Down Home in Kalamazoo

Former First Lady Michelle Obama speaking in Kalamazoo, Michigan, October 26, 2024. For this author she delivered one of the most memorable public speeches in recent political history. Photo courtesy NBC News.

“I am asking y’all from the core of my being to take our lives seriously.”

Former First Lady Michelle Obama makes the case for a Harris-Walz Presidency. (1)

Oblige me some hyperbole — this was one of the most memorable public speeches I can recall in recent political history. Speaking as a septuagenarian, I have heard a few.

By not presuming where her audience was, and what their expectations were, M. Obama employed a simple incantation, “y’all.”

I was hooked. And I don’t know what “y’all” means.

So, I asked a friend what does ‘y’all’ mean?.

Then I understood what ‘y’all’ means and I learned something about political discourse.

Friend: It means everybody, all of you.

Me: I thought ‘y’all’ is an affected folksy Texan punctuation.

Friend: Oh no. No. It’s country talk, you know how people from the country talk. Like yonder’. Y’all means everybody.

Me: Different from ‘youse’? (Queens boy coming through)

Friend: (Laughing) Yeah, whole lot different. Y’all is everybody. (Gesturing an embrace with his arms.)

Former English major alert: I would describe Michelle Obama’s speech as “second person, conditional.” She was addressing ‘you’…