YouSaid · the spoken record

Michelle Obama

lines on the record: 76
first: 2025-05-01
most recent: 2025-05-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“that I'm just marching through life check, check, check, apply to top college, got into Princeton, right? I'm in, graduated at the top of the class, go to law school. Why? I don't know. There wasn't really a thought to why I went to law school. It was just, I don't know what I'm going to do after graduate school, not going to be a doctor because I don't like science or math. I like to talk. I like to argue. And so why not go to law school? So I applied to Harvard, get in. You go to Harvard. You know, that was just, that was my thought process. There wasn't purpose. There wasn't what do I care about. I didn't know what being a corporate lawyer meant. I was just checking boxes until I became a lawyer. And a lot of stuff happened in that year besides me just joining.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“First real job I had had right out of Harvard because that's what you did. You know, after you went to go to law school, top school, you recruited by the top firms in the country and they offer you exorbitant salaries. So at that age, as I started as a first year associate, I was making more than my parents made combined, which seemed like something you didn't turn down, you know, if you have the opportunity to do that. It's like, yeah, sure, I'm going to work for a firm. But that's what I was really doing all my life. I was box checking. I was just, because I was a good student and I could do certain things. That's what I did. Be a good student, show up, do the work, check. Got that. Get good grades. Go to a competitive high school. Went to a magnet high school with class treasurer, top of the class. Check, got it. I cause I can do that.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Then you don't belong, that they're smarter, that they work harder, that they know more, that they deserve this more than you do. That's just not true. And so from then on, I was like, you prove that I don't belong here, you know. I'm going to sit at these tables and I am going to run it from now on. Why am I listening to you? Why don't you listen to me? I think that experience for me was freeing in an odd kind of way, and a lot of kids don't get access. They're just blocked out and it's sort of like they're told don't look behind the curtain because you don't belong and they want us to think that way. I stop thinking that way a long time ago.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're just trying to get into my head. You're scared of me. You know, you don't want me competing with you. And I think it was at that period going to one of the top schools that I was like, I'm done. I am done roaring about whether I belong here. You know, this is a scam. So that, I think that really, I came out of Princeton just feeling like, you know, let me add him, you know, forget all this stuff. And now I'm trying to tell other kids that. It's like I'm coming down from the mountaintop with the tablet of truth and going, do not let these people scam you. This is all a racket.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“God, well, there's all kinds of affirmative action that never talk about. You know, there's wealth and legacy. There's athletic affirmative action. There were a lot of kids that were on that campus. And as I learned continue to gain access to these seats of power that have nothing to do with their raw academic ability, there are a lot of bright kids who go to these schools, but there are a lot of bright kids whose parents get them into these schools. And when I got on campus and I came out of my first semester with straight A's, I was like, well, what's the, what are you talking about? What are you who are you? Why are you trying to mess with my head in this way when you guys are, you're not even working as hard as me. But that was, it was infuriating, but it was freeing. Because I was like, I get it now.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“By the time I hit Princeton thankfully, I had enough internal data that I could do a lot of things that I was better, smarter, sharper than they would give me credit for. And then it was confirmed when I walked on to Princeton's campus as an undergrad, feeling a little intimidated because it was an Ivy League school and I wasn't a great test taker, although I was an outstanding student, I wasn't a standardized good standardized test taker. All those numbers said that I shouldn't do well at Princeton. And so I came in as an affirmative action kid, sort of feeling like maybe I don't belong in these ivory towers and maybe these kids coming from these other schools are really so much smarter and better than I am. And then I sat on that campus and I looked around and I was like, oh my.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Living through the incorrectness of that underestimation, right? First of all, I grew up fortunately in a predominantly black neighborhood after white flight happened where everyone assumed I was smart, right? I grew up as the salutatorian in my grammar school. I went to a top high school.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that a little black boy, more so even my brother, they were probably more concerned with him because he was going to encounter it every day as he got taller and bigger and smarter because all of the men in our lives had experienced someone trying to knock them down a peg or two. I think our parents understood that that was waiting for both of us and it was waiting for my brother in particular. So they wanted to arm him with enough self-esteem to fill him up at the table where he was safe, to give him the tools to just embed in him a level of empathy so that he wouldn't become angry because anger for a young black boy was dangerous. You know, so there was a real clever way of allowing us to have these conversations, but filling us up with empathy so that we could function in a racist society.