come to this position with a lot of wealth and a lot of resources. I think it's real important for young kids, particularly kids who come form communities without resources to see me. Not the First Lady but to see that there is no magic to me sitting here. There are no miracles that happen. There is no magic dust that was sprinkled on my head or Barack's head. We were kids much like you who figured out one day that our fate was in our own hands. We made decisions to listen to our parents and work hard, and work even harder when somebody doubted us. When somebody told me I couldn't do something, that gave me a greater challenge to prove them wrong. ...Every little challenge like that and every little success I gained more confidence and life just sort of opened up. So I feel like it's an obligation for me to share that with you."

[Taverner]

1. I agree

I just hope it all works out, ya know?

[monmouth]

2. Michelle is really a lovely woman inside and out. Our own Eleanor Roosevelt ( I

did a paper on Mrs. Roosevelt back in school) She was a doer, as much if not more than FDR in many respects. She had enormous wealth on her own and didn't need to go out to the people but she did. Michelle is setting a wonderful example and is a great role-model.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

4. I'm reading Katharine Graham's

book about Washington, DC - and it really is a treasure. A compendium of articles about the District from the turn of the twentieth century to the late twentieth century. The writers all have their own perspective, and, given the political tenor of different times, it's like having your personal time machine to ride into a whole other place.

But, one piece was about how wives were to behave when their husbands came to Washington, either as employees or elected representatives. Calling cards, teas, the whole thing.

One traditional event was that Eleanor Roosevelt had two new Senate wives at a time to tea on a Wednesday. So, one Wednesday, the two wives arrive at the White House, but they're greeted by a maid who shows them into a sitting room.

They are very nervous, these young women far from home in a strange city. And now they're in the White House, there's no sign of their hostess, and they're thinking they have gotten the date wrong. Oh, the horror!

Then, the maid returns, and invites them to come with her.

They go up the stairs, into the living quarters of the First Family, and there was Mrs. Roosevelt in bed. She motioned them closer, smiling, and then pointed to a cradle on the other side of the room, her newborn baby inside.

Can you imagine anything like that happening today? A First Lady has a baby and it's not public knowledge?

I loved that story.

[yellowdogintexas]

6. I could see Eleanor doing something like that but her last child was born in 1916

Eleanor was 48 years old when Franklin was elected president.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

7. She was?

Whoa.

Could it have been a different Mrs. Roosevelt? I'm gonna have to pick up that book and check it out.

Thanks for the catch.

:toast:

On edit: So I checked, and the story is quoted in a piece titled "Social Washington," by Katharine Graham herself, and she refers to a book called "Capitol Kaleidoscope" by Frances Parkinson Keyes.

I was sloppy - this took place, according to Mrs. Keyes, when Eleanor Roosevelt was the wife of an Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and I just checked that fact to find that he was appointed by Wilson in 1913.

Mrs. Graham quotes Mrs. Keyes: "one Wednesday - the time appointed for ASSISTANT SECRETARIES' WIVES to receive ..."

Nice work, and, once again, my carelessness resulted in your erudite and elegant catch. Thank you.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

3. In three short weeks,

the Obamas have had a remarkable effect on the District of Columbia.

Consider this - when do you remember Fuckface and Pickles going out to dinner, dropping in at a school to read to kids, Pickles visiting anyplace that wasn't tightly controlled and scripted - even doing any entertaining like a Super Bowl party, inviting GOPigs and Democrats to what will become regular Wednesday cocktail parties?

They're just so damn refreshing. So normal. Engaged. Interested. Involved.

Evolved.

And, for the record, the neighborhood is "Adams Morgan," not "Adam's Morgan." Some outlander obviously wrote that piece.

[KoKo]

5. I love this...She's truly a Unique First Lady...."It wasn't 'pixie dust'!

SHE IS INCREDIBLE!