"The moment that brought Michelle Obama to tears, for once, seemed very authentic. Despite his flaws, she sketched the picture of a father with colorblind attributes that are the exact opposite of the ones she so loudly advocates for in public.
“When I think about what my dad, as a black man with M.S., could’ve done; he could have never worked a day in his life,” she told the panel, “he could have collected benefits; he could have succumbed to his disease and be depressed about it, but he didn’t.”
And this is where she got choked up.
“He never felt sorry for himself, he never expected others to do for him, and just the sheer act of him getting up every day and going to work was a statement that – ugh, now I’m going to cry – that stays with me every day of my life.”
Nothing that Michelle Obama is best known for (lawyer, First Lady, best-selling author, rich, immensely influential), she said, compares to the intangible lessons she learned from her dad.
“… he is not here to see any of it, and so much because of him. … What my dad did was beyond money, title, influence, nothing. I would trade it all for what my father provided us in that little bitty apartment on 74th and Euclid.”
Why hasn’t this been Michelle’s public message to black audiences in lagging communities – especially to young black men? Using her own words, these are the lessons she deemed to be more valuable than “money, title, influence”:
>Never stop working to provide for your family.
Never depend on welfare benefits.
Never allow circumstances beyond your control to get you so depressed that you give up.
Never feel sorry for yourself.
Never expect others to do for you what you alone must do for yourself.
Never let people, groups, circumstances, misfortune, friends or enemies keep you from getting up and going for your dreams and goals every, single day of your life.
Never forget that these intangible attitudes are so valuable that they should never be traded for money, fame, titles, or influence.
Never forget that it is never so much what you say that sticks with your children, but how you live your life.
Through endless government programs, endless racial grievances, and endless “compassion” for an endless line of imaginary victims, the Obamas have spent their political lives advocating for ideals that are antithetical to the ones her own dad practiced.
Those ideals are what resonated with my daughter. It wasn’t a rehearsed political speech pushing government programs that moved her to share Michelle Obama’s video. It was a rare moment of unscripted honesty conveyed so authentically that it spoke to the way she sees her own dad.
It was the truth."
