Michelle Obama Denounces White Flight but look where she lives

In a recent (29 October 2019) speech former first lady Michelle Obama (image on left) denounced White Flight. This is the phenomenon where whites leave areas that have non white people.

An except from her speech is below,

"...  unbeknownst to us, we grew up in the period -- as I write -- called 'white flight.' That as families like ours, upstanding families like ours ... As we moved in, white folks moved out because they were afraid of what our families represented  ..And I always stop there when I talk about this out in the world because, you know, I want to remind white folks that y'all were running from us -- this family with all the values that you've read about. You were running from us. And you're still running, because we're no different than the immigrant families that are moving in ... the families that are coming from other places to try to do better."

Michelle Obama's speech is reported here.      

The first house image above is the Obama house in Hyde Park, Chicago which they bought in 2005.

The second house image is the Obama house in Kalorama Washington DC which they began renting in 2017.

The Obama's are, per reports, negotiating to buy a house on Martha's Vinyard. This house is in the 3rd house image.

  I find Michelle's speech unseemly but not actually a case of hypocrisy.  In the case of the 2005 house they were fleeing south Chicago but it was a case of black flight since they were black. Also, arguably they wanted to buy expensive houses and there really weren't any in south Chicago. In the case of the Kalorama house, they wanted to be in an area with lots of political connections (Jared and Ivana Trump are neighbors).    In the case of the Martha's vinyard house they are seeking isolation. 

What is unseemly is that Michelle does not admit that blacks engage in flight also, e.g., much of the black middle class left DC for Prince George's county, so much so that the average income of blacks in that county is higher than the average income of whites. Also, while white flight in the 60s and 70s reduced municipal tax revenues in majority black areas and this had negative consequences of those areas, it also lowered property values enough to provide opportunity for home ownership for blacks who would otherwise never have been able to afford homes.   Interestingly, there is a lot of concern in Washington DC these days about gentrification which is when whites move into predominantly black areas.