The Meaning of Michelle

by Veronica Chambers

  Making Space

  ROXANE GAY

  As President Barack Obama’s second term winds down, we are in the middle of a contentious and unbelievable election season. As we look forward, this is also a good time to consider Obama’s legacy—the good and bad of what he has accomplished over the past eight years and, of course, what it means for Barack Hussein Obama to have been the first black president of the United States. His two-term presidency has offered a lot to consider and critique, to appreciate and admire.

  As a black woman, I am considering not only the president’s legacy, but that of his wife, Michelle Obama—lawyer, wife, mother, and the first African American First Lady—as much a pioneer in her role as her husband in his because she made space for black womanhood in unprecedented ways.

  When you really think about it, the role of First Lady is decidedly unenviable, particularly when considering the role from a feminist perspective. For four to eight years, a woman becomes a professional spouse. Her identity is irrevocably wrapped up in her husband’s political ambitions and position before, during, and after the presidency. The First Lady is judged for how well she comports herself as a professional wife and a professional woman where the version of womanhood to which she must conform is highly constrained. It would be very easy for a woman to lose herself in such circumstances—smiling by her husband’s side at state dinners, choosing state china, doing socially acceptable “good works” without appearing to have political ambitions of her own, regardless of her accomplishments before stepping into the role.

  The role of First Lady is not without its perks. The First Lady has, typically, been afforded a modicum of benevolence from the press and the American public. She has, in many cases, served as a fashion icon, and been allowed to humanize the deeply political institution of the presidency. Such has not been the case for Michelle Obama. As the first black woman to fill the role of First Lady, Michelle Obama’s position has been even more unenviable. Since President Obama ran for his first term in office, Michelle Obama has faced a level of scrutiny, criticism, and insult that is unprecedented. She has rarely been treated like an icon but despite the obstacles she has faced, Michelle Obama has risen to the occasion and exceeded all expectations of a First Lady.

  In an article for More magazine, during the 2008 campaign, Geraldine Brooks wrote of Michelle Obama, “The very qualities that make her an icon of 21st-century womanhood—her strong opinions, her frankness in expressing them, the confidence born of bootstrap triumphs—make her a rich target for those who still believe that outspoken woman and first lady should never be synonymous.” Brooks is correct, but she overlooks how blackness also made Michelle Obama a target. Over the past nine or ten years, she has not only been attacked for being outspoken. Her femininity, demeanor, and suitability for the role of First Lady have also been questioned and derided largely because of her race and unapologetic pride in her blackness, her womanhood, her Chicago roots, her intelligence and education, and her humanity.

  Despite the obstacles she has faced, Michelle Obama has taken to the unenviable role of First Lady with grace, verve, and intelligence. Given her many accomplishments prior to 2008, this is no surprise, but it has been a real pleasure to see a woman who knows what it is like to live in this world in a black woman’s body, in the White House, reinventing the role of First Lady and making space for black girls and women to believe that we too can rise, rise, rise.

  It has been a real pleasure to watch Michelle Obama gleefully defying those who try to diminish her. Over the past two terms, I have admired Michelle Obama’s frankness and her refusal to place her husband on a pedestal. He may well be president but he is also the man she married, flawed and human. She is unapologetically committed to her family, going so far as to have her mother, Marian Robinson, live in the White House with the Obama family, so as to help the First Daughters, Sasha and Malia, have some semblance of a normal life.

  I am even more admiring of the work she has done—initiatives to combat obesity, particularly among children, working with military families, advocating for women and especially black girls and black women. She has supported Barack Obama’s policies and, to my mind, pushed him to be more progressive. She has traveled the world over and spoken her mind, representing herself, the First Family, the United States. Michelle Obama has been carefree enough to do “Carpool Karaoke” with late-night host James Corden. She has been a style icon with amazing musculature and flawless hair. Whenever I think about Michelle Obama, I think, “When I grow up, I want to be just like her.” I want to be that intelligent, confident, and comfortable in my own skin.

  As she represents the United States, Michelle Obama is clear-eyed about this country and what it means to be a black woman living in a black body, in this country. During her speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, she said, “I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves.” It was a stunning moment, a stunning reminder that no matter how high you rise in the United States, there is a history to which you are tethered.

  It is a bitter, terrible thing, to live in the most recognizable and powerful house in the country, if not the world, and to be surrounded by such a constant, intimate reminder of a disgraceful institution with which the United States has yet to fully reckon. And yet, Michelle Obama faces that reminder with steely grace. She is vocal in reminding the American people, if not the world, that we cannot nor should not forget the sins of slavery. She makes space for difficult but necessary conversations about race and how we must reckon with race.

  What thrills me most about Michelle Obama is that the full extent of her legacy is yet to be written. As fiercely as she has served in the role of First Lady, she has been constrained by political realities and the expectations of the role, of the whole world. When Obama leaves office in January 2017, those constraints will be gone and many incredible opportunities will be available to her.

  I hope Michelle Obama does whatever her heart most desires when her husband’s presidency ends, but I would love to see her make space for black girls and women in the public sphere and the public imagination. In a perfect world, she might create and lead a robust and well-funded organization dedicated to black girls and women, one that implements a set of initiatives that encourage black girls and women to flourish.

