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An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the ...
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What is it like to straddle different worlds? What is it like to harbor ambitions that put you at odds with the community and the people you love and trust the most?

Created: 01/01/19

Replies: 3

Posted Jan. 01, 2019 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
davinamw

Join Date: 10/15/10

Posts: 3442

What is it like to straddle different worlds? What is it like to harbor ambitions that put you at odds with the community and the people you love and trust the most?

Early in Michelle Obama's life, a young relative asks her, "How come you talk like a white girl?" Michelle Obama came from a home where she was expected to be smart and to "own" her smartness and "inhabit it with pride" but lived in a neighborhood where "speaking a certain way --- the 'white' way, as some would have it --- was perceived as a betrayal...as somehow denying our culture."

What is it like to straddle different worlds?

What is it like to harbor ambitions that put you at odds with the community and the people you love and trust the most?


Posted Jan. 14, 2019 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
peggyt

Join Date: 08/10/17

Posts: 215

RE: What is it like to straddle different worlds? What is it like to harbor ambitions that put you at odds with the community and the people you love and trust the most?

From personal experience, I really don’t know. From reading this book, I would say it takes a core of inner strength, self confidence and the support of friends and loved ones.


Posted Jan. 20, 2019 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
Suzanne

Join Date: 04/21/11

Posts: 281

RE: What is it like to straddle different worlds? What is it like to harbor ambitions that put you at odds with the community and the people you love and trust the most?

Peggy—I think your answer is perfect.


Posted Jan. 25, 2019 Go to Top | Go to bottom | link | alert
ylhoff

Join Date: 10/23/12

Posts: 85

RE: What is it like to straddle different worlds? What is it like to harbor ambitions that put you at odds with the community and the people you love and trust the most?

I grew up straddling worlds and found that the most resistance to my not being quite like the others came from the community I would have expected to be the most accepting. Being labeled an "Oreo" was odd to me. It didn't hurt my feelings because I didn't connect with those who thought the term was derogatory enough for me to feel bad. I also really liked Oreo cookies ... On the other hand, within the communities I was accustomed to moving in, I didn't realize until I was an adult how sidelined I had been throughout my life simply because of my color. I am glad I didn't come to that epiphany until I was old enough to process it. In a lot of ways, I was blind to what was going on around me, but I believe my parents and grandparents made a very intentional choice to live where they did and to send me to school where they did in order to give me the opportunity to learn and grow.

My ambitions were not a problem. My issue turned out to be that no one expected much from me and I had to find my own way. I don't know if that is harder or if it is just another version of the same thing as being at odds.


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