Michelle Obama speaks at the Democratic National Convention last night.

My friend has this saying. If he thinks someone is attempting to get too close too soon, he chortles: "She's trying to be your cousin!"

Well, Michelle Obama is my cousin. A proud relation. Not that she needed to try too hard.

I didn't need convincing by hearing her deliver a stirring speech at the Democratic National Convention last night. She had me back when she came on the national scene 19 months ago - a God-fearing, educated wife and mother who was tall and chocolate brown to boot. Loved and cherished by two parents who preached the value of a college education and sacrificed so she could get one.

Like many African American women, my connection to her was real and immediate. Because, after all, how many women who look like me have a real shot to become First Lady of the United States of America?

As her mother, Marian Robinson, says, she's fierce.

I would imagine the bond black women feel for Michelle to be not unlike the bond Hillary Clinton's supporters feel for her.

But for those so-called undecideds who still felt squeamish about Michelle's perceived stridency or her lack of patriotism, last night's speech was for them. She talked about the universal things that unite us - commitment to family and community, a desire to make our country better. The hope that someday we can all tell our children and grandchildren  that "this time, we listened to our hopes, instead of our fears. How this time, we decided to stop doubting and to start dreaming,"

And this time turn that the polarizing feeling of otherness that prevents us from doing the bold thing, the different thing, the right thing, into a spirit of unity.

Imagine it. Michelle Obama as First Lady. And maybe even first cousin.

Danieal in happier times.

We all should  be shedding tears over  Danieal Kelly, whose so-called mother allowed the 14 year old to shrivel down to 42 pounds and starve to death while DHS turned its back on her.

I wrote about Danieal's nightmare in today's column.

A choked-up Mayor Nutter had some tough talk for DHS yesterday, saying that if what happened to Danieal happened to his own daughter, "I would kick their ass myself."

An appropriate response, Mr. Mayor. But two years after Danieal's rotting, bedsore-infested body was discovered in her mother's home, it's time for action.

What is needed? Will more heads need to roll? Another review of cases? An upheaval of the entire system ?

What would you want done if  Danieal were your child?

In this Nov. 29, 2006 file photo, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and rapper Ludacris leave the senator's Chicago offices after a meeting. Maybe Luda is suggesting another song for Obama's i-Pod.

It kills me when African Americans get accused of playing the "race card." As if pointing out past and present  injustices is wrong, weak-minded and smacks of victimization. Heck, if anything, challenging your country to do the right  thing is not playing the race card. It's what concerned Americans do.

Not only that, blacks generally can't play the race card because they're seldom in the game. It's a game of power that only the people in those positions can play, and it's usually white men who get hands worth playing.

So yeah, I'm calling John McCain's bluff  over his claim that Barack Obama played the race card by describing himself as the guy with the funny name who "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." I mean, you don't have to take an inventory of your dwindling cash to make that argument.

  If you want want to talk real race card, let's talk about McCain's constantly refusing to  vote for a Martin Luther King holiday in his home state of Arizona until the NFL threatened to boycott.

Oh, and let's talk about McCain, in his desperation,  likening Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, an image infused with racial overtones. It's unfair that Obama has to answer to almost everybody and everything that has nothing  to do with the serious issues that plague America. Silly and ridiculous. Not to mention Ludacris.

In an unprecedented move, the U.S. House of Representatives yesterday issued a landmark apology for slavery. Specifically, asked African Americans to forgive "on behalf of the people of the United States for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow."

Equally unprecedented was the fact that a white lawmaker, Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee, penned the resolution. (Ironically, Cohen also tried to join the Congressional Black Caucus but, in a flip of the script, was turned down because of his race.)

To me, it doesn't matter who takes the ball. What matters is that it gets bounced. And Cohen, a Jew who jokes that he has the voting record of a "liberal black woman" has taken an important  first step to heal some deep historical wounds.

Uh-oh. You know what comes after an apology. Restitution. Reparations. That's what some folks are most afraid of. I can hear them now.  "Apologize for what? Why should we pay reparations? We had nothing to do with slavery. Our ancestors came over here well after slavery."

That's why the resolution refers to the "wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow."

Well, now. Jim Crow was alive and thriving while I was a kid, about 40 years ago.

But beyond that, whether people want to admit it or not, whites have benefited from unspoken privilege based on skin color. Jobs, schools, housing, you name it. It's what ethnographer W.E.B. Du Bois described as the  "social and psychological wage" that whites are granted  -- that they continue to receive even today.

All of these issues are hard to talk about in mixed company. But if I ever met Cohen, I'd give him a hearty, "You go girl!" for helping to put the discourse on the public agenda. Because he's an honorary sistah in my book.