The Meaning of Michelle Read online

  Named to Fast Company’s League of Extraordinary Women, TIFFANY DUFU was a Launch Team member to Lean In and is Chief Leadership Officer to Levo, the fastest-growing millennial professional network. She is a consultant to Fortune 500 companies, a sought-after speaker on women’s leadership and has presented at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit, MAKERS and TEDWomen. She earned a BA and MA in English from the University of Washington. She is the author of Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less.

  TANISHA C. FORD is Associate Professor of Black American Studies and History at the University of Delaware. She is the author of Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul, which narrates the powerful intertwining histories of the Black Freedom movement and the rise of the global fashion industry. Liberated Threads won the 2016 Organization of American Historians’ Liberty Legacy Foundation Award for best book on civil rights history. Ford is an expert on social movement history, feminist issues, material culture and fashion, beauty and body politics. Her public writing and cultural commentary has been featured in diverse media outlets and publications including The New York Times, The Root, The New Yorker, Ebony, NPR’s Code Switch, Fusion, News One, New York magazine’s The Cut, Yahoo! Style, Vibe Vixen, Feministing, The Journal of Southern History, NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, The Black Scholar and New York City’s HOT 97.

  MARCUS SAMUELSSON is an internationally acclaimed chef who has thrilled the food scene with a blend of culture and artistic excellence. Marcus caught the attention of the culinary world at Aquavit. During his tenure as executive chef, he received an impressive three-star rating from The New York Times, the youngest person ever to receive such an accolade.

  In addition to being a successful cookbook author, Marcus released his New York Times bestselling and James Beard–winning memoir Yes, Chef in 2012 to rave reviews. In 2009, Marcus was honored as a guest chef at the White House under the Obama administration, where he planned and executed the administration’s first state dinner for the first family, Prime Minister Singh of India and 400 of their guests. He has been a UNICEF ambassador since 2000, focusing his advocacy on water and sanitation issues, specifically the Tap Project. Marcus also had the honor of speaking at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and TEDxHarlem in 2012.

  His iconic Red Rooster Harlem celebrates the roots of American cuisine in one of New York City’s liveliest and most culturally rich neighborhoods. It has earned two stars from The New York Times and countless accolades for its food, style and connection to the community.

  SARAH LEWIS received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard, an M. Phil from Oxford University, and her Ph.D. from Yale University in the History of Art. Lewis’s research interests focus on representations of race in contemporary art and nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American culture and across the Black Atlantic world and the Black Sea region. Her scholarship has been published in many academic journals as well as in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Artforum, Art in America and in publications for the Smithsonian, The Museum of Modern Art and Rizzoli. Lewis is also the author of The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery, which has been translated into six languages.

  Lewis has served on President Obama’s Arts Policy Committee and currently serves on the advisory council of the International Review of African-American Art and the board of the Andy Warhol Foundation of the Visual Arts, Creative Time and The CUNY Graduate Center. Before joining the faculty at Harvard, she held curatorial positions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Tate Modern, London, and taught at Yale University School of Art. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and New York City.

  KAREN HILL ANTON is the author of Crossing Cultures, a collection of her long-running column in the Japan Times. The popular column, praised for its sensitive and no-nonsense approach to cross-cultural living, chronicles her unique life experience as an American woman (from Washington Heights) married to an American (from Greenwich Village) living and raising four bilingual children in rural Japan since 1975.

  REBECCA CARROLL is a producer of special projects on race at WNYC/New York Public Radio, among them the critically acclaimed podcast on gentrification in central Brooklyn, New York, There Goes the Neighborhood. She is a regular opinion writer at The Guardian US, a critic-at-large for the Los Angeles Times and the author of five nonfiction books, including Saving the Race and the award-winning Sugar in the Raw.

  PHILLIPA SOO received a 2016 Tony nomination for her Broadway debut as Eliza Hamilton in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s gargantuan hit, Hamilton. She originated the role off-Broadway at the Public Theater. Soo also starred as Natasha in the acclaimed off-Broadway run of the immersive musical Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. Her other stage credits include A Little Night Music and School for Wives.

  ROXANE GAY’S writing appears in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, the New York Times bestselling Bad Feminist, and Difficult Women and Hunger forthcoming in 2017. She is also the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  One day, I left my office to have lunch with St. Martin’s editor Elisabeth Dyssegaard, whom I have been lucky enough to know for years. By the end of lunch, we were talking about Michelle Obama and Elisabeth shared that she had an idea for a small collection of essays from a surprising mix of contributors that would be both a tribute and an exploration of this ground-breaking and iconic First Lady. This anthology was her brain child and I’m so grateful to her for giving me the opportunity to move from mere Michelle O fandom to the dozens of conversations, meetings, emails, drafts and edits that led to this book. Thank you, Elisabeth.

  I’ve never met Michelle Obama, but the beauty of who she has been these past eight years is that you don’t need to know her personally to bask in all that she has offered this country. Thank you, Michelle, for showing a generation of women, including me and my daughter, what it means to dwell in possibility.

