And boy was she AMAZING!!! but you know what, she wasn't even the highlight for me. There was a women for Obama rally working on recruiting volunteers at the University of Virginia today and I was there. The thing is, while I now agree with folks that say Michelle is a better speaker than Barack, she was not even the highlight of my day
So I'm in graduate school at UVA and live in Charlottesville, VA, which while being voted the best place to live in America at some point (by whom I have no idea bc it really doesn't give me that fuzzy feeling) still has some problems. Just to describe the school that Thomas Jefferson built, it's the equivalent of putting Beverly Hills in Alabama. The students (I find) are upple middle class as well as most of the doctors, a few professors, and those techy types, but the people who work in Charlottesville to accommodate these folks are STRUGGLING.
Yesterday I check my email and see that Michelle's going to be speaking at approx 4:50 so I'm like OH HELLS YEAH! Ne who I get out of class at 3:30 high tail it to the plaza and the line is RIDICULOUSLY long, like hundreds of people long. Mind you my friend got in line at 2:30 (so we could have a good view) and we were still like 2nd row.
When I got there, I looked around. It was pretty full and she still had an hour before she spoke. But what caught me the most was the guy in front of me. Now I am an African American female FYI, and well the areas immediately juxtaposed to Cville house some... well rednecks. There's not really any other way to describe the,. Now I know that all rednecks are not racist by any stretch of the measure, but still, most give me a little pause (that may be bad, but it's true). Anywho this dude was PREPARED. He had his binoculars, camera, buttons, hat, t-shirt, he was ready. I was flabbergasted.
Then I looked all around. There were young, old, black, white, asian, latino, rich, poor, and everything in between. It was amazing and SO MUCH FUN. I always joke that the Obama rally's that I've been to remind me of a football game without the alcohol, but all the same yelling and hi-fiving with ppl that you wouldn't normally speak to yet you bond with over this one thing greater than yourself.
So the program begins with some lady who I still don't know who introduces a preacher. He prays, we all say Amen. Then we get to this other lady whose name I can't recall, but she was an astronaut. I don't particularly know what she talked about, but it was short, sweet, and I yelled. Then there was Tom Periello, he pushed for people to vote in VA since it's a state in play, but I'm keeping my registration in NC bc that too swings and I need to also vote against Elizabeth Dole. There was a short speech by Kristen Szakos, the local volunteer for the Obama campaign.She talked of her grandmother turning 100 and getting a bday card from the W to which she said that she would wait for the next president. Well she turned 104 this year, and Barack sent her a handwritten bday card. Apparently, she was supppper excited. I love her.
Then the second part of the program came. The student leader of UVA for Obama introduced Jill Biden. She did good, talked about women's roles in the campaign and how economic woes felt with women fall on the whole family. She talked a tiny bit about education. It was great, I cheered again.
She then introduced Lilly Ledbetter, who told us her story. I mean I got the jist of the story from other diaries and news outlets, but to hear her tell it.... she had everyone in the audience PISSED. My redneck dude from earlier was ready to go register everyone he could get his hands on. She broke it down that she will never see a dime of the hundreds of thousands of dollars she was due, so she wasn't doing this for her, but she was doing this for her grandaughters, her nieces and nephews, your nieces and nephews, every female that you know.
She said that women only get paid 77 cents on the dollar. For black women, that number decreases to like 63(?) cents, and for latino women it's 52. That's outrageous! I could tell at times, she was getting choked up. I think I cried, but I'm not sure it could have been sweat. Then she said since John McCain both did not show up to vote on her bill AND admitted that even if he had, he would have voted against it, her choice was clear. I was done. I too wanted to snatch up every person I could find and register them.
Michelle spoke last, and she was simply AMAZING. I mean she didn't beat around the bush, she just said ur pockets hurt. You're students, and lots of you have loans that it will take you forever and ten days to pay off ESPECIALLY if you are a female and getting less money for your work. I can't remember all of what she said bc I was just in awe.
All three lovely ladies came around to shake hands. First was Ms Ledbetter, who started to form tears when we all said thank you, and that made me cry again (I'm sure it wasn't sweat this time). Then there was Jill BIden who posed for pics, etc. Then Michelle came along. One thing I noticed about her, is she listens. Ppl would yell out random things while she was shaking hands and she would stop, try to figure out who said it, look at them, and respond to them.
Sooo yeah, I'll be canvassing Saturday morning with my friends. We're forgoing alcohol on Friday night so that we have no excuse not to wake up. YES WE CAN!