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, you know, our admonitions in our house were always conversations. It was discussions. And you knew when your parents were disappointed. You knew when you had struck a nerve. And it was never about, you know, Just making a mistake, or it was about thinking In a way that felt oppressive, internally oppressive. They didn't like that kind of thinking in us. They wanted us to feel our own power. They never wanted us to surrender the way we thought about ourselves to the rest of the world because they probably understood that they couldn't trust the way the rest of the world would treat us, right? So you can't. They knew that we couldn't be so locked into what the world would say because the world was grounded in racism.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, it's like my dad who is this, you know, amazingly kind and generous person who would have been good for a lot of these people's kids, these white folks kids, to get to know and be around us who turned out to be who we were and we were always going to be that. You're running for up from us? Well, our feeling was like, well, how stupid is racism and how stupid are you for not really looking and getting to know? So race to me in my household was just a dumb manifestation of ignorant people. But we were taught to keep moving through it.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's the sociological occurrence of what happens in communities when black people sort of start making their way up socioeconomically and can buy homes or rent homes in neighborhoods that are predominantly white. So instead of white people accepting it, they sell their homes on mass. There's a sort of undercurrent of we better get out because these black families coming in are going to ruin the neighborhood and bring down property values. So you better sell now and go further south into the southern suburbs. And so when you're young, you kind of know something is going on. You know, it's not like we were sitting around the kitchen table talking about white flight. But what you do know and you take in as a child is like these people are running from us.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And everyone got along. Neighbors knew one another. We played with each other. I went to Rachel's house and for lunch and, you know, but then one year it was like the lights went off for the white people and they were gone without a trace.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“capable my father was that voice for a lot of our cousins if they didn't have that kind of energy in their lives. It was always like you got this and you know what you're doing. So in our home there was race pride. But when you live in a when we moved into South Shore into Robbie's house, our Aunt Robbie's house, most of my neighborhood friends were white kids, Rachel Dempsey and Susan Yaker and Sophanot Consupant, who was a Korean girl because we lived by hospital and her mother was a nurse. So it was a very mixed who were, you know, they were a black family but could pass for white. I mean, it was just sort of some of everyone in the neighborhood, Miss Mason, who was the little white lady across the street. And our neighbors were the Mendozas, the Mexicans. You know, it was sort of everywhere, all around us.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think there's a lot of race pride in our family. There was this feeling, this understanding that because of people's prejudice, there would be a lot of white people that would underestimate you, that would mistreat you, that would assume things about you. Our family, our entire family on both sides, really smart, talented, gifted people to have a family that big, but all working class people, right? So we lived among sort of real regular excellence, you know? I mean, people who were teachers and who were engineers, all of our cousins were people who were expected to do well in school. So we were taught, like, no one's better, smarter than you. You know, you're”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I probably does. I mean, I still think about the kids who were left behind. I mean, there's just something that really touches me about kids who are as bright as we are because we grew up with them. You know, my mother saw them. And the only difference between me and them was that they had a mother that cared. And a lot of their lives looked totally different from ours because of that. And I find myself being that advocate for those kids, those the kids who are underestimated and under supported. And that turns out to be kids most kids all over the world. So I do find that that moment for me was a defining in a pretty fundamental way about how I fight for kids in the way. That I saw my mom fight for me.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“couple of weeks taking some specialized tests we were just doing bubble test didn't know what it was got the results and the results proved that I could skip second grade and it was a lifesaver for me but I'll never forget my mom finally did I would hear her complaint of my dad this teacher you know these teachers who don't care about these kids she had gotten us out but she was worried about the kids who were stuck in that second grade class who didn't have parents who were their advocates who you know were going to spend probably a wasted year in second grade missing whatever they were going to miss but that was one of those instances where I knew that if a cry for help from me was heard by my mother and acted upon she could have been one of those mothers who said well just you know life is life just get it together but she knew there was something different”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And there was no order we didn't