America Didn’t Deserve Michelle Obama

 

Of course, when one attempts to predict what Michelle Obama’s single greatest legacy will be—the thing we reflect on and remember first when thinking about and assessing her term as first lady—there’s no shortage of viable and worthy contenders. For instance, one could cite that while her husband was the headliner, the rock star, it was Michelle whom America—black America particularly—collectively fell in love with first. 

Her existence effectively granted us permission to put our eggs in the Barack basket. He was safe, and we were safe in his hands, because he was savvy enough to have her. And a vote for him became a vote to see her and her beautiful children in the White House, too. (If feeling particularly silly, you could even note that her marriage to the president provided immortal validation for all the middle-aged uncles who believe it’s cool to hoop with T-shirts tucked into tight sweatpants. Basically, if Barack could do it—and still have someone like Michelle in love with him—then Uncle Tommy could do it, too.)

But when history looks back on her term as the first lady—while also mindful of the administration following her and those preceding her—I believe she’ll be regarded first as a statistical anomaly. A glitch. A figure from a time when America made a grave error, and actually seemed poised to live up to its lofty ideals and quixotic self-perception, and then immediately righted itself to the point of overcorrection. Not much different from a bank accidentally inserting a million dollars into a person’s checking account and then cleaning out the entire account—including the money already in there—when becoming aware of the mistake.

And they—and “they” in this sense could be citizens, historians, aliens or androids with sentience—will examine our data, will comb through America’s history and majesty and tragedy and hypocrisy, and they’ll know what many Americans have known for the past eight years; what the last three months and the 300 or so years before those last three months have been hell-bent on proving, and what the election has communicated—plainly, violently and unequivocally—to each corner of the world: that this country didn’t deserve her. 

That this nation, so fearsome and fertile and massive and magnificent, was inhabited by small and silly people who allowed themselves to be ruled by fear and ludicrous phobia.My choice, however, would be the effect she’s had and will continue to have on black women