Michelle, Meritocracy and Me

Washington Post ^ | July 20, 2008 | Theola Labbé-DeBose

[SJackson]

I last visited my alma mater, Princeton University, two years ago to speak on an alumni panel about the future of Iraq. Inside stately McCosh Hall, where I'd taken Constitutional Law more than a decade earlier, I spoke to a mostly white crowd about my experiences as a special Iraq correspondent in 2003, sharing the stage with an impressive bunch of alums, including a soldier who had served several tours in the Middle East and a former CIA station chief.

At the end, one of my fellow panelists turned to me and complimented me on my remarks. "What school did you go to?" he asked.

I was wearing a black shirt and orange linen pants, a dutiful nod to our school colors. It was an alumni panel, I thought. What school did he think I attended?

I've been thinking a lot about this sort of failure to be truly accepted as I've watched Michelle and Barack Obama recently. After all, a white couple with their accomplishments would be another one of those gilded couples that appear on the New York Times's society pages or in Town & Country magazine. Instead, these two earnest meritocrats wound up on the cover of the New Yorker last week in a now notorious fist-bumping caricature, complete with a Black Panther-era 'fro for her and traditional Muslim garb for him.

Seeing that cover made me wince -- and not because I can't take a joke. Like the Obamas and millions of other African Americans who have relied on the promise of American meritocracy, I've made a bet that hard work, study and persistence should be able to vault me past mockery and wariness.

[Hildy]

Just relax, lady, and quit thinking that EVERYBODY is thinking about YOU. They aren't, they probably could not care less. Don't worry about it. Just fear God, love your fellow man, and do your work in the station to which you are called.

Very well said.

[Drango]

This time I'll be addressing minority high school students taking a summer journalism course...

And she will tell them that they are victims and the MAN is trying to keep them down.

[maine-iac7]

as long as you enter no html, you can just enter normally, using paragraph breaks...

but

if you leave the posting box before finishing, and then come back to it, you loose it and have to use the html...

Is that about as clear as mud? (I didn't use any html here)

[philly-d-kidder]

Michelle Is Phillipina I believe.. and Grew up in Philly!!
That Could be the Chip on the Shoulder.. Philly does that to you..

[GraceCoolidge]

Reading these articles is depressing to me, because it convinces me further that there is no way this woman ever could be satisfied that she is not a Victim. If everyone in the room looked at her and talked to her, she would write some ridiculous prose like, “The astonishment was plain on their faces as we talked— the utterly palpable astonishment that a woman of color was entering their world, socializing with them, and daring to tread where once only whites could stand.” If no one talked to her, it would start: “I felt the coldness, as the crowd unified in their whiteness against the Outsider...” If they compliment her, it is patronizing; if they don’t, it’s hostile. I get to the point where I want to throw up my hands and say, why bother?

[AnAmericanMother]

I was happy to be somewhere in the middle. Managed to work my way up closer to the top in third year, but as they say, the top 10th of the class teaches, the rest of the top 1/4 gets the plum jobs in big firms . . . and the bottom third makes all the money!

We had a guy who had retired from the Marines as a bird colonel and was coming back for a 2nd career. He did extremely well, which was gratifying.

He also took on the nastiest prof in the law school, and chewed him out in best DI style in the middle of class. We all applauded. He said it was reflected in his grade - I know it was reflected in mine - but he said it was worth it.

[AnAmericanMother]

:-) It's not rocket science!

These perpetual victims are very tiresome.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

re: Meritocracy?

No. A "meritocracy" would reward people equally for the same level of achievement. Affirmative Action doesn't do that. Had they been white the doors to Princeton, Columbia, and Harvard would not be opened as widely.

[Huck]

Just relax, lady, and quit thinking that EVERYBODY is thinking about YOU. They aren't, they probably could not care less. Don't worry about it. Just fear God, love your fellow man, and do your work in the station to which you are called.

That's good advice for most people, myself included.

[AnAmericanMother]

And the advice one gives is often the hardest to take!

