IS AMERICA READY FOR THE GIRL FROM SOUTH-SIDE OF CHICAGO?
By Jill Tubman
Monday, November 10, 2008.
As hard as it is to accept a black president, it’s even harder to accept a black first lady. First Lady has always held a beloved sentimental mother and wife symbolism. Many Conservatives are not ready to have to look at this very BLACK woman with her degrees and her fierceness and see her as the epitome of the American mother and wife.
This will be a first for white people. And some conservatives do not want Michelle in the White House as their first lady. That New Yorker cartoon was [actually] about Michelle – she was its focal point; look closely… she is the leader, the one starting the revolution some want you to imagine
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said, in the course of covering the Obama candidacy, “He (Barack Obama) brings none of the bad stuff, you know?”
By Bad Stuff, he meant the legacy of [whites] enslaving Africans in America, keeping them as second-class citizens until 1965, a mere 11 years before this country celebrated its 200th anniversary. You know, the original sin, or the birth defect, as Condoleeza Rice called it.
Barack escapes this ‘bad stuff’ only because his mother was white and may have had ancestors involved in the slave trade; and also because Barack’s father was not an African American. He was a full-blooded African and therefore Barack had no ancestors enslaved by America – and so the white guilt factor is missing when they think of him.
However, no such luck with Michelle!
Michelle Obama is a direct threat and lightening bolt against White Superiority. Because, she is visibly Black. But it’s important to note, she does not, in any way, shape, or form, contour to the acceptable Black Pathologies that enable White Supremacy to sigh with relief such as welfare mother, fatherless child, druggie, etc.
Michelle was raised in a neighborhood: In a home. With two parents. No child revolving in and out of jail. Raised by a Black man who not only provided for his family, but did so, despite having a severe disability. Her mother had a working class job – secretary- but it was taken only after she had seen her youngest child settle into high school.
Michelle Obama’s poise, her confidence, her aura – that was created by that humble Black man – her father, who by all accounts, adored her. He told her that she is worthy, and so, when you have that told to you by the first man who loves and protects you, you seek that validation of that in your choice of mate, you’ll settle for nothing less, and Michelle hasn’t.
Michelle Obama, doesn’t fit any of the acceptable Black pathologies. And when you don’t fit the acceptable Black pathologies, then you must be destroyed. Michelle Obama has become the face of the Black America whose existence is routinely denied by this country. Think about it.
In one generation, the face of this, ‘Invisible America’ has gone from living on the top floor of a bungalow, to the possibility of living in The White House. And yet, Michelle Obama, refuses to say “I’m special,” in order to give white America its usual security blanket [that she is one of the exceptions rather than the rule], So what should be done?
They tried to beat her down into submission!
Michelle Obama represents everything we black women want our daughters to be. When we stand up for her we stand up for ourselves. No other women in the world are more neglected and abused as African women, period.
Michelle looks like [our] daughters, her daughters look like us. We love the way Barack looks at her and we adore the way he looks at his daughters. The Obamas represent the hope that we can be loved by our men and they will support us in whatever we do. Little Black girls need a vision and dream of what it is like to be loved by a man who looks just like them.
Is America ready for a First Lady who looks like her? A regular black woman? Not a passable biracial curly haired girl, but a regular black woman from the south side of Chicago with dark skin.
How will America handles Michelle now that she is going to be the face of the American Woman? A self-confessed ‘loud-mouth’ black woman?
If the Obamas succeed as America’s first family, it will turn the notion of racial supremacy upside down. And not because a black man is in the White House; but, because a black woman will be there who didn’t have to come in the back door to lie in bed with Mr President.
Jill Tubman is a political pundit, journalist and Democratic Party activist. She blogs at Jack and Jill Politics.
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