Phony politicians (and their spouses, it seems) annoy me, but it seems particularly awful to concoct a phony story about racism.
People Magazine has published an interview titled
The Obamas: How We Deal with Our Own Racist Experiences. In it, Michelle recounts being mistaken for a Target employee because she is black.
The protective bubble that comes with the presidency – the armored limo, the Secret Service detail, the White House – shields Barack and Michelle Obama from a lot of unpleasantness. But their encounters with racial prejudice aren't as far in the past as one might expect. And they obviously still sting.
"I think people forget that we've lived in the White House for six years," the first lady told PEOPLE, laughing wryly, along with her husband, at the assumption that the first family has been largely insulated from coming face-to-face with racism.
"Before that, Barack Obama was a black man that lived on the South Side of Chicago, who had his share of troubles catching cabs," Mrs. Obama said in the Dec. 10 interview appearing in the new issue of PEOPLE.
I tell this story – I mean, even as the first lady – during that wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target [remember when she went to target and a press photographer just happened to be there? 
], 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.
The problem is, that's not why the woman asked for help, as Michelle Obama herself explained last year on Letterman.
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 cover’s blown. She said, ‘Can you reach on that shelf and hand me the detergent?’ I kid you not. And the only thing she said–I reached up cause she was short–I reached up and 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 looked my–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.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/03/michelle-obama-talks-target-and-her-dad-on-lettermans-117938.htmlAnd here is the published photo of Michelle during her totally spontaneous shopping trip. Yes, I can totally see how she would have been mistaken for a Target employee because she was black.
Making up stories of racism for a People Mag puff piece doesn't seem to be helpful for race relations.
