BlogHer - Michelle Obama, feminism and the strong black woman - Comments

Sometimes a sock is just a sock

Catherine11 — Sat, 26 May 2007 14:51:40 -0500

I think it is imperative to remember that we can never know a) public figures regardless of how much they are scrutinized in the media, and, b) what goes on in the intricate intimacies involved in a marriage or relationship.

Ms. Obama resigned from her position to assist her husband in his run for the presidency. If it was the other way around, we would be saluting the brother, would we not? Frankly, if I could help my mate become President, let alone the first black President of the United States, yeah, I would probably do everything in my power to make that happen. Ditto if my best girlfriend ran.

Meanwhile, they are people. My mate can't manage to get his socks into the laundry either. Then again, sometimes neither can I. But we do not view these things as the whole of our being -- we both have advanced degrees and sometimes we are teasing each other about dirty socks and sometimes I am teaching college students about race, class, and gender.

I find her to be down-to-earth, as well as strikingly smart. People are multi-dimensional. Meanwhile, I want to know how Mr. Obama will address the occupation of Iraq, inaccessibility of health care, and education. In the end, these are the things that matter.

Michelle will have problems, no matter what.

rikyrah — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:03:38 -0500

As an Black woman, I recognize Michelle Obama. She's not unlike many of the well-educated Black women in my 'Sistafriends' sphere.

I have absolutely no doubt that Michelle is one of the reasons that Barack Obama has come as far as he has.

I have no doubt that she totally adores her husband, even as she teases him. She is what keeps him grounded, and that has nothing to do with ' emasculating' him.

Maureen Dowd is just writing hit pieces.

And Dickerson's been writing nothing BUT hit pieces on Obama...now, she's just spread her negativity to Michelle Obama.

Michelle Obama is an actual real life Clair Huxtable - Lawyer wife, high powered job, kids, home -without the help of a nanny. Doing the Black middle-class 'Strivers' juggle.

Very odd

Lia — Thu, 24 May 2007 15:03:15 -0500

Carmen and Nordette, it's facinating to read what you have to say about Michelle Obama help or hinderence in getting her husband into office.

Isn't it odd this sort of discussion is going on in the 21st century? The fact that no one questioned whether Kofi Annan' wife (Swedish lawyer) would be an asset to him (both grandfathers Ghanaian tribal chiefs)as general secretary of United Nations...

How long will it be before your society realise that "times they are a-changin'"?

lia from luebeck, germany

Author of the media safe 101 page on the Red Tent Blog and the personal yum yum cafe

Double binding

Nordette — Thu, 24 May 2007 14:10:17 -0500

Yep, The Coup Magazine is right. Double binding means putting someone in a position that makes it impossible for them to ever be right or make the right choice.

Ms. J. is also right. Black women refer to black men as "the brother" all the time the same way black men call black women "sister." If a non-African-American hears it and thinks it's an insult then I wonder what is it that they think about black men or the word "brother." Why do they find the term offensive?

Also, Michelle Obama is doing something else cultural in the black community when she makes statements that to others seem to undermine Barack, a practice that may be moreso ingrained in black people who have been exposed to a Christian church environment. She's trying to save him from getting what's called "the big head," of becoming arrogant and consumed by a need for power or to begin to think in any way that he is superior to the community from which he comes. African Americans think sometimes that when some African-Americans drift into arrogance and think that they're better than other black people, the those African-Americans are being like white people, at least those white people who assume they are better than black people. I think she wants to keep her husband grounded with her, with his family and within the community.

The Michelle-Barack dynamic intrigues me. Despite people like Debra Dickerson saying Barack is not really African-American the way the rest of us are who came from slavery, I find that he's very middle-class "African-American" in how he interacts with his wife.

Furthermore, that he chose to marry an African-American woman is one of the ways he identifies himself as African-American. For men like Obama, successful, well-educated and yes, light-skinned, half-white, the choice of whom to marry is usually scrutinized. African-American men scrutinize them because what seems to be somewhat often, black males who become successful and sought-after choose to look outside their ethnic group for mates. They seem to think marrying a white female or at least a non-black female is marrying up.

I don't know if it's a fact that many successful black men do this, but there's perception that they will "marry white" if given the chance. I've been in the company of black women who've discussed this phenomenon and as attractive, successful black men move up the ladder, they watch them to see if they'll continue to date black women or look elsewhere. It's a controversial subject in which debates become quite nasty. It's so prevalent a fear that when Spike Lee married his light-skinned wife Tonya he made a point to tell the black media that her hair is naturally blonde and that his love for her had nothing to do with her skin color or hair. I'm sure he was concerned that "the sisters" might think he didn't go white but he went as near white as he could.

