Politics

Michelle Obama Went After Donald Trump in Her Last Commencement Speech

June 3rd 2016

The First Lady has spoken.

At her final commencement speech as FLOTUS, First Lady Michelle Obama delivered a scathing critique of Donald Trump's signature brand of politics to recent graduates at City College of New York on Friday.

Among other things, she said that that diversity should celebrated — not shut out.

"Some folks out there today seem to have a very different perspective," she said in her remarks. "They seem to view our diversity as a threat to be contained rather than as a resource to be tapped."

"They tell us to be afraid of those who are different; to be suspicious of those with whom we disagree. They act as if name-calling is an acceptable substitute for thoughtful debate; as if anger and intolerance should be our default state rather than the optimism and openness that have always been the engine of our progress," she continued.

Obama alluded to the presumptive Republican nominee's plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border in order to stymie the flow of immigrants from Central and South America fleeing turmoil in their home countries.

"It's never been each person for themselves, we're all in this together — we always have been. And here in America, we don't give into our fears, we don't build up walls to keep people out," she said to a cheering audience. "Because our greatness has always depended on contributions from people who were born elsewhere, but sought out this country and made it their home."

America, the First Lady observed to the graduates, is a country whose progress and success is continually defined by the cumulative effect of its citizens — a story with which she is all too familiar.

"And graduates, it's the story that I witness every single day when I wake up in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters, two beautiful black young women head off to school waving goodbye to their father, the president of the United States, the son of a man from Kenya who came here to America for the same reasons as many of you: to get an education and improve his prospects in life," she said.

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