Posted on 05/02/2025 6:35:31 PM PDT by simpson96
A tough first semester at Princeton taught Michelle Obama a career lesson that she's passing down to young professionals.(snip)
As an affirmative action student from Chicago, Obama said, she felt "a little intimidated" by Princeton's Ivy status when she arrived on campus in 1981 despite knowing she'd be underestimated.
After receiving all A's her first semester, she realized her self-doubt was by design. It was based on notions produced by a "world grounded in racism."
"I was like, 'I get this now. You're just trying to get into my head. You're scared of me,'" Obama said.
While there were plenty of other people there due to affirmative action, many wealthy students were able "to gain access to these seats of power that have nothing to do with their raw academic ability," Obama said.
From then on, she said, she stopped worrying about whether or not she deserved to be in powerful spaces. Now, she's trying to save other young adults from falling for the same tactic.
"Do not let these people scam you. This is all a racket," Obama said.
Host Steven Bartlett asked Obama to clarify what she meant by the term.
"That they know more; that they deserve this more than you do. It's just not true," Obama said.
Her revelation that she, as a Black woman, could thrive at an Ivy League school was both infuriating and freeing, she told Bartlett. However, not all teens get the same opportunity to overcome the underestimation, and that's why she wants to pass the lesson along, she said.
"I came out of Princeton just feeling like, 'Let me at 'em,'" Obama said, referring to the obstacles she'd face in the career ahead of her.
In 2023, the US Supreme Court ended affirmative action in college admissions.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Could the Obama girls have gotten into their colleges of choice if it weren’t for their father’s high office?
Morgan Freeman has addressed racism in the industry and society. When The Sunday Times asked him about comments he made in 2005 during an interview with CBS‘ Mike Wallace, where he said the only way to help stop racism was to stop talking about it.
That’s a man!
Princeton Releases Michelle Obama’s Senior Thesis
February 26, 2008 / 8:18 PM EST / UWIRE.com
by Esther Breger, The Daily Princetonian
Michelle Obama’s thesis was released to the public by Princeton University Tuesday after several days of media scrutiny over its availability and content. The campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), her husband, received criticism from conservative media and bloggers when the University restricted access to her senior thesis until after the presidential election in November.
“A thesis can be restricted or unrestricted for a variety of reasons, including at the request of alumni,” University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt ‘96 said in an e-mail. “It falls within the purview of alumni to discuss their academic work,” she said. Analysis of the thesis’ content, in addition to its restricted availability, has featured prominently in blogs over the last few days. Written under Obama’s maiden name of Michelle LaVaughn Robinson and titled “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” the thesis has come under scrutiny as the presidential campaign has advanced for its analysis of race relations.
What’s in the thesis? Obama, who concentrated in sociology and received a certificate in African-American studies, examined how the attitudes of black alumni have changed over the course of their time at the University. “Will they become more or less motivated to benefit the Black community?” Obama wrote in her thesis. After surveying 89 black graduates, Obama concluded that attending the University as an undergraduate decreased the extent to which black alumni identified with the black community as a whole.
Obama drew on her personal experiences as an example. “As I enter my final year at Princeton, I find myself striving for many of the same goals as my White classmates — acceptance to a prestigious graduate school or a high-paying position in a successful corporation,” she wrote, citing the University’s conservative values as a likely cause.
“Predominately White universities like Princeton are socially and academically designed to cater to the needs of the White students comprising the bulk of their enrollments,” she said, noting the small size of the African-American studies department and that there were only five black tenured professors at the University across all departments.
Obama studied the attitudes of black Princeton alumni to determine what effect their time at Princeton had on their identification with the black community. “My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my ‘Blackness’ than ever before,” she wrote in her 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.”
Emeritus sociology professor Walter Wallace, who served as her thesis adviser, declined to comment for this story. “It is important to consider the time period in which Michelle Obama wrote her thesis,” College Democrats vice president Scott Weingart ‘09 said in an e-mail. “In 1985, Princeton was still a very conservative school; [Tiger Inn] would not admit women members for another six years. Today, the student body is a lot more progressive and diverse.”
Completed theses are kept in Mudd Manuscript Library and are generally available to the public for viewing and scanning. Before today, callers to Mudd requesting information on Obama’s thesis were told that the thesis has been made “temporarily unavailable” and were directed to the University Office of Communications. Following the thesis’ release by the Obama campaign to politico.com, a political news site, the University lifted the restriction.
The University’s actions were met with varying reactions by students. “The school should generally default to freedom of information unless there is some compelling school or personal (e.g. the request of the author) interest at stake,” Jason Anton ‘10, co-director of the Students for Barack Obama Princeton chapter, said in an e-mail.
“There’s nothing about a senior thesis that’s private in nature — it’s written with the knowledge that it will be kept in Mudd for all to read,” Zahava Stadler ‘11 said. Many students felt that the contents of the work could become a factor in the election, but they were unsure to what extent it would affect the outcome. “Unfortunately, the thesis may very well revive the race card as a central theme of the election,” Anton said.
“Her thesis seems especially pertinent given the questions that have been raised off and on about the supposed ‘tight-rope’ of racial identity politics that some claim Senator Obama has to carefully navigate,” College Democrats president Rob Weiss ‘09 said in an e-mail.
Molly Alarcon ‘10, an Obama supporter, said she thought Michelle Obama’s writing in college should not have any bearing on her husband’s election, but her view was not shared by all students. “In using Michelle Obama on the campaign trail, the Obama camp has made her a figure, and therefore a factor, in the campaign,” Stadler said. “Her opinions and background are just as relevant as those of Obama’s spokespeople and campaign manager, no more and no less.” © 2008 The Daily Princetonian via U-WIRE
UWIRE.com
BI=BS read no further.
It’s much harder to get into those schools than to be there. Affirmative action getting in and easy street once there gives people like Big Mike the idea that they’re much more than they are.
She really needs a shrink.
Still an angry black lady with a huge ass. Only now she might just have some junk under the hood instead of in the trunk.
M0 is an Academic flunkie.
So she got into Princeton because she’s black? Not a surprise.
I went to an elite school and had to struggle to be average there, instead of coasting like I did in high school...
Guess I’m dumber than Michelle, and everybody else pulling A’s and full of confidence.
LADY (?) I AM SCARED OF YOU, BUT IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR SMARTS.
She somehow thinks she was underestimated and she really earned all those A’s? I read the first few pages of her thesis and was stunned.
IIRC she years ago had complained that when she first got to Princeton she had a hard time keeping up because she didn’t have the educational background of many there.
She bitches and moans about EVERY thing. Most unhappy near-billionaire on the planet.
She agrees that the Ivy League is a racket.
Take the W and move on for heaven’s sake.
Their skin color alone certainly would have been a big boost.
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