  I owe a bounty of thanks to the writers who said yes to this project: Benilde Little, Damon Young, Jason Moran, Dr. Brittney Cooper, Dr. Sarah Lewis, Dr. Tanisha Ford, Tiffany Dufu, Karen Hill Anton, Rebecca Carroll, Roxane Gay and Ylonda Gault Caviness. Chirlane McCray offered her unique perspective on Michelle O through the lens of her work as First Lady of New York City. Phillipa Soo took time from her turn on Broadway in Hamilton to craft a stunning essay about the artist as citizen. Marcus Samuelsson has been my friend for as long as I can remember. He has artfully used food as a platform for his relentless curiosity about the world and I am always inspired by his vision and unique perspective. It’s an honor to have his voice in this collection. Ava DuVernay is the busiest woman in filmmaking and yet, across continents and time zones, she offered not only her words, but her support and encouragement about the importance of this project and for that I am grateful.

  Two more contributors deserve special praise. Jason Moran calls Alicia Hall Moran “the Brain” and the title is fitting. Alicia is not only a gifted vocalist. She is someone who, to paraphrase the words of the old Warner Brothers slogan, educates, entertains and enlightens. She is a big thinker and I’m happy to know her. I’m also especially happy that, through this book, you will get to know her a little too.

  Cathi Hanauer gave me my first regular writing gig when I was an eighteen-year-old writer at Seventeen magazine. That job helped me to quit four of my six work-study jobs and to see myself as a professional writer at such an early age. Then, when I turned thirty, Cathi changed my life again by inviting me to contribute to her trailblazing anthology, The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth about Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage. Then she invited me back for the sequel, The Bitch is Back
: Older, Wiser, and (Getting) Happier. Because of this, she is the only friend who gets to call me bitch. I am always appreciative of Cathi’s editorial advice and mentorship. But I am especially proud that she took the time to craft the essay in this collection. Cathi, you’re amazing and I adore you.

  I have contributed to a number of anthologies but never ever knew how much work was involved in putting them together. So I want to say a special thank-you to Mommy Wars editor Leslie Morgan Steiner; Black Cool editor Rebecca Walker and Becoming American editor Nana-Ama Danquah for all of your hard work, patience and vision.

  Caroline Kim is not in this book but she worked tirelessly and generously, as she always does, behind the scenes to make it happen. Cline, if I could put your name on the cover of this book, I would. I’m grateful to the agents and managers who worked with us on this book: the wonderful Faith Childs, Eric Simonoff and his team, Meg Mortimer and Jessica Morgulis, Ashley Bode and Jenn Burka. Thanks too, to Tilane Jones at Array Now. Thanks to the team at St. Martin’s: Alan Bradshaw, Laura Apperson, Courtney Reed, Laura Clark, Jennifer Simington and Staci Burt. Leah Kaplan provided invaluable research assistance. I’m also grateful for the conversations about this book that I had with Lynette Clemetson, Dr. Janet Taylor, Katherine Wessling and Lise Funderburg. Neuehouse New York provided a lovely space to work, and I’m grateful to Andy Kahan for making the Free Library of Philadelphia one of my second homes.

  Our friends, Mai and Luis Yerovi and their daughters, Maia and Olivia, are a part of our extended family. We’re grateful to them for being so close even when the distance between us is great. I am thankful to our family, for their time, experience, guidance and humor: Jerry and Mary Clampet, Cecilia and Antonio Ortega, Diana and Buster Richards. I’m grateful for all Michelle O has modeled for our nieces and play-nieces: Maggie Clampet-Lundquist, Sophia Clampet-Lundquist, Chelsea Clemetson, Cameron Lawrence and Sophie Gono.

  Finally, thanks to my home team: Jason Clampet states the facts, Flora Clampet plays the tracks.

  NOTES

  MICHELLE IN HIGH COTTON

    1. The Daily Beast, August 21, 2009.

    2. Geraldine Brooks, “Michelle Obama and the Roots of Reinvention,” More, October 2008.

    3. Peter McCaffrey, Michelle Obama: First Lady (Women of Achievement) (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2010), p. 88.

    4. Touré, “Black and White on Martha’s Vineyard,” New York, June 29, 2009.

    5. Brooks, “Michelle Obama and the Roots of Reinvention.”

    6. Robin Givham, “Five Myths about Michelle Obama,” Washington Post, January 10, 2014. Givham was quoting from Michelle Obama’s Princeton senior thesis, “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community,” written under her maiden name, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, in 1985.

    7. “Remarks by the President and First Lady at College Opportunity Summit,” The White House Briefing Room, January 16, 2014, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/16/remarks-president-and-first-lady-college-opportunity-summit.

    8. Carol Felsenthal, “The Making of a First Lady,” Chicago, February 2009.

    9. Ibid.

  10. Jodi Kantor and Monica Davey, “Crossed Paths: Chicago’s Jacksons and Obamas,” New York Times, February 24, 2013; Jerome R. Corsi, “Jesse Jackson, Wright ‘Arranged’ Obama Marriage,” WND, October 4, 2012, http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/jesse-jackson-wright-arranged-obama-marriage/.Corsi 10/4/2012.

