Many people were moved by Michelle Obama's speech last night, in which she exhorted Americans to work toward "the world as it should be." Watching the first potential black first lady address the country, it's hard not to imagine that we are a universe closer than we once were. The genius of the Obama style lies in its ability to make the black experience universal. Despite the fact that black people and white people doubtlessly feel something different when they hear Michelle say that the American Dream is "a blessing hard won by those who came before me," it is no less meaningful to both. This is about more than campaign rhetoric. It is a political agenda where black and white interests are not seen as antithetical to one another, where disagreements are about ideas, not identity.
But the pride I feel at watching Michelle Obama address the country is tempered by the knowledge that few people recognize the specific and unnecessary an extra burden she bears. Political figures regularly go through the motions of presenting themselves as "regular" people, but ultimately Michelle's task was greater: She had to convince voters that the color of her skin did not mean she was not an American. Black folks have been here since this country's birth, fighting in every conflict since the Revolutionary War. Yet here was Michelle Obama on stage, attempting to prove to the country that her husband is, as Roger Simon put it, "not an 'other,' he is not a 'celebrity.' He is a father, a husband, a person." Can we really be struggling with that last part?
In some ways, Michelle Obama's speech was typical. It was the kind of political tribute wives of politicians are expected to make. But this speech was likely crafted with an eye toward the distorted portrait of black womanhood painted by people whose experience with black people is limited to what they've seen on television. People like Cal Thomas, who once remarked that black women are "on the local news at night in cities all over the country" because "they've had a son who has been shot in a drive-by shooting." Last night, Michelle faced the dual dilemma of humanizing herself to a society that has appropriated the image of "the angry black woman," and of presenting her husband as a typical caring father.
It is infuriating that this Harvard and Princeton grad is forced to, in some sense, apologize for achieving what every family wants, what all parents work for their children to have, merely because her blackness causes anxiety in the same people who have claimed for years that all black folks need to do is "work hard" to succeed. When women like Michelle Obama do succeed, they're supposed to minimize their accomplishments so that certain people don't feel insulted. The talking heads never ask why, because white anxiety about black self-determination is self-justifying, even in 2008. Meanwhile, John McCain runs solely on his biography, as the press sits in a rapturous silence. "I used to be a POW" will not reverse the housing crisis, it will not bring health care to the uninsured, it will not regulate the credit card industry, it will not prevent the government from taking your laptop or tapping your phone with no evidence of wrongdoing. But you wouldn't know that from watching CNN.
Then you have those like Marie Cocco, who remarked in May that the sexist talking heads who denigrated Hillary Clinton would never stand for say, lines of merchandise humiliating Barack Obama because of his race. Where has she been? Stewing, presumably, given her Op-Ed for the Washington Post today, over the fact that Hillary now has to "do the hard work" of campaigning for her party and her nominee merely because she is a woman. No. Hillary has to work for her party because she is a Democrat who presumably cares about issues of choice, equal pay for equal work, and universal health care.
In a testament to the epic self-absorption of Cocco and her like, we have heard nothing but silence about the double standards facing Michelle Obama, who is no less a woman, and facing no fewer burdens or arbitrary sexist hurdles as Hillary Clinton did in 1992. Gloria Steinem, who guiltlessly appropriated the plight of black women to argue for Hillary's candidacy in January, has said nothing. These women, as Audre Lorde said to Mary Daly, "merely finger" through the stories of black women to find thoughts that "valuably support an already conceived idea," namely that sexism is the only remaining social force of any consequence.
It is problematic that anyone would use the stories of women like Michelle Obama to further their goals, while remaining silent about her treatment. These women would be in far better company with those on the right who turned Michelle's speech last night into a loyalty oath , who see no dissonance in demanding that she prove she is no less a patriot for being black while simultaneously claiming that racism is a thing of the past.
Witness Juan Williams last night, overcome with emotion at Michelle Obama's "breathtaking" speech and the family scene that followed, when only a day before he was cautioning Michelle Obama against using her "militant anger," which is the Michelle Obama version of Hillary's "screechy voice." It's hard not to smile at Williams' brief departure from the Fox script, until you remember the role he had setting the expectation that Michelle Obama is a black radical who reads her children Mao's Little Red Book every night before they go to sleep.
We're living in a very different world than the one my parents grew up in, and there will be millions of Americans who saw themselves in Michelle Obama's story last night -- millions more than could have related to the speech 50 years ago when segregation was the law of the South and the custom of the North. But the Obamas are still fighting Jackie Robinson Syndrome, the reflexive double standards and often small, sometimes large, but always public humiliations that come from being the first black person to do something. This is what they've signed up for.
Still, it would be nice if we could stop pretending that it wasn't happening, or if those so sensitive to Hillary's plight could look beyond their hero to see something else worth fighting for. Obama's electoral fate will be decided by his and Michelle's ability to caulk the fault lines of race and gender as best they can through both policy and language, while Republican Party does its best to keep these scars fresh. It is more than anyone should be asked to do.