[Huck]

That one’s actually a relief to remember. It’s a load off to realize that you’re not as judged as you think you are, your fears and insecurities aren’t as large and powerful as you make them out to be. And for the simple reason that most folks just don’t pay that close attention! They’re worried about themselves, how they look, what you think of them, etc. Dale Carnegie talks about that in his book. Helped me to become halfway civilized.

[Huck]

he amused himself by egging them on and baiting them with outrageous lies. More than one of my friends took me aside and asked me how I could date such an awful man. When I told them he was pulling their legs, they didn't believe me.

Sounds like a fun guy! Good for him, and you!

[AnAmericanMother]

People make fun of Dale Carnegie, but if more folks read his book the world would be a more cheerful place.

[Jim Noble]

Well, Michelle Obama had the misfortune of having her junior high school quality Princeton "thesis" published on the internet, and because of the media, everybody knows she has a non-job job at a Chicago hospital, and got a six-figure raise when her husband was elected to the Senate and started throwing dollars her way.

So, the notion that she "doesn't belong where she is" seems amply documented.

Now, it's probably true that at least half the other Senator's wives or girlfriends have their snouts in the trough as well, but they aren't running for President.

C'est la guerre, Michelle. At least I don't have to be embarrassed when I go to Europe.

[Jim Noble]

After all, a white couple with their accomplishments would be another one of those gilded couples that appear on the New York Times's society pages

Well, the female half of the white couples on the NYT society pages can still get there the traditional way (a gentleman dares not say more).

But a white man who wrote like an eighth-grader and whose "ideas" were entirely derivative wouldn't BE at Princeton, much less be using it as a stepping-stone to Harvard Law School. White men and white women don't get their test scores "overlooked", either.

When you are as thoroughly busted as Michelle Obama, you should have the good sense to keep your mouth shut, and tell your friends like the author of this column to keep quiet, as well.

[AnAmericanMother]

You know, my thesis wasn't such great shakes (I could do it better now!) but at least I had some original material, a few original ideas, and I can spell and comprehend simple English.

You're right, if I wrote something this bad and it got out, I would keep my head down and encourage my friends not to bring it out before the public again and again!

[Stentor]

This reminds me of the Saturday Night Live sketch where a bunch of white people are riding on a bus having a party. A black person gets on and the party disappears. Just a bunch of sullen whiteys are left on their way to work. Hell, I'm drinking champagne now in my zero sum game of denying black Ivy league graduates their rightful beverage. What a gigantic and disgusting circle jerk these princes and pinceses are engaged in.

If Angela and Barry were white, they might have gone to Penn State main campus after doing 2 years at a satellite campus. They need to shut up and thank their moon god for his good favor.

[Stentor]

This reminds me of the Saturday Night Live sketch where a bunch of white people are riding on a bus having a party. A black person gets on and the party disappears. Just a bunch of sullen whiteys are left on their way to work. Hell, I'm drinking champagne now in my zero sum game of denying black Ivy league graduates their rightful beverage. What a gigantic and disgusting circle jerk these princes and pinceses are engaged in.

If Angela and Barry were white, they might have gone to Penn State main campus after doing 2 years at a satellite campus. They need to shut up and thank their moon god for his good favor.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Montag813 wrote: "Perhaps Michelle would be more readily "accepted" if she had achieved enough academically on her own to attend Princeton, instead of--as she has admitted herself--relying on racial preferences to get in. " 4 posted on Sunday, July 20, 2008 10:31:59 PM by montag813

So you think had she been in the 99th percentile, reading Derrida, Lacan, and Gramsci at Princeton, writing a thesis on a "Lacanian Interpretation of Toni Morrison" with adequate footnotes in original languages, there would be less attitude?

Liberals can only lament that they were deprived of an African-American Susan Sontag, issuing top-tier cultural edicts from the White House, with the full backing of UNESCO, Rhodes, Guggenheim, and a Rockefeller Fellowship in Bellagio. What will they do? Certainly, there is an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters around somewhere that a secret handshake could cook up? Bill Clinton snookered a few.