Michelle Obama Shares Details About Her Childhood

Brut America

"We may not have much but we have values." Michelle Obama has not forgotten where she came from. She says she owes her success, above all, to the education that her parents gave her.

Transcript

00:00As my mom always says when people ask her,

00:03what did you do to raise two fabulous kids?

00:05How did you create Michelle and Craig Robinson?

00:09And my mom always says there are millions of Michelle and Craig

00:12Robinsons all over the world.

00:14The beauty of our story is that it is not special.

00:17And it's important for the world to understand that working-class

00:22kids and people of color grow up in stable homes with fathers

00:27who work hard, with lots of love.

00:29We may not have material possession,

00:31but we have values and we have expectations.

00:35We have standards and we have love.

00:37It wasn't special.

00:40Everyone in my neighborhood was a good parent.

00:43I didn't know kids who got in trouble.

00:45People went to school.

00:46I didn't know folks who went to jail.

00:48We were working-class people.

00:50And it's important for us to understand as we start to figure

00:55out how we decide who belongs and who doesn't in this world.

00:59And we make decisions based on things like skin color and who

01:03one prays to and how one loves.

01:06And that happened to our family.

01:08And I wrote about how growing up and moving into a better

01:11neighborhood, as many parents want to do,

01:15they want to provide their kids with something more.

01:18My parents moved into a house that my great-aunt owned in a

01:22better neighborhood that was mixed race.

01:25It was probably predominantly white when we moved in.

01:29But a phenomenon known as white flight took place over the

01:33course of a few years of my childhood,

01:35where I started out in a school with a mixed race.

01:38You can see my kindergarten picture right there.

01:41And by the time I was in eighth grade,

01:43the entire community was all African American because the

01:47white families were told to be afraid of us and to move out.

01:51And we experienced that a lot, people of color, poor folks,

01:55folks who were told and whispered in their ear to be

01:57afraid of people like us.

02:00And I want people to understand that people,

02:03if you're running from somebody who you think is other,

02:06you could possibly be running from me.

02:09And we have to understand that we still do that to one another

02:12in this world.

02:14We decide who's good, who's bad, who has values.

02:17But my growing up, it was special because it was loving,

02:22but it wasn't anything new.

02:24My parents, my mom and dad thought we were funny and

02:27brilliant.

02:28They thought our views were so important.

02:30We were always included in on the conversations.

02:33We were never shushed.

02:34We were never told children are to be seen and not heard.

02:37They wanted to hear it all.

02:39And we told it all.

02:41And that foundation gave me confidence as I went out into

02:45the world.

02:46There is nothing more important than having parents who believe

02:49in their kids and trust their voices.

02:52And I knew that absolutely, absolutely.

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