Kim Pearson talks about skin color issues in one of her posts. Being from New Orleans, I've also had a thing or two to say on the matter of skin color hang-ups. When it comes to marriage, these "colorism" issues go back to concerns about race-mixing and betraying one's ethnicity by "marrying white," actions viewed as destroying African-American unity in struggle.

About emasculating one's mate, my ex accused me of doing that to him once he decided he wanted a divorce. Well, I guess he had to find as many ways to blame me for his choices as he could. In my opinion, a woman can only emasculate a man who didn't have his balls in the first place. So, can she emasculate him? No, and if he thinks so, he was already the weaker one.

I find it interesting that a woman, Dowd, would think Michelle Obama's playfulness with her husband is emasculating him. She's projecting on to Michelle Obama her own problems with men or what she thinks is her problem with men.

Secure men enjoy secure women. Any man who wants a doormat isn't worth the trouble.

"Love is liquid. Brew and be drunkards!" ~~Nordette And here's a link to the blog.

Michelle Obama, feminism and the strong black woman

CarmenVanKerckhove — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:24:58 -0500

I've been following the media's handling of race in its coverage of Barack Obama's presidential bid very closely over the last few months. But right now I'm particularly riveted by the media coverage of his wife, Michelle Obama. Race, gender, and feminism are intersecting in fascinating ways. Here are some highlights.

As my fellow BlogHer Contributing Editor Laina Dawes told you a few weeks back, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has criticized Michelle Obama's light-hearted comments about her husband being "just a man" and not knowing how to put his socks in the laundry. Dowd felt that these remarks were "emasculating":

Many people I talked to afterward found Michelle wondrous. But others worried that her chiding was emasculating, casting her husband - under fire for lacking experience - as an undisciplined child.

Just a few days ago, Michelle Obama resigned from her high-powered job as vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals to focus on her husband's presidential campaign.

Debra Dickerson, writing for Salon, declared that she is "in a feminist fury" about it:

Just as we watch curvy, healthy-looking singers and actresses like Lindsay Lohan become anorexic too-blonde hoochies before our very eyes, so we're now in danger of having to watch the political version of that process: Any day now, Michelle Obama's handlers will have her glued into one of those Sunday-go-to-meeting Baptist grandma crown hats while smiling vapidly for hours at a time. When, of course, she's not staring moonstruck, Ã la Nancy Reagan, at her moon doggie god-husband who's not one bit smarter than she is.

In response to Dickerson's article, the new Gawker Media blog Jezebel (worst name ever, by the way) declared that Michelle's "weird passive-aggressive comments" can only be explained by one thing: Barack obviously cheated on her:

...when Michelle Obama says stuff like "someday maybe he'll deserve all the attention" or "he's just a man" or calls him "the brother" even when she knows it makes the white folks uneasy is pretty simple: "The brother" fucked up! It wasn't Gennifer or even Monica; it was probably just some one-night fling...

Mrs J, writing at Our Kind of Parenting, points out the Jezebel bloggers' embarrassing cluelessness when it comes to African-American vernacular:

For the record, even if it makes white people uncomfortable, calling someone "the brother" (even if it is one's husband) is not a diss. Especially when, in context, it is to say "The brother is smart", as Mrs.O actually did recently (to an all black crowd)... This is a serious presidential candidate we're talking about, ladies, not you're effing ex-boyfriend. Save the cheap shots for someone else.

The Coup Magazine blog analyzes reactions to Michelle Obama in relation to the "Strong Black Woman (SBW) syndrome" and points out that Michelle is damned if she does and damned if she doesn't:

She canâ€™t be funny. She probably shouldnâ€™t work. After all, if she wants to counter the SBW stereotype and make her husband appear to be in charge, she cannot have a career. But when she quits her job, her motivation and commitment are called into question, and she risks losing credibility in the eyes of feminists. She can never have a hair out of place, appear aggressive, or ever be shown working out (one of her favorite activities), lest she characterized by someone as a "nappy headed ho." In light of this constant and very public criticism, Michelle Obama can never quite be herself without being stereotyped as the aforementioned SBWâ€”a categorization that could potentially destroy her husbandâ€™s presidential campaign.

And finally, Malena Amusa, writing for Racewire, suggests that Michelle is integral to Barack Obama's racial authenticity:

Her presentation is a well-engineered counter to Barack's Black masculinity that has been attacked for being diluted. Michelle proves Barack's Black authenticity by her being so home-grown, down-home, and straight-up on the issues. Further, if Barack had said some of the things Michelle has, he'd be lumped under the Black nationalist umbrella held up by Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton, and so many white people probably wouldn't like him as much.