In ’85 Michelle Obama Assailed Assimilation, Saying It Kept Her ‘on the Periphery of Society’

Politico has posted Michelle Obama’s thesis in sociology from 1985: "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community." The work is an at-times agonized treatise on the racial divide. Going to Princeton, the woman then named Michelle Robinson wrote, will "likely lead to my further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society, never becoming a full participant." Huh. Look who’s coming to the South Lawn…

Obama’s study focused on issues of assimilation and separation. She seems clearly to favor separation. She wanted blacks to identify with other blacks, even when they became successful, and to be concerned with the "plight" of poor blacks. She seems distressed by a trend she documented: that while blacks tend to associate more with other blacks before and during Princeton, once they graduated they tend to associate more with whites. Their identification went down "drastically." Many successful blacks were "ashamed" of their culture but also guilty about "betraying" blackness.

Elements of Black culture which make it unique from White culture, such as its music, its language, the struggles and a ‘consciousness’ shared by its people may be attributed to the injustices and oppressions suffered by this race of people which are not comparable to the experiences of any other race of people through this country’s history.

I am sure that Michelle Obama’s views on these matters have changed over 23 years, as she’s followed the trajectory she documented, of associating more with whites. She is now a full participant in American society. I bet her sense of blackness has gone way down.

Still, I’m fascinated by her thesis because her view of the specialness of black culture is not so different from the Jewish particularist view of the specialness of Jewish culture. So it’s where you sit. Also, the conflict she frames of "separation/pluralism" versus "integration/assimilation" is a conflict in the Jewish community too. Commentary Magazine, for instance, regularly runs scholarly statements about the unique history and character of Jews. And the Jewish political theorist Michael Walzer has said that Jews are "not simply at home" in America, we worry that we’re about to get thrown out. Sort of like Michelle Obama feeling peripheral.

Obama’s thesis and personal story show that feelings of racial exclusion/separation are wholly understandable when members of that race feel they are not full participants in society. But imagine if Michelle Obama were to express these attitudes now? Well, her husband’s campaign would be over. I don’t think many white voters would want to be represented by someone who felt alienated from the society and identified mostly with other blacks.

This was my beef with Joe Lieberman and Elliott Abrams. Lieberman ran as vice president even as he maintained membership in Jewish organizations that had firm policies against Jews marrying non-Jews, policies Lieberman did not condemn. Abrams became a Middle East adviser even after he had written a book saying that Jews who don’t live in Israel must remain "apart" from the society in which they live. I’m not saying it’s wrong to have these views. What’s wrong is to have high position in U.S. government and hold these views. They justify a dual loyalty to the U.S. and Israel in ways not so different from Michelle Obama’s feelings of being peripheral: the Jewish state is a necessary haven for Jews because gentiles will exclude them in the west.

The key difference between my ethnic family and Michelle Obama’s is that her and her husband’s complex identification issues will be keenly examined over months to come. We are going to hear about their blackness till the cows come home. We will hear them talk about their feelings about being black on "60 Minutes," or to Matt Lauer, because these feelings have such important political consequences. I am sure the Obamas will firmly describe themselves as assimilationist.

I want to see an open discussion of Jewish identity along the same lines. The sort of feelings Michelle Obama had in 1985, of separation and oppression, of betrayal and integration, are having a large and silent effect on our foreign policy.

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There is definitely some irony in that. But I don’t think that there should be any separation neither between blacks or Jews.