have homework, we weren't doing regular lessons, and I knew that something was wrong, and I would come home at lunch, and I'd complain about nothing happened today at school, you know, and I don't know what second grade is supposed to be, but I don't feel like I'm getting what I need to get out of second grade. It took a month of coming home and complaining, and my mom was quietly listening, but she wasn't just listening. She was plotting and it was a month in she went up to the school, watched herself, and saw that this teacher not only wasn't teaching, but it appeared that she didn't even like kids. So she went to the principal's office and read them the Riot Act. I don't know what she said or what she did, but three of us were pulled out of the class for testing, and I just remember I just didn't have to go into that class, and I spent”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, and knowing that it's not just unconditional love, but our parents believed us. They valued our voices. I mean, they really liked to hear us talk. They encouraged us to think out loud and to problem solve, into come to us with their problems but not be the ones that we're going to solve it. And this came in very handy when you're a kid in public school because in public school, southside of Chicago, teaching was kind of uneven, you know. One year you'd get a teacher that cared and invested in the kids, another grade you'd have a teacher that didn't care. And I remember distinctly, I started second grade and I went to a classroom that was completely chaotic. The teacher clearly didn't want to be there. And I knew this in second grade.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Never took a sick day. He was the father that fathered all the other kids in the neighborhood, you know, so when Craig was playing basketball, he was the person that was at most of the practices if he could be if his shift allowed. He was the dad in the neighborhood where a lot of kids didn't have those kind of orbital models. And even though we didn't have a lot, you know, there was never a time when my father wasn't going to help somebody. So, you know, I guess those values where you take care of people, money doesn't really matter. That's not the thing that makes you great. It's how you show up in the world. It's your word. How you treat other people.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think our parents modeled it. I mean, if I were to think of one word that would describe my father, he was just a decent man, decent, honest, hard-working, and loyal, trustworthy. I mean, these were the kind of things that we talked about. We didn't have material stuff. He couldn't provide that, but he provided a set of lessons about what it meant to be a good friend. He was the elder in his family, the oldest of what, five? And my mom was the middle child. And he took care of everyone, even though he had multiple sclerosis and walked with assistants. He had a cane when we were younger. I never knew my father to walk without the assistance of a cane and MS was a progressive disease. So, over the course of his life, he just got weaker and weaker and weaker. But he was the strongest person in our orbit with everyone.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For us to each have our own room, and we shared the space one bathroom. There was no dining room. There was just a kitchen.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“with our great aunt because it helped our parents save some money and get us in a better neighborhood because my father was a city worker he was a working class guy didn't have a college education and working for the city was a really stable job because it gave you benefits and some stability and my mom wanted to stay home and and raise kids so in order to save that kind of money we band together and lived with our aunt Robbie and all of the adventures and the lessons learned when I think about my foundational values that house really and all the experiences and conversations the beginning of my kitchen table happened on seventy fourth in Euclid and I talk about it because you think it was a palace but this was a little home we shared a bedroom most of our lives because there just wasn't room for”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It starts at 7436 South Euclid, the hub of it all. The home that we grew up in on the south side of Chicago. And it was a teeny tiny house. We lived above our Aunt Robbie. It was a single family home, a bungalow on the south side of Chicago. And our Aunt Robbie was married to her husband Terry, and they owned the home. And they had a little bitty, almost one bedroom, two bedroom apartment over the home. So it was a two family home. We were surrounded by extended family, that community of people that you probably because people didn't have a lot of resources, people lived with each other. You know, you shared spaces, you lived next to one another, and we lived.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I didn't know what that journey was going to be and what I would need to negotiate for myself. And if I had known what I know now, I should have said that.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The next thing, you know, we were on our way to building our lives together And my initial reaction was don't do this. There'd be death threats. How do you raise kids in the White House? How would we afford it?”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood and we were taught foundational values so that we could function in our society. But growing up I was just checking boxes and then my metamorphama. He showed up in my life as the opposite of a box checker.”
2025-05-01 · The Diary of a CEO · Former First Lady (Michelle Obama): This Is A Scam! People Were Running From Us Because We Were Black! I Was Bitter About The Racism I Received! · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT