The Most Poignant Photo of Michelle Obama You've Ever Seen

[one_voice]

First Lady Michelle Obama and Stephanie Kyriazis, Chief of Interpretation and Education, mirror the past of segregation in a photo released by the White House. The image was taken on May 16th of this year during a tour of the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas. It feels a bit cliche, but this is a truly compelling photo, both of Michelle Obama, and depicting race in America.

We often talk about the importance of having the Obamas in the White House for reasons that go beyond just the political. Many tend to forget how recently systems like slavery and segregation were in place in this country. Just fifty years ago, our First Lady would not have been allowed to use the same bathroom as the woman she is facing.

When people talk about the impact of just the visual of the Obamas—simply seeing them occupy spaces that no other people of color, black or otherwise have ever been in in America, they're talking about images like this.

http://jezebel.com/the-most-poignant-photo-of-michelle-obama-youve-ever-se-1605547848?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

[Cha]

1. I've seen that compelling photo.. thank you for bringing it here, one voice. We've

come so far on our impossibly long journey and still there's more to travel.

[Flippancy]

2. When I was in the Army

I was transferring from Ft Monmouth NJ to Redstone Arsenal AL. Because it was the labor day weekend the Huntsville airport was closed and we landed in Chattanooga and took a bus from there to Huntsville. At the rest stop they had the white and colored restrooms and no "colored " were allowed into the restaurant. All they could access was the colored water fountain. I asked whether anyone wanted food or a drink and took orders and bought the stuff for them. I guess it may have been the fact that I grew up in a co-ed integrated boarding school which was like Boy's Town, but predated Boy's Town by a dozen years, but it never occurred to me that there was any reason for the segregation. It wasn't until some time later that it occurred to me that perhaps I shouldn't have done that because it supported the racist scumbags, or that it was a sad commentary on how the poor Southern blacks were treated that it didn't occur to them not to order anything.

A few months later I went to Birmingham with a black friend and getting on the city bus was a real eye opener. I was called everything except a white man and if we hadn't been in uniform I'm convinced to this day that we would have been murdered right there on that bus. About 6 years later, Rosa Parks came along and thank God for her.

Now we have a possible GOP presidential candidate who longs for a return to that day and people are taking Rand Paul seriously. My God, America, or at least half of it has gone insane.

[toby jo]

4. Such honorable actions, Flippancy.

Yeah, it seems like the world has those of us who just do the right thing because it is there to be done and then these other folks, unfortunately, too. Well, they're missing the ride.

Welcome to DU ~

[Boomerproud]

5. Welcome to DU.

There was nothing flippant in your story or your sentiments. Welcome.

[calimary]

6. Welcome to DU, Flippancy!

Glad you're here. Stunning story. Thank you for posting it here. I just don't understand it, myself. It just doesn't compute. What also doesn't compute is the HORRID disrespect our First Lady and her husband - um - THE PRESIDENT - repeat, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND DULY-ELECTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF ALL THE U.S. ARMED FORCES ACROSS THE PLANET - have to endure.

I wish we could scoop 'em all up and relocate them to Somalia. All the anarchy you can eat over there! No government! Every man for himself! And I said it that way deliberately - you think women have any rights over there? Nope, they're simply there to clean, scrub, cook, fuck, knock-up, and then discard - and the color of their skin makes no difference whatsoever. But there are all the guns and ammo you can eat, too, and pirates and warlords running amok! Laws? Screw that! Regulations? You kidding me? But there ARE lots of poor disenfranchised dark-skinned people just waiting to be exploited further! Must be a teabagger's idea of heaven. So I think we should send them there! And since there's no coverage of the plight of Somalians or anyone else in Africa, we won't have to hear about THEM anymore, either!

[IrishAyes]

27. I could live with that.

[yuiyoshida]

7. Welcome to du!

[one_voice]

8. Welcome to DU...

I think you did the right thing. You thought about other people and that's always the right thing.

My dad is from Alabama. When he and my mom were married it was years before my mom went with my dad to visit his family. He wouldn't risk anything happening to my mom and my mom him. An interracial couple was definitely not welcomed. Hell, their marriage was still illegal in some states.

Glad there are people like you.

[Jack Rabbit]

9. Welcome to DU, Flip

!!

[El Shaman]

11. When I was in the Navy 1961-1973

I wee weed In 'Colored' and dumped in 'whites' Un Hispanico De Tejas.

