She had a very, very privileged existence.

From Wikipedia:

Michelle Robinson was born in Chicago, Illinois to Frasier Robinson (who died in 1990),[1] a city water plant employee and Democratic precinct captain, and Marian Robinson, a secretary at Spiegel's catalog store;

Does not sound "very very privileged" to me. She sounds like she was a smart kid from a solid family that had some political connections, and that she took maximum advantage of every opportunity that came her way. Sounds like a great American story to me. I can see why Bushies, who's hero is an idiot who actually did come from a very very privileged background, would not like the Obamas at all.

But having limited seating capacity and the bouncer letting in only the cool kids does.

Limited seating yes, but "cool kids"? I don't think so.

Saying that your parents didn't take you to the restaurant doesn't make the restaurant exclusive.

But having limited seating capacity and the bouncer letting in only the cool kids does.

It's that the restaurant wasn't available to "just anyone."

It wasn't a segregated school, by race or gender. It wasn't a private school you had to pay for. There were no physical or social requirements to get in. Presumably transportation was provided, so there were not even geographic requirements (other than being in the school's district). It was for all intents and purposes, available for "just anyone".

Saying that your parents didn't take you to the restaurant doesn't make the restaurant exclusive.

I have come to the conclusion that a lot of people are simply freaked out that black folks can be this smart, this attractive, and this together, and that they just might be running things pretty soon...

The ones who are freaked out that a half-black, half-white (why biracial people's white half is never recognized, I don't understand) man might be running the country likely think their educational credentials were handed to them, not that they're smart or together.

If you go to the best steakhouse in town, and order a burger, it doesn't seem worth it. However, if I order the filet, it does. That doesn't mean the restaurant you went to is nothing like the one I went to, it just means that I took better advantage of what was available to me there than you did.

I think this illustrates James's point perfectly. It's not that Michelle had the presence of mind to order the filet while others didn't. It's that the restaurant wasn't available to "just anyone." She's saying that she benefitted from the filet, but that she ordered it from McDonalds's.

How do I know? I worked for the Chicago Public Schools for many years and wo of my cousins sons went to Young. They got a wonderful education, but felt left out most of the time because they felt that they didn't fit in.

Bouchet, Mrs. Obama's elementary school, is not a magnet school and does not have recognized gifted classes following the specifics of CPS program guides. I know what Bouchet did is pull the top scoring students in the school and put them all together in what would have been known as an accelerated class - average kids by most standards, who were treated as gifted and given a curriculum that was faster and more. [not a good gifted curriculum format]

no she wasn't handed a silver spoon, but she did get more than what 97% of the rest of the kids in Chicago did, and I think she knew it, especially given her senior thesis at Princeton.

All cultures have privilege and elite in their own ways. It's dangerous to compare them cross-culturally, especially when the number one comparison is white-anlgo-saxon-protestant. I was privileged because I was the first person in our family not only to get a college education but also an advanced degree. Michelle Obama reflects the exact same idea of privilege in the African-American culture that she is speaking out against by virtue of where she lived and the opportunities afforded her at the time. Did she struggle? Yeah. So did I and so did you...

Similarly, while it's true that Whitney Young has become something of an elite institution in recent years -- from what I've read, it's one of the top schools in Illinois now -- that was not the case back when it opened. Back when Michelle and I entered Whitney Young in 1977 -- we were classmates -- the magnet concept for the school was that it would draw in a racially mixed student body and would have strong arts programs, not that it would be an academic powerhouse. The admissions process wasn't totally clear, but it was largely based on race and geography (trying to get kids from all areas of the city). Incidentally, Michelle was not a "local" student; she lived about 12 miles from the school.

During our first year or two in high school, Whitney Young didn't even have honors classes; those came about only because the mother of one of our other classmates kept pestering the school board and administration until they finally gave in. (Note that this is exactly the type of parental involvement in schools that several posters have discussed above as essential to educational excellence.) Were teachers drawn to WY because it was a safer and newer school than many others in the Chicago system? Certainly. Were there good teachers at WY? Yes. Were there also awful teachers there? Absolutely yes. Were there a lot of bright kids in the student body? Yes. Were there a lot of kids who were average or even substandard? Absolutely. WY had a higher percentage of talented and motivated students than other schools, and a lower percentage of burnouts, but both its students and its teachers ran the gamut from excellent to lousy.

One area where Whitney Young defintitely did well was security and safety, because they had the option of sending undisciplined students back to their home districts. That's not to say that there were no problems, though. Whitney Young was also the site of a hearing impaired program (HIP), which was selective only in the sense that you had to be deaf to be admitted. The HIP kids would routinely be seen smoking reefer, jumping turnstiles at the rapid transit station, and smashing things with steel bars. The facilities were also good, mainly because they were brand new. Other public schools in the city had many of the same facilities, however -- just in older buildings.

What I'm trying to get across here is that Whitney Young -- at least at the time Michelle and I attended -- was hardly the Groton or Deerfield that some people seem to think it was. It was a better than average public school, and it provided a good enough education -- if a student and his/her parents insisted on getting quality classes -- that many graduates were able to get into universities like Princeton, Harvard, Penn, and Northwestern. But it was most decidedly a public school. And the fact that it was not an "average" public school is irrelevant; public school systems are supposed to be providing programs suitable for all students, whether they have learning disabilities or are gifted. Michelle is correct that the care and investment Chicago put into its schools helped make her who she is today.

Gifted classes teach "values clarification", "situation ethics" and help puff up a child's ego like a hot air balloon on steroids. I pulled my son OUT of gifted classes for those very reasons. The school system was undermining everything his family was trying to teach him about truth, humility, work ethic, etc., etc. Shortly thereafter we enrolled our children in private school and sacrificed whatever was necessary to keep them there.

Public schools are so dumbed down now that they seem unredeemable. I shutter to think what the future holds for upcoming generations.

All of their friends are either terrorists such as Ayers, whitey haters like Wright, criminals like Rezko or Lawyers. We all know about lawyers.

Geez, how can anyone take seriously this coming from someone who, as his nom de comment, adopted the name of a 13th century Albanian warlord who married his favorite goat.