  There is precedent. In 2014, the Obama administration created the My Brother’s Keeper program to support young black men, focusing on six key issues—preparing children to enter school, ensuring that children are reading at grade level by the third grade, educating children so that when they graduate high school they are ready to either continue on to college or embark on a career, creating opportunities for people to finish college education or professional training, preparing people to participate fully in the workforce, and making sure that children are safe from violence and, should they make mistakes, be able to take advantage of second chances.

  The program has met with both praise and criticism, and one of the most significant criticisms has been that My Brother’s Keeper is designed specifically for black boys and men. While this demographic does need such a program, black girls and women are equally vulnerable, but often overlooked. When we talk about blackness, all too often black women are ignored, whether discussing police violence, education, professional opportunities, or personal success. Black women are the footnotes to the dominant discourse about blackness. Worse yet, black women are all too often beholden to the trope of the “strong black woman,” able to be all things and do all things, while asking for nothing in return.

  Like My Brother’s Keeper, I would love to see a program that focuses on the importance of education and ensuring that young girls and women and their families or support networks are adequately prepared to fully participate in our education system. I want this program to help black women enter and succeed in the workforce. I want this program to help black girls and women from all walks of life, with a particular focus on supporting women who have been incarcerated. I want this pr
ogram to support black women dealing with not only state violence but domestic and sexual violence.

  I also want a program that offers black girls and women support and education for their physical and emotional well-being. Contemporary blackness takes a toll. In an article for The New York Times, “Black Health Matters,” Jenna Wortham discussed the stress of absorbing the recent murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. She wrote that such tragedies, “force you to reconcile your own helplessness in the face of such brutal injustice, and the terrifying reality that it could happen to you, or someone you hold dear.” Wortham went on to say that, “Making space to deal with the psychological toll of racism is absolutely necessary.” Not enough black women make that kind of space and this society certainly doesn’t make that kind of space.

  Most social initiatives focus on the material—education, employment, safety—while overlooking the emotional. Michelle Obama is uniquely qualified to lead a movement that considers the entirety of a woman’s well-being—mind, body, and soul.

  Michelle Obama was the first African American First Lady of the United States. Her future is full of possibilities, and though she has already gone above and beyond in her service to this country, I hope she still has a will to serve beyond the White House. A woman with Michelle Obama’s intelligence, background, strength of will, and cultural prominence is well positioned to lead an initiative that helps black women and girls to live in a country built by slaves and still burdened by slavery’s legacy, that helps black women and girls to thrive in a culture that seeks to demean and diminish them at every turn. She has made space for herself in inhospitable spaces, throughout her career. With this organization, she could continue that work so that more black girls and women learn how to make and hold space for themselves in this world.

  CONTRIBUTOR BIOGRAPHIES

  VERONICA CHAMBERS is currently a John S. Knight fellow at Stanford University. She’s a prolific author, best known for her critically acclaimed memoir Mama’s Girl and the award-winning memoir Yes Chef, which was co-authored with chef Marcus Samuelsson. She has collaborated on four New York Times bestsellers, most recently 32 Yolks, which she co-wrote with chef Eric Ripert. The New Yorker called Mama’s Girl “a troubling testament to grit and mother love … one of the finest and most evenhanded in the genre.” Mama’s Girl has been course-adopted by hundreds of high schools and colleges. Born in Panama and raised in Brooklyn, she writes often about her Afro-Latina heritage. She lives with her husband and daughter in northern California. You can connect with her on Twitter @vvchambers. You can sign up for email updates here.

  Nominated for two Academy Awards and four Golden Globes, writer/director AVA DUVERNAY’S most recent feature Selma was one of 2015’s most critically acclaimed films. She is currently writing, directing and producing her first television series, Queen Sugar, for Oprah Winfrey’s OWN. Winner of the 2012 Sundance Film Festival’s Best Director Prize for her previous feature Middle of Nowhere, DuVernay’s earlier directorial work includes I Will Follow, Venus Vs, My Mic Sounds Nice and This is The Life. She founded ARRAY, a distribution collective for filmmakers of color and women, in 2010, and was named one of Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in Hollywood 2016. DuVernay was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.

  BENILDE LITTLE is the bestselling author of the novels Good Hair, The Itch, Acting Out, Who Does She Think She Is? and Welcome to My Breakdown. She has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Essence, Jet, People Magazine, Heart and Soul and MORE, among many others as well as on NPR, the Today Show and the Tavis Smiley show. The national book club, the Go On Girls, selected Good Hair as the best novel of the year. Natalie Cole bought the film rights. Benilde’s writing has appeared in numerous anthologies, including Honey, Hush! and About Face. She was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. A former reporter for The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Star Ledger and People magazine, she was also a senior editor at Essence. She has been a creative writing professor at Ramapo College and now teaches writing at The Writers Circle. She graduated from Howard University and attended graduate school at Northwestern. She and her husband live in Montclair, New Jersey, with their teenage son, Ford. Their daughter, Baldwin, is away at college.

