Michelle Obama's racist Princeton roommate

Parent Cafe
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<p>A daughter of a single mother who had managed to gain admission to Princeton was horrified to learn that she’d been assigned a black roommate. Her mother demanded that she be moved and, when the university did not accede to this request, her grandmother suggested that she withdraw from Princeton. Unbelievable. This article gives some background for Michelle Obama’s comment that she did not feel accepted at Princeton:</p>

<p>[Georgian</a> recalls rooming with Michelle Obama | ajc.com](<a href=“http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/04/12/roommate_0413.html]Georgian”>http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/04/12/roommate_0413.html)</p>

<p>These people believe that Michelle was never aware of their feelings and attempts to have the room assignment changed. That’s hard to believe.</p>

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<p>My first-year roommate told me, on the first day of move-in, that his mother’s worst fear was that he would end up rooming with a New York Jew. We remained civil, though I had to walk out of the room whenever the conversation turned to race.</p>

<p>I met his mother - we sort of just stared at each other.</p>

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<p>Amazing. Lots of comments I’ll keep to myself, but here’s a question: Does the Third World Center still exist on campus?</p>

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<p>Wow, what an interesting story. My freshman roommate’s mom wasn’t too thrilled to learn that I was black either. My roommate (we shared a double) was a sweet Jewish girl from Long Island. Merry (short for Meredith) and I got along great, but her mother literally blanched when she saw me. However, she quickly recovered and pasted on the most wooden smile I have ever seen. Her cheeks probably ached for hours afterward, poor woman. I have no idea if mommy tried to pull strings behind the scenes and get Merry removed from my influence, but sometime later, Merry giggled and admitted that her mom had told her to "hide her valuables, and to “watch me”. I learned a lot from Merry and I believe she learned a lot from me, too. She had never had any black friends, and I had never had any Jewish friends. Later, half my friends would be Jews, but where I grew up, the only Jewish student in our entire high school was the daughter of the Assistant Principal. </p>

<p>But I can relate entirely to what Michele Obama said in her thesis when she wrote, “No matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don’t belong,” she wrote. “Regardless of the circumstances under which I interact with Whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be Black first and a student second.” </p>

<p>For me, this occurred in 1976. The Civil Rights Act had been signed into law less than 10 years earlier. At the Elite Northeastern LAC I attended, there were less than 40 black and/or Latin students on the entire campus of 2300. Many of the white students I met had literally never held a conversation with a black person before (other than their maid or gardener). People would literally listen to me speak with their mouths hanging open, I was such a jarring contrast to their expectations—LOL! But it got tiresome, and sometimes felt very isolating. At times too, people made no bones about how they felt about the worthiness of us blacks to be on “their campus” (yes, some of them literally said, “our campus”), so yes, I can entirely relate to the young Michele Robinson. </p>

<p>But what heartens me about the above linked story, is they way even Ms. Brown has changed in the intervening years. My D is about to graduate from a top LAC, and has never expressed experiencing some of the things I experienced at her age.</p>

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<p>“he would end up rooming with a New York Jew.”</p>

<p>For the past 2 years my son’s roommate might be your long lost cousin from Long Island.</p>

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<p>I love this part of the story:
"Now she [Donnelly, Michelle’s former white roommate] wishes she had reached across racial lines at Princeton…</p>

<p>Since then, Donnelly has worked and socialized with African-Americans. Yet she hasn’t grown close to any of them. “I’ve just never had an opportunity,” she says, “to have a good friend who was black.”</p>

<p>“You did with Michelle,” Brown [Donnelly’s mom who had wanted her to leave Princeton due to having a black roommie] snaps.'"</p>

<p>I had the same fears for my son when he went to college, though I never told him about my fear that his roommates would dislike or fear him because he is black.</p>

<p>And when I went to college – a decade before Michelle OBama did – the same kind of fears and reactions existed even in Ivies.</p>

<p>About 15 years ago, one of my mentees, a black girl, encountered racism in her rommates at Michigan State. Her roommate was from rural Michigan, and apparently had never been around black people before. My mentee was very comfortable with all kinds of people – played violin in a youth orchestra, had worked as a student journalist at one of the city’s dailies, had excellent grades, scores, very sophhisticated and nice. However, the roommate and the roommate’s mother looked at my mentee in shock when they saw she was black, and the white roommate found a way of moving out of the room in a few days.</p>

<p>I also remember that about 10 years ago when I took my elementary school-aged son to pick up a friend to take the friend and her mom to the theater, the friend’s father (a doctor) was clearly shocked to see that his child had a black friend.</p>

<p>I don’t think my son noticed the reaction, but it was clear to me, particularly when the dad pulled the mom aside to go to another room to have a quiet chat. When we dropped them off later, the mom apologized for not inviting us in, saying she didn’t feel well. She was a very nice person, whom I encountered later while chaperoning field trips, but she obviously was married to a racist (who I am sorry to say later became head of another state’s health department).</p>

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<p>A sorry turn of events to be sure! One has to wonder about the level of care the state’s poor and minority population is receiving under his direction.:eek:</p>

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<p>Haha! I noticed this little discrepancy too, Northstar. Seems the mom still suffers from selective amnesia:rolleyes:</p>

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<p>My freshman year, I was randomly assigned to room with a black girl. My parents hadn’t accompanied me to school, so that night, when I called home to tell my parents how it was going, I mentioned to her that my roommate was black. (Yes, it was unusual enough that it was worth mentioning.) My mother gasped and asked if I wanted her to try to get me moved. I was flabbergasted that she would consider such a thing and told her no.</p>

