Michelle Obama Uses Chicago Youth Crisis As Motivation for New Cause

By: Amanda Anderson-Niles

Michelle Obama has made it clear her first priority as the First Lady would be to focus on childhood obesity and fighting to make sure children in America would become healthier as a result of eating healthier foods at school and exercising more; but now it appears she has added another cause to her platform that is clearly needed. According to multiple reports, Michelle O has decided to use the violence amongst the Chicago youth as motivation to embark on a new project that will target combating gun violence. The Associated Press reports:

It’s a second term for Michelle Obama, too, and she’s shifting her social-issues emphasis to kids and gun violence after spending four years stressing better physical fitness for the young.

A meeting with high school students from a poor, gang-infested neighborhood in Chicago, her hometown, led Mrs. Obama to put a new spin on the stalled legislative debate over whether to ban firearms or impose new background checks on people who want to buy guns.

A mother to a teen and a tween, Mrs. Obama argues that the debate also is about the country’s obligation to help kids like these grow up and become adults. Several of the school’s current and former students were killed by gunfire within the past year.

Michelle Obama’s aides claim she isn’t making gun violence a distinct issue, but she is folding it into her platform of encouraging young people to get an education.

On her new fight, the First Lady says:

“There are so many kids in this country just like them, kids with so much promise, but so few opportunities, good kids who are doing everything they can to break the cycle and beat the odds. We need to be better for them. We need to be better for all of our children in this country because they are counting on us to give them the chances they need for the futures they all deserve.”