You Can't Debate What You Refuse To Learn

You Can’t Debate What You Refuse to Learn

I’ve heard it. You’ve heard it. Ignorant people saying Michelle Obama is a man. Saying Barack Obama is a Muslim or not U.S. born.

They say it loud. They say it with confidence. They’ve never read his books. Never watched one of his speeches all the way through. Never fact-checked the birth certificate they claim is fake. And they’ve definitely never seen Michelle Obama in person — which I have. And when you do, it stops you. Because she’s not a meme or a rumor. She’s articulate. She’s brilliant. She’s well educated, and it radiates. You can’t fake that kind of presence. You can’t conspiracy-theory your way around it.

It’s sad when people speak with such certainty from such a small amount of knowledge. It’s even sadder when it’s uneducated white people — especially those who are “educated,” but only by a white Christian education system that never gave them a well-rounded view. They learned one version of history, one version of America, one version of God. And anything outside that frame gets labeled wrong, foreign, or fake. That’s not education. That’s indoctrination with a diploma.

I know the difference because I’ve been in school most of my life, and I love continuing school. But I didn’t stay in one lane. I started in Head Start. I went through poorer school districts and more affluent ones. I saw the difference in textbooks, in teacher expectations, in who got suspended and who got second chances. While I was at Mt. Diablo High School, I did a UC Berkeley summer program. That’s when I realized there’s a whole other level of learning — one where they ask you what you think, not what you memorized.

From there I did community college because it was accessible and real. I took business college courses at trade school because I wanted skills, not just theory. I studied in Copenhagen, Denmark, and sat next to students from five continents who asked me questions about America I’d never been asked before.

Later I chose North Central University over continuing with a Christian college. Why? Because too many white Christian colleges didn’t give you a well-rounded education or real diversity. They gave you one doctrine, one viewpoint, and called it “truth.” I wanted professors who challenged me, classmates who didn’t all look like me, and curriculum that included the whole world, not just the part that made certain people comfortable.

So when I hear someone say Michelle Obama is a man, I don’t get mad anymore. I get tired. Because it tells me everything about their education and nothing about her. It tells me they’re stuck in a system that taught them to fear what they don’t understand and mock what they won’t study.

You don’t have to like the Obamas. That’s politics. But you don’t get to rewrite their biography because you skipped the reading. You don’t get to call an Ivy League-educated lawyer “unqualified” when you haven’t opened a book since high school. You don’t get to call the first Black president “foreign” because your version of American history started and ended with your grandpa’s stories.

A well-rounded education breaks that. Head Start taught me to share. Public school taught me inequality. Berkeley taught me to question. Community college taught me hustle. Copenhagen taught me perspective. Trade school taught me practicality. North Central taught me to think critically inside my faith instead of checking it at the door.

I’ve been to school most of my life because I love continuing school. Not for degrees. For depth. So when ignorance shows up loud, I don’t have to match its volume. I just know better.

And I’ve seen Michelle Obama in person. She’s not a man. She’s not a myth. She’s what happens when education, grace, and discipline meet. If that threatens you, the problem isn’t her. It’s your syllabus.