  11. Peter Slevin, Michelle Obama: A Life (New York: Knopf, 2015), p. 35.

  12. Rebecca Johnson, “Michelle Obama: The Natural,” Vogue, September 2007.

  13. Ibid.

  LADY O AND KING BEY

    1. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church 1880–1920 (Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 191.

  BECOMING THE WIFE

    1. Anne E. Kornblut, “Michelle Obama’s Career Timeout,” Washington Post, May 11, 2007.

    2. Jodi Kantor and Jeff Zeleny, “Michelle Obama Adds New Role to Balancing Act,” New York Times, May 18, 2007.

    3. Liza Mundy, “When Michelle Met Barack,” Washington Post, October 5, 2008.

  ON BEING FLAWLESSLY IMPERFECT

    1. Amy Cuddy, Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2015), p. 24.

    2. Peter Slevin, Michelle Obama: A Life (New York: Knopf, 2015), p. 49.

    3. Slevin, 325.

    4. Slevin, 332.

    5. Slevin, 312.

    6. Slevin, 61.

    7. Slevin, 236.

    8. Slevin, 176.

    9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdl_W1BhpHw.

  10. Slevin, 40.

  11. Slevin, 182.

  12. Slevin, 250.

  MICHELLE OBAMA: REPRESENTATIONAL JUSTICE

    1. Michelle Obama, Remarks by the First Lady at Tuskegee University Commencement Address, Tuskegee University, Tuskegee, Alabama, May 9, 2015, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/05/09/remarks-first-lady-tuskegee-university-commencement-address.

    2. Anne E. Kornblut, “Michelle Obama’s Career Timeout; For Now, Weight Shifts in Work-Family Tug of War,” Washington Post, May 11, 2007, A, A01.

    3. Susan Saulny, “Michelle Obama Thrives in Campaign Trenches,” New York Times, February 14, 2008.

    4. “Dismissing Her Critics, Mrs. Obama Forges Ahead,” New York, February 23, 2013.

    5. Michael Powell and Jodi Kantor, “After Attacks, Michelle Obama Looks for a New Introduction,” New York Times, June 18, 2008.

    6. Robin Givhan, “You Gotta Love the First Lady. No, Really, You Have No Choice,” Washington Post, February 15, 2009.

    7. Deborah Willis, “Michelle Obama in Photographs,” in Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010), pp. 15-17.

    8. Jennifer Senior, “Regarding Michelle Obama,” New York, March 23, 2009.

    9. Winslow Homer quoted in Jean Gould, Winslow Homer: A Portrait (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co, 1962), 158. Also see Lloyd Goodrich, Winslow Homer (New York: Macmillian Co., 1944), 58.

  10. Alain Locke, The Negro in Art: A Pictorial Record of the Negro Artist and of the Negro Theme in Art (1940; reprint, Chicago: Afro-Am Press, 1960, 1969), p. 205. Reviews of Homer’s work from the nineteenth century predicted it. G. W. Sheldon concluded his 1878 account of the painter’s work in The Art Journal that “his negro studies, recently brought from Virginia, are in several respects—in their total freedom from conventionalism and mannerism …—the most successful things of the kind that this country has yet produced.” G. W. Sheldon, “American Painters-Winslow Homer and F.A. Bridgman,” The Art Journal, vol. 49 (1878): 227. Also quoted in Mary Ann Calo, “Winslow Homer Visits to Virginia During Reconstruction,” The American Art Journal (Winter, 1980): 5. Two years later, The New York Times echoed the statement: “Mr. Homer shows his originality in nothing so much as his manner of painting negroes,” New York Times, April 9, 1880, 5.

  11. Sean Ross Meehan, Mediating American Autobiography: Photography in Emerson, Thoreau, Douglass, and Whitman (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2008), 133.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Preface

  AVA DUVERNAY

  Introduction: Homegirls

  VERONICA CHAMBERS

  Michelle in High Cotton

  BENILDE LITTLE

 
Crushing on Michelle: Or the Unapologetic Power of Blackness

  DAMON YOUNG

  The Composer and the Brain: A Conversation about Music, Marriage, Power, Creativity, Partnership … and the Obamas

  ALICIA HALL MORAN AND JASON MORAN

  Lady O and King Bey

  BRITTNEY COOPER

  We Go Way Back

  YLONDA GAULT CAVINESS

  Two Black First Ladies Walk into a Room

  CHIRLANE MCCRAY

  Becoming the Wife

  CATHI HANAUER

  On Being Flawlessly Imperfect

  TIFFANY DUFU

  She Slays: Michelle Obama & the Power of Dressing Like You Mean It

  TANISHA C. FORD

  Cooking with a Narrative

  MARCUS SAMUELSSON

  Michelle Obama: Representational Justice

  SARAH LEWIS

  The Freedom to Be Yourself

  KAREN HILL ANTON

  She Loves Herself When She Is Laughing: Michelle Obama, Taking Down a Stereotype and Co-Creating a Presidency