Beyond race and prejudice
What a heart warming autobiography Becoming is – reinforcing the opinion I formed watching the Obamas during their time in the public eye: decent, honourable, hard-working, intelligent, well grounded, warm, caring.
The book is divided into three parts:
Becoming me – takes us from Michelle‘s childhood through to her falling in love with Barack.
Becoming us – covers their marriage, parenthood and entering the world of politics through to Barack becoming the forty-fourth President of the United States.
Becoming more – sees them surviving two full terms in office.
Her father taught her to work hard, laugh often and keep her word; her mother showed her how to think for herself and use her voice. Michelle Robinson herself emerged from humble origins into adulthood adopting all these attitudes, well balanced thanks to her close family unit, consistent love, high expectations, strong values, encouraging her to work hard at improving her sense of self-worth, excelling at school well enough to study law at Harvard – and all that in spite of the prejudices about women and race prevailing in the USA. As she puts it:
I grew up with a disabled dad in a too-small house with not much money in a starting-to-fail neighborhood, and I also grew up surrounded by love and music in a diverse city in a country where an education can take you far. I had nothing or I had everything. It depends on which way you want to tell it.
By the time she met Barack Obama, Michelle was already making a name for herself as a clever, articulate, determined, no-nonsense, principled woman, trying to make a difference in the lives of disadvantaged people. She recounts with disarming candour how Barack’s political ambition and slovenly habits strained her tolerance at times, and her struggle to retain her own sense of identity as an independent woman and mother in the face of his drive to further his career, and do his bit to improve the lot of ordinary American citizens.
Family was always her top priority. Though Barack was increasingly caught up in campaigning and meetings and responsibilities to the country, Michelle remained doggedly insistent that she should get back home to her two daughters at night, and attend school functions. Once she became First Lady even the most mundane of ordinary activities would become major strategic exercises such was the level of security necessary to protect them all, but throughout her maternal devotion never wavered.
In spite of their high principles, their obvious love for one another, and the lack of scandal in their lives, once the Obamas rose to political prominence they became fair game for every reporter around the world. Barack, naturally calm and steeped in political history, absorbed by the big problems in the country, remained relatively undisturbed by the rumours and misperceptions, but he was the central figure, and as such had the full weight of a large team of advisers and supporters around him. Michelle cared what people thought, craved approval, and took criticism to heart, but as simply the spouse of the main man, she was given no training and only limited back-up … until that is she began attracting negative publicity.
Over time their decency and high hopes for improving the lives of their fellow countrymen gained traction and their popularity soared, but even as support swelled, it was shadowed by cruel counter-narratives suggesting they were charlatans, ineligible and inappropriate to be America’s leading couple. Hearing this through Michelle’s eyes gives it added poignancy and pain. For someone who had struggled with her sense of self-worth for much of her formative years, having her own intellectual and personal and political credentials maligned falsely and publicly cut deep.
I am telling you, this stuff hurt.
And resentment built. After all she hadn’t chosen this life, she’d never like politics, she’d left her job and given up her identity and power for Barack’s campaign and ambition. To weather these tensions, somehow, she knew, she had to reclaim her personal self-worth and be her true self wherever she went. Happily, once she was given more support, she was able to embrace her role and begin to enjoy the unique opportunities she was given to woo the American people through the force of her personality, the eloquence of her distinctive voice, and the power of her message for change.
She allowed her naturally warm empathetic style free rein, engaging with people close up in their lives. She did a lot of hugging! And she learned an important lesson: It’s harder to hate up close. The more she showed the people how genuine and caring she was, the more they came to see the caricatures of her were untrue.
And so their campaign flourished. The election would be the real test: had the country indeed moved beyond race and prejudice as the polls suggested? Would it prove that Michelle’s conviction was right:
Barack was the right person for this moment in history … ?
And indeed, as we all know, on 4 November 2008, Barack Hussein Obama was declared the forty-fourth President of the United States. He could declare that
On this day we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
And so Michelle rose from obscurity to become First Lady of the United States of America aka FLOTUS – the first black woman ever to hold this position. She lived in the White House for 8 years, eager to make it less formal, more accessible, more welcoming, more representative of a cross section of American society. She herself wanted not be a well-dressed ornament cutting ribbons and cakes, smiling adoringly at her husband, but to make a difference in a meaningful way: improving the nation’s health, supporting service personnel, combatting racism, helping ordinary people – and especially children – to feel valued and supported …
(to) push back against the old and damning narrative about being a black urban kid in America, the one that foretold failure and then hastened its arrival …
… to point out students’ strengths and give them some glimpse of a way forward …
And in the drive to do that, she was prepared to accept for a while the loss of privacy, the erosion of family time, the presence of a constant security detail, less time for her own work.
Which of us could fail to see the difference between the two couples who took centre stage at the end of those eight years as the Obamas handed over the reins to Donald and Melania Trump? – stark and palpable for all to see in the coverage on our screens. The former, gracious and dignified, smiling and courteous, even with the man who had mocked and vilified them so publicly for so long:
a bully, a man who among other things demeaned minorities and expressed contempt for prisoners of war, challenging the dignity of our country with practically his every utterance.
… bragging about sexually assaulting women, using language so lewd and vulgar that it put media outlets in a quandary about how to quote it without violating the established standards of decency.
In reviewing their time in the highest office, Michelle was able to say with complete conviction,
we’d managed two terms in office without major scandal. We had held ourselves and the people who worked with us to the highest standards of ethics and decency …
It was now time for her to begin the task of finding herself again, of squaring who she was with where she came from, and where she wanted to go. Of finding her voice yet again.
Throughout her story what comes across is the sheer humanity, grace, integrity and humility of this lady. A person we would surely all love to have sitting beside us at a banquet.
Have Kindle, will travel! The pace of change