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Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, the young black girl from the South side of Chicago, a direct lineal descent of slaves, and daughter of a home maker and blue collar father who suffered with MS (yet worked tirelessly to provide for his family) is now the vibrant and devoted First Lady of the United States of America.
Mrs. Obama or “Michelle” as so many of us (who do not know her) call her affectionately, defies conventional wisdom about what we think we know about accomplished black women in America today. She is not on some reality TV show that makes us cringe. Nor does she allow herself to be defined by someone’s image of who she should be. Instead, she has turned the angry, broken black woman stereotype on its head.
Mrs. Obama actively demonstrates a well-balanced, healthy lifestyle, date nights out with her husband, and lots of love for her children. Better still, while doing all of this she serves our Military families, mentors and landed a coveted spot as Forbes Magazine’s most powerful woman in the world.
In point of fact, you might say Michelle Obama is a game changer. She is teaching a new generation of black women that the American Dream can be theirs, despite the many negative stereotypes and limitations still placed upon them in the workplace, and relationally. But most importantly, she is teaching a new generation of Americans that black women are layered—and that we are not one dimensional as the media and TV would often have us believe.
As one young professional black woman of 30, who is a writer in Los Angeles and is a Spelman graduate told me after Mrs. Obama’s historic commencement speech on May 15th, “I think the media’s portrayal of black women is really impacting younger women and girls in a negative way. It’s great to have the positive image of Michelle Obama to counteract those images. She is the ultimate portrait of an intelligent, strong and confident black woman. Essentially, she is helping to breathe life into the youth and show them and us that we can have/do it all–career, family, community service.”
Another young black woman college student in her early 20′s offered this, “I think of Michelle Obama as a healer. She inspires us to go out and use our gifts. To be strong, and confident, but to posses that rare “approachable confidence”. She sets a new tone and standard for us as black women. It feels good to have brothers now saying “I want to marry a Michelle Obama” –she makes strength and intelligence sexy, approachable, she is healing something within our community that hasn’t been healed in years—she is showing we are supportive of our men, yet we still can go out and get it done.”
As we all know, this past Sunday First Lady Michelle Obama gave a stirring and historic Commencement Address to the graduates of Spelman College. She focused on several key things that I think young black women of today need to hear now more than ever: Inheritance, legacy, Hope, Vision, Sisterhood and obligation. Mrs. Obama reminded all black women that we come from a strong and proud legacy of women who could not read, write or own anything. But that with the support of others (many of them white Abolitionist) back in the late 1880s after slavery, Spelman college was born expressly for the purpose of educating and advancing black women. It was the first school of its kinds and radical in its mission.
She spoke of how silly that must have seemed at a time when Jim Crow was the law of the land. White women barely had any rights, but black women—no rights at all. She reminded them that despite the odds, these women made something from nothing. They made their “set-backs, challenges” to be overcome. They had only Bibles and some paper. They were poor, some of them older than 40, but they wanted better for their lives. They built families, they served their community and one another, and in doing so Spelman still stands.
The First Ladies’ message to these young women is not one that we have not heard before at HBCU commencements. But, it is one that has, perhaps, more meaning because it came from her. She charged them to “lift as they climb”, and to never forget their most precious gift is “each other”—the “sisterhood”. She ended her charge with the words of Tina McElroy Ansa, “Claim what is yours. You belong anywhere on this earth you want to.”
For me and for millions of college-educated black women, that affirmation is one we having been striving for since the 1800s and one that we hope will have resonance for many generations to come.