<p>Racism is very confusing and disturbing. I was shocked that my mother said what she did.</p>

<p>And yeah, I was the first Jewish person my roommate had ever met.</p>

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<p>Funny how the parents often have more trouble getting along than the kids, and not just when it comes to race.</p>

<p>My parents attended Freshman Parents’ Weekend at Brown at the height of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill brouhaha. My parents were in the tiny dorm room, making small talk with the parents of my sister’s roommate. They chatted about the long drive to Providence, and my mother said something about how the Senate hearings were carried live on every radio station, so they’d had nothing else to listen to.</p>

<p>In response, the roommate’s father smashed his fist onto the desk and yelled, “That b!tch! She claims he made comments about her breasts, but I saw those breasts on TV, and there’s nothing there worth talking about!”</p>

<p>Well, it didn’t go so well after that. The two kids were sharing the tiny room in peace, but put the parents in there, and you get World War Three.</p>

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<p>OMG, what a stupid thing to say. I sure hope the roommate was nicer than the dad. What a sexist pig!! (Regardless of what you think about the whole Thomas-Hill thing.)</p>

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<p>I wonder if Donelly’s mother’s select amnesia came on <em>after</em> Barack Obama became the front runner. Considering that GWB has put into high office his next door neighbor (Alphonso Jackson, HUD, now resigning under a cloud), his real estate lawyer (Alberto Gonzales who, surprise, surprise, can’t find a new gig) and his former college roommate (Clay Johnson at OMB…don’t know if he’s still around), Mrs. Donelly is probably upset that her daughter will not receive some cushy assignment by virtue of their old association.</p>

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<p>Well…I’m feeling like stirring the (melting) pot a bit. </p>

<p>One of my relatives, who is white, was the only white person in his class at Howard Law School in the early 1960s–before the Civil Rights Acts were enacted. There was one (African-American) woman in his class. They were first year moot court partners because nobody else would partner with either of them. Heck, most of the other students wouldn’t even TALK to them. And it stayed that way throughout law school.</p>

<p>And if you think some parents were stunned when they discovered their white child had an African-American roommate, well, lets just say that not a heck of a lot of Howard students tried to hide their feelings when they saw a white guy on campus in the early sixties. Some of his professors didn’t like the idea either. </p>

<p>It did get pretty funny sometimes–after he graduated, the local paper kept printing he went to Harvard Law, because every reporter assumed Howard had to be a mistake. He’s been invited to join just numerous organizations of prominent African-Americans and African-American attorneys, asked to fill out forms to be included in the equivalent of Who’s Who among African-Americans, etc. Everyone ASSUMES that each and every person in his Howard law school class was African-American. </p>

<p>Anyway, while I would certainly agree that it was one heck of a lot easier to be a white person than a black person in the US of the early sixties and that the men in my relative’s law school class probably had good reason to distrust whites, that didn’t make it any easier for him at the time. The message he was given over and over again was “We don’t want you here. LEAVE.” I am reminded by that when someone said white students used the prhase “our” campus. My relative heard a gazillion times that this is “OUR” school. Some professors said --in front of him–that a black --that was the PC term back then–institution like Howard should not educate a white person. Some felt that it was perfectly okay to use any method short of actual violence to try to get him to withdraw. </p>

<p>Just a reminder that racism isn’t just practiced by people with fair skins. </p>

<p>(In the unlikely event any of you know the identity of my relative, please don’t post it.)</p>

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<p>“Just a reminder that racism isn’t just practiced by people with fair skins.”</p>

<p>“Racism” is a system of privilege. I think you mean “prejudice”.</p>

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<p>^ Not just the parents surprisingly. My D has been looking at a room mate matching thing on the college she will attend this fall. She and another girl are getting to know each other, attracted by their similarities in interests and possible compatability. My D is white, her new friend is black. Two of my D’s school friends who happen to be Asian and who are also in this process actually pointed out the girl’s race as though it ought to be a consideration and proposed another choice. My D was pretty taken aback.</p>

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Since Donnelly ended up staying in that room with Obama for the first semester, I assume and hope Princeton refused to allow a room change for such a ridiculous reason.</p>

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<p>Has anyone ever heard of a musical called “Avenue Q”? it’s basically an adult version of sesame street, dealing with more “grown-up” issues. One of the songs is called “Everyone’s a little bit racist”. I just about died laughing when I heard it for the first time.</p>

<p>I had no exposure to much racism in either direction until I moved out to St. Louis. It’s odd when you’re exposed to it after your developmental years are finished.</p>

<p>You can find a clip on YouTube.</p>

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<p>““Racism” is a system of privilege. I think you mean “prejudice”.”</p>

<p>In the context of someone who is white being discriminated against at a predominantly black college, it seems to me that racism is a perfectly accurate description of what went on there.</p>

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<p>He wasn’t (according to the writer) being discriminated against. He didn’t lose opportunities because of his color. He DID experience prejudice.</p>

<p>In fact, quite the contrary. Despite many people feeling he shouldn’t be there at all, he was admitted and graudated.</p>

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<p>Michelle Obama’s experience with having a black roommate is a nice example of why colleges want to have diverse student bodies: college is probably the only time in life in which people have the chance to be so closely associated with others who differ from them in race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, etc.</p>

<p>Even though Michelle and her roommate weren’t that close, I’m sure that rooming with a black person helped expand the roommate’s mind about black people in general.</p>