tressiemc22 #a president who truly believes in the vision that our Founders put forth all those years ago that we are all created equal, each a beloved part of the great American story.Like Corey Booker's earlier speech, Obama paid homage to the great forefathers narrative. That could be about being in Philadelphia. But it's also just a bell one has to ring in politics. I hate that bell.
tressiemc22 #That is what Barack and I think about every day as we try to guide and protect our girls through the challenges of this unusual life in the spotlight, how we urge them to ignore those who question their father’s citizenship or faith.Many writers and thinkers have speculated about how the first black family has dealt with the what historian Carol Anderson calls the inevitable "white rage" backlash to Obama's election. Having served her time, Michelle seems more willing to take the criticisms head-on. This is what many of us would call "shade".
tressiemc22 #How we insist that the hateful language they hear from public figures on TV does not represent the true spirit of this country.This line does some work. On one level, it is red meat for colorblind white (and some non-white) liberals who require all black figures to be hopeful (I've discussed this more here: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/between-the-world-and-me-book-club-not-trying-to-get-into-heaven/400271/).
On another level, it is doing some inter-group communication or what Stuart Hall called encoding/decoding and what Mark Anthony Neal translates into "black code" when he talks about Hall's work through modern media cultures. Obama is signaling here that she has noted those who have directed racist, sexist, classist rhetoric at her family. She has taken note.
tressiemc22 #So, look, so don’t let anyone ever tell you that this country isn’t great, that somehow we need to make it great again. Because this right now is the greatest country on earth!This is a dig at Donald's nihilism the other night. But it is also saying, hey, there is no great american past. Remember, Obama had just referenced slavery a paragraph earlier. She's making an elegant case that any allusion to the past is necessarily one that is closer to slavery. We are great now, she says, because we are at least greater than that. It is the idea that for black Americans, this country's best days are always necessarily yet to come. It's a stark contrast to the idea that America was only great when, as historian Ira Katznelson said, "affirmative action was white".
tressiemc22 #That is the story of this country, the story that has brought me to this stage tonight, the story of generations of people who felt the lash of bondage, the shame of servitude, the sting of segregation, but who kept on striving and hoping and doing what needed to be done so that today I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves. (CHEERS, APPLAUSE) And I watch my daughters, two beautiful, intelligent, black young women playing with their dogs on the White House lawn.Here's the big graf. It does many things. In a night where the hispanic immigrant story was dominant (and will likely remain so in all organized US politics for years to come for practical reasons), Obama reminded us again why this administration has been historical. Again, I suspect we'll hear more of this as they transition into private life and take over managing that Obama legacy.
The graf also linked the historic event of a black family in the white house with the historic event of potentially electing a woman president. This graf bridges the race narrative to the gender narrative, wedding them as equally historic in a way that I think the die-hard HRC fan really, really wants from this election. If, Obama seems to be saying, Barack's election was historic for black people, Hillary's can still be historic for black people...who are also women. Whether one agrees with that assessment or not, Obama rhetorically linked the excitement of 08 to Hillary's campaign, which can sometimes feel old hat because Hillary has been in the public eye for so long.
tressiemc22 #Heroes of every color and creed who wear the uniform and risk their lives to keep passing down those blessings of liberty, police officers and the protesters in Dallas who all desperately want to keep our children safe.I don't know if anyone on my social media feeds caught this first go-round. This is her shout-out to Black Lives Matter activists who were protesting in Dallas where several police officers were murdered. She rejects framing of BLM as anti-police, making them peers with police with a shared interest in public safety. It's the kind of framing that many visible BLM activists have been trying to make in recent weeks. It's something to see it here, albeit with a very soft touch, on such a big stage.
tressiemc22 #I want someone with the proven strength to persevere, someone who knows this job and takes it seriously, someone who understands that the issues a president faces are not black and white and cannot be boiled down to 140 characters.More hitting at Trump as a vain, small, shallow, ineffectual candidate.
susanvlaws #If a business isn't doing well, you can liquidate it, or sell it, let it fail, or start a new one....none of which are appropriate problem-solving approaches to leading a nation.
tressiemc22 #No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high.More encoding/decoding. She is talking to Trump. But she is also talking to the white rage that Trump has channelled into a presidential bid. It is also an allusion to the cultural history of any marginalized group who must perform superior morality in a dominant culture. This is also one of the strongest lines in the speech. It's when I knew that it would be a bit different than some of her previous big speeches. It takes on criticisms and public discourse head on.
tressiemc22 #Kids like the little black boy who looked up at my husband, his eyes wide with hope and he wondered, is my hair like yours?For many black people, the photograph Obama describes is one of the most impactful of this administration's entire historic eight year term. It is about identity politics, sure. It is also about representation. Those are two concepts that critical leftists and conservatives are both ripping to shreds these days. I think they're wrong to underestimate the power of representation and when they do it says that they aren't very good at what they believe in. If they were better, they'd realize that they also engage in politics of representation: invisibility.
Regardless, this sounds like an Obama team that is very aware of his legacy. And, I suspect this will be the tone and context of how they'll shape this Presidential legacy.
jeremydean #Completely agreed about the underestimation--indeed dismissal--of quote unquote identity politics here, @tressiemc22.
Here's that iconic photograph:
For anyone needing some context on the issues around racial representation, from the bodily to the political,, I'd recommend Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye.
tressiemc22 #What I admire most about Hillary is that she never buckles under pressure.I hear this from die-hard Hillary voters in my life a lot: she didn't quit. I suspect that concept has also tested well.
tressiemc22 #but every child who needs a champion, kids who take the long way to school to avoid the gangs, kids who wonder how they’ll ever afford college, kids whose parents don’t speak a word of English, but dream of a better life, kids who look to us to determine who and what they can be.typical america land of opportunity rhetoric. Each line is crafted to hit key a constituency: college students, latinos/immigrants, DREAMers.
tressiemc22 #So in this election, we cannot sit back and hope that everything works out for the best. We cannot afford to be tired or frustrated or cynical. No, hear me. Between now and November, we need to do what we did eight years ago and four years ago.She called out the Obama army to get to work for HRC.
tressiemc22 #And when she didn’t win the nomination eight years ago, she didn’t get angry or disillusioned.This was shade at the minority of Sanders voters saying they would never vote for Hillary.
tressiemc22 #See, I trust Hillary to lead this country because I’ve seen her lifelong devotion to our nation’s children, not just her own daughter, who she has raised to perfection…This was coming since the set-up of the speech: Hillary is a good mother to us because she has been a good mother of her own child. It's a take on the president-as-nation's-father idea. I read somewhere that it works so fine.
tressiemc22 #And let me tell you, Barack and I take that same approach to our jobs as president and first lady because we know that our words and actions matter, not just to our girls, but the children across this country, kids who tell us I saw you on TV, I wrote a report on you for school.This links her narrative to HRC's "our kids are watching Donald Trump" ad. It leads me to believe that this must test very well with potential voters. And, it suggests that Obama was in conversation with HRC camp higher-ups enough to tie her speech into that narrative.