Michelle Obama: White People ‘Still Running’ out of Black Neighborhoods

Former First Lady Michelle Obama accused white Americans of fleeing neighborhoods predominantly populated with minorities.

Obama appeared this week at the Obama Foundation’s 2019 summit, where she discussed growing up in Chicago. 

Mrs. Obama, who along with her husband recently bought a $15 million waterfront home in Martha’s Vineyard, attacked white Americans who didn’t remain in Chicago when middle-class blacks moved in. 

“Unbeknownst to us, we grew up in the period as I write of — called 'white flight' that is families like ours, upstanding families like ours, you know, who were doing everything we were supposed to do and better, as we moved in, white folks moved out, because they were afraid of what our families represented,” Obama said. “And I always stop there when I talk about this out in the world because, you know, I want to remind white folks that y’all were running from us."

Obama held up her own family as an example of what white people are supposed to admire. 

"This family with all the values that you read about, you [whites] were running from us, and you still running because we’re no different than the immigrant families that are moving in, the families in Pilsen, the the families that are coming from other places to try to do better,” Obama said. “But because we can so easily wash over who we really were because of the color of our skin, you know, because of the the texture of our hair, you know, that’s what divides countries … artificial things that don’t even touch on the values that people bring to life.”

Obama said she was resentful of her former neighbors for leaving Chicago.

“So, yeah, I felt — I feel a sense of injustice and you know this when you’re young you know people are running from you,” she said. “You know and you can see it you can see it all of a sudden because we grew up with friends of all races when we first moved in, Rachel Dempsey and Suzan Yaker and I ... You know, you had friends of all races, we played together. There were no gang fights, there were no territorial battles, but yet, one by one, they packed their bags and they ran from us, and they left communities in shambles. So when you hear the Aster talking about those that the respect that’s in community that history that’s there, especially in Chicago, especially on the South side, we were part of creating that history, you know, and and a lot of people walked away from it."