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First Lady Michelle Obama Talks About ‘Sleepless Nights’ During Commencement
President Obama Is 1 Of Only 4 Presidents To Visit All 50 States
President Barack Obama with Rebecca Kelley in South Dakota.
Speech At Tuskegee University
Giving a candid and deeply personal commencement speech at Tuskegee University on Saturday, the First Lady of the United States reflected on the emotional toll of being the country’s first Black First Lady.
As reported by The Hill, First Lady Michelle Obama spoke to the students at the His- torically Black Alabama college for about a half an hour on Sat- urday, running down the ways in which media especially held her to a different standard than other first ladies.
“...Over the years, folks have used plenty of interesting words to describe me,” said Mrs. Obama. “One said I exhibited ‘a little bit of uppity-ism.’ An- other noted that I was one of my husband’s ‘cronies of color.’ Cable news once charmingly re- ferred to me as ‘Obama’s Baby Mama.’
“Back in those days, I had a lot of sleepless nights worrying what people thought of me,” she recalled. Mrs. Obama added that she let the criticism get to the point where she would won- der if she was hurting her hus- band’s chances of becoming President, while also fearing what her daughters would think.
FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA
The First Lady said eventu- ally the only thing she could do to prevent others from defining her was to “ignore all of the noise.”
“I had to be true to myself and the rest would work itself out,” she recounted, to cheers from the audience.
In addition to the usual ques- tions on the campaign trail, Mrs. Obama said she also had another layer of questions thrown at her.
“But, as potentially the first African-American First Lady, I was also the focus of another set of questions and speculations; conversations sometimes
rooted in the fears and misper- ceptions of others. Was I too loud, or too angry, or too emas- culating? Or was I too soft, too much of a mom, not enough of a career woman?”
The First Lady also men- tioned that simple gestures be- tween she and the President became something else: “You might remember the on-stage celebratory fist bump between me and my husband after a pri- mary win that was referred to as a ‘terrorist fist jab,’ ” she re- flected.
Mrs. Obama said that both she and her husband, Presi- dent Barack Obama know the frustration of people who “will make assumptions about who they think you are based on their limited notion of the world,” she said.
“My husband and I know how frustrating that experience can be. We’ve both felt the sting of those daily slights throughout our entire lives. ... And all of that is going to be a heavy bur- den to carry.”
Yet, this “Black tax” is not an excuse to give up.
“They are not an excuse to lose hope. To succumb to feel- ings of despair and anger only means that in the end, we lose.”
President Obama’s recent visit to South Dakota wasn’t just any ol’ stop on his increas- ingly busy political map. It also officially marked him as the 4th U. S. President to have visited all 50 states in the United States.
Presidents before him that have achieved this feat include Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. It’s kind of remarkable that only four U. S. presidents have stepped foot on all 50 states in their presidencies. Associated Press noted that it took Presi- dent Obama 6-1/2 years to fulfill.
We think it’s another unique win for the nation’s first Black president. It will undoubtedly
be a part of his legacy.
And his trip to South Dakota
was for a special purpose. As re- ported by PEOPLE magazine, President Obama was there to deliver a commencement speech at Lake Area Technical Institute, a community college in Watertown. His speech went along with an earlier proposal of community college being free for eligible students sometime in the near future.
His SD presence was espe- cially requested by 11-year-old, Rebecca Kelley. Kelley, a resident of Vermillion, person- ally gave him a handwritten and drawn letter. In asking him to please come and visit, she also wrote: “We are the warmest of the Dakotas.”
Unemployment Lowest Since May 2008
The economy added 223,000 jobs in April, largely in line with forecasts, according to the Bu- reau of Labor Statistics in a re- port released Friday. The unemployment rate stands at 5.4%. March's jobs numbers were revised downward to 85,000 jobs. The unemploy- ment rate fell from 5.5% to 5.4%, lowest since May 2008.
Wall Street breathed a sigh of relief. The Dow Jones industrial average was up about 255 points, or 1.4%, in mid-morning trading.
Economists surveyed by Ac- tion Economics expected pay- roll gains of 225,000, according to their median forecast.
March gains were revised down to 85,000 from a previ- ously reported 126,000, the Labor Department said Friday. February's payroll gains were revised up by 2,000 to 266,000.
Businesses added 213,000 jobs on strong advances by pro- fessional and business services,
health care and construction. Federal, state and local govern- ments added 10,000.
Mining employment contin- ued to decline, falling by 15,000, as energy companies shed workers because of low crude oil prices. Wage growth, sluggish throughout the recov- ery, ticked up a bit. Average hourly earnings increased 3 cents to $24.87 an hour. Over the past year, pay is up 2.2%, in line with previous tepid ad- vances.
Some other signs were more encouraging. A broader meas- ure of joblessness — which in- cludes discouraged workers who have stopped looking for jobs and part-time employees who prefer full-time work as well as the unemployed — slipped to 10.8% from 10.9%.
And the number of Ameri- cans out of work at least six months fell by 38,000 to 2.5 million. They now make up 29% of all those unemployed.
Presidential News
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