Mrs. Bathhouse Barack: asking me to grab something off a shelf is racism

[Epoetker]

Michelle Obama:



Target employees:



Isn't there a folktale or two thousand about the princess who goes out in the real world disguised and gets shocked that people don't treat her like a princess?

Actually, it's nothing even that timeless, the Obamas are simply telling the truth to one set of people and the Higher Truth to a different set:

To Letterman:

"That’s my Target run. I went to Target," she said. "I thought I was undercover. I have to tell you something about this trip though. No one knew that was me because a woman actually walked up to me, right? I was in the detergent aisle, and she said — I kid you not — she said, ‘Excuse me, I just have to ask you something,’ and I thought, ‘Oh, cover’s blown.’ She said, ‘Can you reach on that shelf and hand me the detergent?’ I kid you not.”

As the audience laughed, she went on, “And the only thing she said — I reached up, ’cause she was short, and I reached up, pulled it down — she said, ‘Well, you didn’t have to make it look so easy.’ That was my interaction. I felt so good. ... She had no idea who I was. I thought, as soon as she walked up — I was with my assistant, and I said, ‘This is it, it’s over. We’re going to have to leave.’ She just needed the detergent.”

To People Magazine:

"I tell this story – I mean, even as the first lady – during that wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf. Because she didn't see me as the first lady, she saw me as someone who could help her. Those kinds of things happen in life. So it isn't anything new."

So it's not anything surprising or unexpected. They're liberals-they'll be nice and personable and sensible about everyday events one minute, while casually slandering you as racists in public about the same everyday events the next minute. This is why any feel-good threads they make are nothing but contemptible damage control and false fronts, that should be laughed off by all respectable people the moment they crop up.

[firstfloor]

Black people would not be so sensitive to racism unless there was a history of racism to feed that sensitivity. It is ridiculous that white conservatives think that the effects of their prejudice and the anxiety it produces can be turned off like a tap. That is to say that you cannot deconstruct racism to individual incidents because it is much more like the air you breathe in the way it permeates everything you think and do. Racism will slowly disappear as rates of intermarriage increase and your white daughters are producing ‘black’ grandchildren.

[Cow Poke]

Being five foot sixteen inches tall I am commonly approached by people in stores asking for help reaching items on top shelves.

In your case they're probably Loss Prevention wanting to see you stretch so they can see if you stuffed any merchandise in your pants.

Momma said there'd be days like this. As long as we both shall live.

[Cow Poke]

I don't recall any other First Lady being asked such a thing, though.

Maybe they just didn't pitch a pity party over it.

[Cow Poke]

I can not speak for Darth, but I simply expressed a feeling of the attitude both of the Obamas have shown. I did not mean it as a serious suggestion. It was just an interpretation of what I think her attitude is. And I stand by it, glare or not.

A glare from SP is like a day with crispy bacon.

[fm93]

Black people would not be so sensitive to racism unless there was a history of racism to feed that sensitivity. It is ridiculous that white conservatives think that the effects of their prejudice and the anxiety it produces can be turned off like a tap. That is to say that you cannot deconstruct racism to individual incidents because it is much more like the air you breathe in the way it permeates everything you think and do. Racism will slowly disappear as rates of intermarriage increase and your white daughters are producing ‘black’ grandchildren.

Yeah, that. Now this is how you make cogent, polite comments without coming off as trolling.

Unless, of course, you somehow were trolling by making this accurate statement, in which case: Ż\_(ツ)_/Ż

A glare from SP is like a day with crispy bacon.

My glare is so piercing that if I looked at a cow through a magnifying glass I'd instantly turn it into steak.

[Meta Knight]

It is ridiculous that white conservatives think that the effects of their prejudice and the anxiety it produces can be turned off like a tap.

No, what's ridiculous is that anyone on planet earth could think that being asked by a person shorter than they are to reach something high up is racism.

Racism will slowly disappear as rates of intermarriage increase and your white daughters are producing ‘black’ grandchildren.

Yeah, that's totally gonna happen.

Also, nice implication that the only people who are ever the target of racism are black people.

[Sparko]

How dare someone actually treat her like an ordinary shopper? In an ordinary department store!

Heaven forbid.


If I need help with something in a store, I sometimes will ask anyone near me, knowing that it would take more time to go look for an employee. People ask me for help too. Even short women!


This just shows how disconnected the Obamas are from real life.

[Darth Executor]

To Letterman:

That’s my Target run. I went to Target," she said. "I thought I was undercover. I have to tell you something about this trip though. No one knew that was me because a woman actually walked up to me, right? I was in the detergent aisle, and she said — I kid you not — she said, ‘Excuse me, I just have to ask you something,’ and I thought, ‘Oh, cover’s blown.’ She said, ‘Can you reach on that shelf and hand me the detergent?’ I kid you not.”

As the audience laughed, she went on, “And the only thing she said — I reached up, ’cause she was short, and I reached up, pulled it down — she said, ‘Well, you didn’t have to make it look so easy.’ That was my interaction. I felt so good. ... She had no idea who I was. I thought, as soon as she walked up — I was with my assistant, and I said, ‘This is it, it’s over. We’re going to have to leave.’ She just needed the detergent.”

I've been saying for a long time that Michelle is the true evil in the presidential family. I wouldn't be surprised if Barack was a voodoo corpse she guided with eldritch powers, like in Dead Silence.

[Darth Executor]

Black people would not be so sensitive to racism unless there was a history of racism to feed that sensitivity.

Or they're not that sensitive to racism and just lie because it gets whitie to grovel. Judging by the info Epo dug up that seems to be the case in this instance.

[Christianbookworm]

Calling people evil isn't very nice. How about... incompetent!

[Darth Executor]

Calling people evil isn't very nice. How about... incompetent!

She lobbied for partial birth abortion. Michelle Obama is so evil even Roseanne Barr couldn't stomach her.

[Christianbookworm]

Huh. Don't know how people could think partial birth abortion is okay. How could you be so willfully stupid!

[Darth Executor]

She's not stupid, she's evil.

[Epoetker]

Calling people evil isn't very nice. How about... incompetent!

Dishonestly and deliberately intimating that any random white people are inveterate oppressors, in a national publication, after Ferguson, is definitely evil.