Does Michelle Obama Know Poverty?

 Does Michelle Obama Know Poverty?

I was talking to my friend David yesterday, and he said that Michelle Obama didn’t have any right to talk about poverty and income inequality at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

I was surprised by this and asked him why he thought this.

He laughed and said, “She’s got no right because she owns at least three mansions and a yacht and flies in private jets and helicopters. She’s a millionaire! She’s worth 70 million dollars!”

I laughed right back at him and said I had money too, not a lot like Michelle Obama but still some, and I think you can be a millionaire and still know a lot about poverty.

I know about poverty because I grew up in Chicago as a refugee after World War II. We came to America with nothing but a suitcase that my dad made of boards he took from a wall in Buchenwald concentration camp, the camp he spent 5 years at as a prisoner of the Nazis. When we came to Chicago, we lived for a while in a shed behind a tavern. Then we moved into a 4 room apartment with 3 other families. We didn’t have beds. We slept on the floor. My father worked double shifts in a factory to make some money. My mom worked in a factory too.

How did I get to be worth as much as I’m worth? I went to college and then grad school and then spent a lifetime teaching, and I married a woman who did the same.

Michelle Obama photo by Peter Serocki

Does Michelle Obama know poverty?

Probably not as well as I do, but I bet she knows it.

She grew up in Chicago where her dad was a city water plant worker and her mom was a secretary before she had her children. Michelle’s parents were working-class people living in a lower middle-class area on the southside that was predominantly black.

And growing up on the southside of Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s, Michelle Obama saw poverty. It was impossible to miss back then, just as it’s impossible to miss even now if you live in certain areas of Chicago. She saw crime, she saw limited job opportunities, she saw limited access to health care and education, she saw poor housing conditions.

She was fortunate to be able to work her way out of this world, but even when you work your way out of it, you never forget it.

It’s always there in your memory.

So when a Trump supporting friend tells me that Michelle Obama has no right to talk about poverty and income inequality, I have to wonder why my friend doesn’t know more about her and also doesn’t know more about Trump, a millionaire from birth who’s never experienced any kind of poverty.

Trump is the guy we ought to be questioning.

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My latest column for the Dziennik Zwiazkowy, the oldest Polish newspaper in America.

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