Michelle Obama

I haven't written in a while. I've been focused on my dissertation, as I promised my husband. The opportunity costs are mounting and I need to get this done.

But I couldn't let this one slip by.

I read an article today about Michelle Obama in the NYT. Overall, I think it was about as honest and positive portrayal of Ms. Obama as we can expect. Newspapers these days do not do a very good job of talking about smart people who have complicated views of the world. It is all that much harder when they are generally good and nice people. Regardless, there are two things in the article that bothered me.

First, this quote from Senator Claire McCaskill:

All she has to do is be likable

Apparently, she doesn't have to be smart. Or tough. She doesn't need to have her own mind, her own story, or her own opinion. She just needs to not offend anyone. Lest we have another uppity woman in the White House -- and a black one at that! To hear this coming from a woman senator is as heartbreaking as it is disgusting. I can only hope that the quote was taken out of context.

But the more difficult issue that I think the article highlights is the tension between trying to move towards a "post-racial" America and the reality that while many things have changed, many things remain the same.

I admire Obama's position that we need to move beyond the past, as he famously stated in that speech in Philly earlier this year. I also believe that it is naive. You cannot move beyond racism and bigotry without confronting it. Michelle Obama's story, as told in this NYT article, demonstrates the continuing need to point out the elephant in the room. If someone didn't do that, there might have been vaccine experiments in Chicago that focused exclusively on black teenage girls. Apparently no one saw the parallel to Tuskegee. Hmm, I wonder why?

The Democratic primary race clearly showed that this country still has issues with race. We all know that the rumors implying that Obama was Muslim and many of the other race-baiting comments (like implying that he might have been a drug dealer) came from the Clinton campaign. Let us not forget the "hard working Americans, white Americans" slip up. I really do not believe that Hillary Clinton is racist. She may feel entitled but I do not for a second believe it is because she believes that, because she is white, she deserved the nomination more than Obama. But once you starting going down that road, it is a slippery slope.

The more recent attacks on Ms. Obama also point to a country that has yet to move beyond race. Why else would there be the effort to portray her as an "Angry Black Woman"? Apparently for some people, there's something offensive about angry black women. Not quite sure why angry white women are less offensive, unless you believe that if a white woman is angry there must be a good reason. Why should a highly educated, wealthy black woman be angry? It must be because she resents white people and wants to oppress all white people and take their jobs. There goes that slippery slope again.

I agree with Senator Obama that white working class anger is real. But we cannot ignore that this country's largest social failings fall disproportionately on non-whites. We also cannot ignore the reality that the biggest obstacle to helping poor and working class whites is the objection that many people, especially those in leadership positions, have to providing any assistance to non-whites. Remember what many Southern states did when it was forced to integrate their schools? They shut them down. They did this despite the fact that it would hurt poor white children as much as it would black children. Welfare reform under Reagan was made using images of the "welfare queen," a black woman with a full closet, jewelry box, and a Cadillac paid for through her several children. Did cutting back on AFDC under Reagan, and further under Clinton, hurt white folks? Sure did. But it was intended to hurt non-whites. Until angry, working class whites understand this, this country will never be able to move beyond the past.

As Michelle Obama's story shows, we cannot get over the past until we start talking about it. As she put it:

Real change comes from having enough comfort to be really honest and say something very uncomfortable.

That might require being a little less likable. Unfortunately, it doesn't make for easy campaigning. And isn't this what this campaign is about - change?