Posts Tagged ‘reuters
kinship

Reuters: ….In Africa, Michelle Obama has been welcomed as the daughter of a continent she has only visited a handful of times, and interest is high in her unique position as a black presidential spouse and leader in her own right.
….Does she feel a kinship with Africa? “Absolutely, yeah,” she said in the interview, before comparing that to the feeling she had in Moneygall, Ireland, where the president met a distant cousin in May.
“I absolutely feel that connection here. And I wasn’t surprised by it. I absolutely felt that connection in Moneygall (and was) a little more surprised by it.”
Thousands of people lined the main street of tiny Moneygall last month, welcoming the Obamas as if they were long lost relatives…. “The love, the warmth, the connection, the excitement. That was family, too. And that’s what I want my kids to understand - that your family is Granny in Kisumu, but it’s also your cousin in Moneygall. That is your history. That is really the American history.”
Audiences in Johannesburg and Cape Town found the first lady’s history and success inspiring … “As a young black woman, I see her as a role model,” said Nozi Samela, 26, in Cape Town, adding that it was Obama’s work - not necessarily her race - that generated admiration. “She has taken time to come to the communities, to see the people from the ground level, and actually talk to them, and hear what the issues they face are. I see her as a role model.”
Mamphela Ramphele, a former anti-apartheid activist who moderated Obama’s discussion with students at the university, said the first lady rose above skin color and gender. “To have someone like her who is successful in her own right and represents the transcendence of barriers of race, of class, of gender in the U.S. coming here and engaging in such a human way… that touches the hearts of ordinary people,” Ramphele said.
Full article here
Thank you CTGirl

