  DAMON YOUNG is the editor-in-chief of VSB. He is also a contributing editor for EBONY.com. And a columnist for EBONY magazine. And a founding editor for 1839. Damon is busy. He lives in Pittsburgh, and he really likes pancakes. Reach him at damon@verysmartbrothas.com. Or don’t.

  With signature style, humor and irreverence, ALICIA HALL MORAN’S style combines the world of Broadway (starring as “Bess” on the 9-month National Tour of the Tony-winning production), the world of visual art (her musical work can currently be seen in the 56th Venice Biennale) and the languages of classical music and jazz.

  Since 2010, Ms. Moran’s critically acclaimed chamber music soul revue, Alicia Hall Moran + the motown project, has been thrilling audiences at The Highline Ballroom, (Le)Poisson Rouge, as well as at universities across America. Ms. Moran upholds the traditions of her great-great-uncle Hall Johnson (legendary choral director, composer and preserver of the Negro Spiritual) and her greatest teachers (Shirley Verrett, Adele Addison, Hilda Harris, David Jones and Warren Wilson) while exploring new ways to celebrate the repertoire of the classics and the genius of American song.

  Jazz pianist, composer and performance artist JASON MORAN was born in Houston, Texas, in 1975 and earned a degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Jaki Byard. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2010 and is the Artistic Director for Jazz at The Kennedy Center. Moran currently teaches at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

  Moran’s rich and varied body of work is actively shaping the current and future landscape of jazz. He has collaborated with such major figures as Adrian Piper, Joan Jonas, Glenn Ligon, Stan Douglas, Adam Pendleton, Lorna Simpson, and Kara Walker; commissioning institutions of Moran’s work include the Walker Art Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Dia Art Foundation, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Jazz at Lincoln Center and Harlem Stage.

  Moran has a long-standing collaborative practice with his wife, the singer and Broadway actress Alicia Hall Moran; as named artists in the 2012 Whitney Biennial, they together constructed BLEED, a five-day series of live music.

  Moran will have his first solo museum exhibition at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in spring 2018.

  BRITTNEY COOPER is Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers University. A Black feminist theorist, she specializes in the study of Black women’s intellectual history, Hip Hop generation feminism, and race and gender representation in popular culture. Her forthcoming book, Race Women: Gender and the Making of a Black Public Intellectual Tradition, examines the long history of Black women’s thought leadership in the U.S., with a view toward reinvigorating contemporary scholarly and popular conversations about Black feminism.

  Dr. Cooper is also a sought-after public speaker and commentator. In addition to a weekly column on race and gender politics at Salon.com, her work and words have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cosmo.com, TV Guide, the Los Angeles Times, Ebony.com, The Root.com, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry Show, All In With Chris Hayes, Disrupt with Karen Finney and Third Rail on Al-Jazeera America, among many others. She is also a co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective, a popular feminist blog. Dr. Brittney Cooper is a proud alumna of Howard University (class of 2002) and proud native of North Louisiana.

  YLONDA GAULT CAVINESS is author of the parenting memoir Child, Please and a New York Times Op-Ed contributor. An award-winning journalist, she has specialized in issues related to child advocacy, family and motherhood for more than a decade. Gault’s work has appeared in Essence, The New York Times, Redbook and Salon.com. She is a single mom of three awesome children.

  CHIRLANE MCCRAY is the First Lady of New York City, a writer and a passionate advocate
for the underserved.

  Ms. McCray is the driving force behind ThriveNYC, the most comprehensive mental health plan of any city or state in the USA. ThriveNYC is changing the culture around mental health and substance misuse, reimagining the way government and its partners deliver services and making it easier for people to get help in the places where they live, work, worship, and learn.

  The First Lady is honored to serve as Chair of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City. The Mayor’s Fund is the City’s official nonprofit—a one-of-a-kind organization that brings together government, philanthropies and the private sector to work on some of the most pressing issues of our time, including mental health, youth workforce development and immigration and citizenship. She is also Honorary Co-Chair of the Commission on Gender Equity, and is guiding efforts to create a city where every girl and woman is treated equally and feels safe.

  Ms. McCray and Mayor Bill de Blasio have two remarkable children, Chiara and Dante. You can learn more about the First Lady’s work on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr. She invites New Yorkers to help her make the greatest city in the world even greater.

  CATHI HANAUER is the author of three novels, Gone, Sweet Ruin and My Sister’s Bones and the editor of the #10 New York Times bestselling essay collection The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth about Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood and Marriage, which was called out in Deborah Felder’s A Bookshelf of Our Own: Must-Reads for Women. She has written articles, essays and/or reviews for The New York Times, Elle, O, Self, Glamour, Whole Living, Mademoiselle, Parenting, Child, Redbook and other magazines; she was the monthly books columnist for both Glamour and Mademoiselle and wrote the monthly advice column Relating in Seventeen for seven years. She has taught writing at The New School, in New York, and at the University of Arizona, in Tucson, as well as privately. She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, with her husband, writer and New York Times Modern Love editor Daniel Jones, and their daughter and son.