[appal_jack]

15. Welcome to DU, Flippancy!

Welcome to DU, Flippancy!

Sharing food with comrades is always the right thing to do. Even if a racist business got a few bucks out of you, the more important thing is that you all got to break bread together.



-app

[LittleGirl]

16. Welcome to DU n/t

[Enthusiast]

19. Plus one!

Nice to see you here, Flippancy.

[geardaddy]

21. Welcome

and thank you for you actions.

[IrishAyes]

24. Being in uniform was not always any protection.

I remember a black soldier returning from WWII; he was burned alive in one of the Deep South states.

Thanks for your post.

[Tarheel_Dem]

28. Thanks for that contribution, and welcome to DU!

[Spazito]

32. I love your post...

It is both moving and powerful in it's impact.

Welcome to DU!

[sarge43]

3. Thank you for posting this

Least we forget.

[samsingh]

10. kick

[FailureToCommunicate]

12. And there was this powerful one also...

[one_voice]

13. Oh yes I've seen this...

You just gotta let it sink in...wow..

[Spitfire of ATJ]

23. Including how much the guy behind her looks like Daniel Craig.

[IrishAyes]

25. Don't want to be a wet blanket, but you communicate better than most!

[FailureToCommunicate]

30. Why, thank ya lassie.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

14. Back in 1969

when I was in high school I did a book report in English class on "My Life with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." by Coretta Scott King.
Dr. King had been assassinated the year before, 1968, and it was an interesting, topical and newsworthy book.

As I went to my seat, some little bastard called me a "Nigger lover".

So what. My parents raised me not to hate black people even though we lived in an all-white town that had redlined the black people out. My cool 12th grade Government teacher explained this to us. He also had a poster on his classroom door of American Gothic with Shirley Chisholm(first black woman elected to Congress) and George Wallace!!!

The only black people I had contact with before I went to college were my mother's maids. She told me how great Ralph Bunche was, often.

[catbyte]

17. My mom faced the same thing in northern lower Michigan when she was a child.

There, it wasn't African Americans being segregated, it was Indians. My mom never knew where she should go because she was adopted by a white family. And baggers like Rand Paul would have us go back there because the government shouldn't tell Almighty Business what to do.

Welcome to DU!

[Stellar]

18. Thank goodness people can change for the better...

..as this post from another site can attest to just before Senator Robert Byrd died.

“I am a middle aged African American Muslim male. As a child I experienced the Watts Riots, the chaos after the assassination of MLK. I remember experiencing racisim for the first time as a child born in the west and transplanted to New Orleans during the erosion of overt segregation in the south. I also remember of all people, George Wallace ,apologizing for his racist past. I remember that Chief Justice Brennan, also a former Klan member , was responsible for some of the most far reaching opinions in favor of social justice and civil rights. For all what we imagine separates whites and blacks in this country in particular, there are ties and bonds unseen that keep us together.Senator Robert Byrd has seen it all in his 90 years. As my grandma used to say.." What he has forgotten you could make a whole other world with". The capacity for someone raised in the times and environment he was is truly remarkable and testament to his great character and courage. I have ENORMOUS respect for the senior senator from West Virginia . May God bless him and give him long life as well as give him peace here and hereafter.”

[IrishAyes]

26. Remarkable.

Something for all of us to keep in mind. Thanks.

[grahamhgreen]

20. Hoarders/middle class. The struggle continues.

[SpankMe]

22. Damn. Kind of gives me the chills.

Our lady is pretty awesome.

[Liberal_in_LA]

29. kick

[nomorenomore08]

31. "...the importance of having the Obamas in the White House for reasons that go beyond

just the political."

Something President Obama's supporters are hopefully aware of, and that his critics should keep in mind. I don't necessarily fit very neatly into either camp myself - I voted for the guy twice but have had numerous policy disagreements with his administration.

[RainDog]

34. That's how I feel too

I'm glad he won for the victory for people of color and every child - of any color - to see the most powerful person in the U.S. is a man who has defied the racists.

I don't agree with everything - but the reality is that there is no one, ever, who will ever be president of this nation with whom I will agree on every issue.

It's childish, imo, to think total agreement would ever be the case with anyone in political office.

[Spazito]

33. A photo that takes ones breath away....

It brings what was past into the present. The attacks on the President and the First Lady are, all too often, based on this 'past'. The past is, indeed, prologue.