First lady Michelle Obama used a speech last week to commemorate the opening of a New York museum to "dig deeper the racial divide that's been growing ever wider during her husband's presidency,"
BizPac Review reports.
She said concert halls and museums do not welcome non-white visitors – and children in particular – as they welcome whites.
In her speech – delivered at the opening of the Whitney Museum's new downtown Manhattan home – Obama said she grew up thinking that museums were not places "for someone who looks like me."
"You see, there are so many kids in this country who look at places like museums and concert halls and other cultural centers and they think to themselves, well, that’s not a place for me, for someone who looks like me, for someone who comes from my neighborhood," she said. "In fact, I guarantee you that right now, there are kids living less than a mile from here who would never in a million years dream that they would be welcome in this museum."
“And growing up on the South Side of Chicago, I was one of those kids myself," Obama said. "So I know that feeling of not belonging in a place like this."
She added that "today, as first lady, I know how that feeling limits the horizons of far too many of our young people."
Twitchy reports Obama's comments served as inspiration for a report on WNYC, a New York public radio station, entitled "Museums as White Spaces." The story discussed why "many museums are off-limits to people of color."
Some WNYC listeners made it clear they believed Mrs. Obama was painting a false picture of how U.S. museums treat non-white children. At the Metropolitan Museum last week, "there were MANY children who were not white," one tweet read. "Mrs. Obama needs to live in today's world."
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