{"id":189578,"date":"2018-11-14T04:15:47","date_gmt":"2018-11-14T09:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=189578"},"modified":"2018-11-14T04:15:47","modified_gmt":"2018-11-14T09:15:47","slug":"michelle-obama-begins-arena-tour-in-talk-with-oprah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/11\/14\/michelle-obama-begins-arena-tour-in-talk-with-oprah\/","title":{"rendered":"Michelle Obama begins arena tour in talk with Oprah"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: Thanks to every single one of you \u2014 from Wyoming to Arizona to Tennessee \u2014 who joined the @WhenWeAllVote Week of Action, getting our families, friends, and neighbors registered and ready to vote on November 6th. I believe we need to help every single American feel like voting is a part of who they are, in this election and every election. It should feel like we\u2019re speaking up for ourselves and our families and what we believe in.
In these last few weeks before Election Day, let\u2019s all get out there and make sure that everyone we know is voting on behalf of something that feels important to them \u2014a candidate, an issue, a cause. Send them towhenweallvote.org or text WEALLVOTE to 97779 to get started. That\u2019s how we can all do our part. Let\u2019s get to work! (Photo<\/a>: michelleobama\/Instagram<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CHICAGO \u2014 Michelle Obama began her 12-stop book tour Tuesday by sitting with Oprah Winfrey before an audience at the home arena of the Chicago Bulls, speaking on everything from piano lessons and washing socks to crying on a plane the day her family moved out of the White House and President Donald Trump moved in.<\/p>\n

The crowd of 14,000 roared as the former first lady stepped onto a stage at the sold-out United Center event, which felt part talk show, part political rally and part rock concert, complete with $35 Michele Obama T-shirts emblazoned with her face and the title of her just-released memoir, \u201cBecoming.\u201d Family pictures of Barack Obama and their children flashed on a screen over her shoulder as she spoke.<\/p>\n

During the more than 90-minute conversation under Bulls’ NBA championship banners in Obama’s home city, she never directly criticized Trump. Crying on the plane leaving Washington on Inauguration Day 2017, she explained, had nothing to do with Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got on the plane, I sobbed for 30 minutes,\u201d she said. \u201cI think it was just the release of eight years trying to do everything perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama turned to her husband, who had just become a former president. \u201cI said to Barack, ‘That was so hard, what we just did. That was so hard.\u201d She said she didn’t mention that episode in her book.<\/p>\n

She didn’t criticize Trump directly at the event despite direct criticism of him in her book.<\/p>\n

She writes in \u201cBecoming\u201d that Trump’s \u201cloud and reckless innuendos\u201d about her husband’s birth certificate stirred people up and put \u201cmy family’s safety at risk.\u201d And for this,\u201d she adds, \u201cI’d never forgive him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump responded last week, saying Michelle Obama \u201cgot paid a lot of money\u201d to write that book and they always expect a little controversy.\u201d The current president said that he’d never forgive his predecessor for making the country \u201cvery unsafe.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Winfrey, who selected \u201cBecoming\u201d for her influential book club , introduced Obama she referred to the divisive political climate, also without directly naming Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many people are feeling uneasy… afraid of the impending darkness,\u201d Winfrey told the audience. \u201cBut you all being here tonight is a testament to the light.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecoming\u201d describes Obama’s upbringing on Chicago’s South Side and her transition to college at Princeton University. As she does in her book, she recounted Tuesday being raised in a family that struggled economically \u2014 but with parents who encouraged her to be successful.<\/p>\n

When she was a child, she said her dad would complain to her mother that she wasn’t teaching her children how to wash socks, because he had had so few socks growing up that he had to wash them and dry them on a radiator himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom said, ‘I’m not teaching them how to wash their socks. I’m going to teach them to go to college, so they can buy a washing machine,\u201d’ Obama said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

She also talked about learning how to play the piano on a rickety one and her surprise at seeing her first piano that was in good condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean there are perfect pianos out there?\u201d she recalled thinking. \u201cI didn’t even know about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The memoir, officially released Tuesday, is already a bestseller. It topped Amazon.com’s bestseller list throughout the weekend.<\/p>\n

The tour that started in Chicago moves on to Los Angles, Washington, Detroit, Paris and London, and other U.S. cities. It ends next month in New York City.<\/p>\n

Tens of thousands of people purchased tickets to Obama’s United Center appearance \u2014 paying from just under $30 to hundreds or even thousands of dollars for VIP packages. No tickets are available online for some stops.<\/p>\n

Although some fans have complained about the high cost, 10 per cent of tickets costs are being donated to local charities, schools and community groups.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO \u2014 Michelle Obama began her 12-stop book tour Tuesday by sitting with Oprah Winfrey before an audience at the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":183452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-michael-tarm","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}