Marian Robinson (photo, left), 86, died on Friday, May 31, 2024 (read story here, her bio here).
Robinson had a son and a daughter, not two sons; this posting is satire (find related links here under “Political Humor & Satire”).
Her son, Craig Robinson, played basketball for Princeton, coached at Oregon State and Brown, and is executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches (read his bio here).
Her daughter married a lawyer with funny-looking ears whose meteoric rise in politics took him from state senator to U.S. president in just six years, making her America’s first black First Lady.
Michelle’s mother lived in the White House, as a babysitter for his daughters, who were just 7 and 10 years old in 2009. The story linked above says she was a “fixture” there throughout Obama’s presidency, but kept a “low profile.” The family’s statement on her passing said, “The girls needed her. And she ended up being our rock through it all,” adding, “right now, none of us are quite sure how exactly we’ll move on without her.”
The fable that Michelle Obama is transgender didn’t originate on this blog; it dates back to at least 2008, before this blog existed. Dr. Steve Schwartz, the owner and creator of this blog, posting as “theaveeditor,” made the satirical posting linked above in 2015, when the tale was already several years old. Snopes.com traces its ancestry here.
His posting has attracted over a half million page views on this site to date. I can’t tell from readership statistics who these readers are, but my sixth sense says many are looking for validation of something they want to believe. Although I haven’t deleted Steve’s post, I won’t help them. They should read the Snopes article, and if that’s not enough to dissuade them, it’s medically impossible for transgender women to have children (see Wikipedia article here), so how did Michelle have children?
Look, I know I’m wasting my breath on this, because people who believe these conspiracy theories neither listen nor reason. They believe a lot of other things that defy fact and logic, too. It fulfills an emotional need, or more precisely fills an emotional hole, and you can’t talk them out of it because emotions are more powerful than intellect. If that human frailty drives viewership to the intellectual (and intelligent) content of this blog, maybe some good can still come of it.