What Michelle Obama's Critics Missed
It is not hard to imagine that young graduates, still wrestling with their own identities, can appreciate a story like that as they face the challenges of their own professional futures. Mrs. Obama appropriately referenced a 1952 novel that continues to be one of my own favorites, Tuskegee graduate Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man," the first black-authored novel to win the National Book Award.
In the conservative National Review, writer-historian Victor Davis Hanson challenged the validity of "the aggrieved Mrs. Obama's allegation of black Americans being 'invisible.' " How can that be, he wrote, in this "age of African-American ubiquity" in sports, entertainment, government, academia and business.
But Hanson ironically misses her point. As Ellison's protagonist says, "I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me." Even in our age of African-American ubiquity, that refusal persists. Those who sound insulted, for example, that the nation's first lady would feel insulted by their insults, simply refuse to see her. Or hear her.
And that's too bad. Her central message transcends partisan and ideological boundaries. Although negative racial experiences can be harsh and bizarre, she cautioned, they were "not an excuse" to "lose hope." Anger and despair will lead you to lose, she told the young graduates but you win with hope, ambition and hard work.
"Our history" she said, "... teaches us that when we pull ourselves out of those lowest emotional depths, and we channel our frustrations into studying and organizing and banding together ... (w)e can take on those deep-rooted problems, and together -- together -- we can overcome anything that stands in our way."
Indeed. I think her usual band of conservative critics could find a lot to like in her speech, especially if somebody else was delivering it.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
