The Meaning of Michelle Read online

  Americans heard these messages, which for many only justified their own long-held prejudices about Blackness. Michelle was caught in the cyclone of anti-Black racism. Conservative media outlet Fox News referred to Michelle as Barack’s “baby mama,” damning language that both criticized women who had children with men to whom they were not married, but also was meant to undermine Michelle’s reality as wife and mother. It was a way to verbally punish her, to knock her back to size with racially and culturally coded language. She pressed forward despite being trapped in what Melissa Harris-Perry terms the “crooked room,” or a room that is not architecturally straight; therefore, when a Black woman tries to stand erect, she cannot. But instead of the world seeing the problem with the structure of the room, it determines the problem is the Black woman with poor posture. Stereotypical media representations of the Black woman as “jezebel,” “sapphire,” and “mammy” are examples of the real life implications of the crooked room.

  Despite, and perhaps because of, the vitriolic response to Michelle’s upper arm flesh, her arms were more iconic than her fashion in that first term. Her team used this fervor to further brand Obama. They used her audacity to bare her arms as a way to position her as a more youthful, more in touch with trends, cooler, and more transgressive First Lady than Hillary and the Bushes. She was a new-millennium First Lady. At some point, the team stopped trying to assuage Americans’ fears of her Blackness and started reminding people that she was a bad ass, and she had the “guns” to prove it.

  Team Obama began to acknowledge that she was not like the other First Ladies and that her Blackness did make her different. For example, by virtue of her skin tone, she ushered in new trends for First Lady fashions. She opted to wear colors that deviated from the standard political color palette, choosing bold colors that looked good on Black skin. Where most first ladies wore reds, blues, and pastels, Obama mixed these colors with vibrant pinks and rich jewel tones. Why should she try to fit the demure mold of other, white First Ladies, when historically the claim to femininity and the protection that came with it wasn’t afforded to Black women? Michelle Obama found a way to work within the demands of the office of First Lady while transgressing these same norms.

  We, as Black women, respected and admired how she lived between these two tensions: the stature and visibility of the office of First Lady and the disturbing social responses to her Black womanness. We could relate to the range of questions we imagined folks in the political world asked her, based on the questions our own colleagues and classmates asked us about our hair and our culture. Even though her platform was larger than ours, her daily routine—with her team of secret service agents who clocked and coordinated her every move—different than ours, she was us. Even if she was the First Lady, first and foremost, she was a Black woman, and no one would let her forget that. And she seemed to never forget that herself.

  This new Michelle brand, which had no historical precedents, played well with millennials especially, and her public opinion ratings started to climb. According to Gallup, her approval ratings topped Barack Obama’s. This was in part due to her frequent media appearances, powerful celebrity friends (including Beyoncé), and her style, which was becoming edgier as the Obamas neared the second campaign. In short, the Obamas had become the darlings of American popular culture. They had transcended politics. They were bonafide celebrities. That “we’re just like you, America … only a bit cooler” shtick that marked the early first term no longer played. Michelle’s new look for President Obama’s second term was a reflection of their new status as cultural icons.

  She had some nice fashion “moments” in the first four years, but in the second term, she clearly announced that she came to slay! She and her team started taking major risks, and her style explicitly referenced working-class Black American sartorial traditions. No longer was she seeking to blend in, she was making jaw-dropping fashion statements. Her earrings and other accessories became more opulent, her outfits more fitted, her hair more bouffant. She proved that she still had a lot of “South Side Chi” in her!

  Right before the 2013 inauguration, Michelle debuted new bangs for her forty-ninth birthday, which set the tone for the second term. Her hairstylist Johnny Wright created a modern, softer take on the fringe bob, which elevated her look from soccer mom to cosmopolitan stylista. At the inauguration she paired her new hair with a silk Thom Browne jacquard dress, an embellished J. Crew waist belt, Reed Krakoff suede boots, and fuchsia leather gloves. As her bestie Beyoncé belted out the “Star Spangled Banner,” Michelle ushered in a new era of Obama style in which she would solidify herself as the fashionable First Lady, rivaling Jackie Kennedy for the crown.

  Looking more youthful the older she gets, Obama takes more fashion risks as she no longer has to prove to the American public that she is who she says she is. Besides, her comical “evolution of the mom dance” skit on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon pretty much bodied all of her critics. Moreover, as the body positive and curvy body movement has grown in popularity, Michelle and team have started showing off her curves. While A-lined dresses were a main staple in the first term, she has increasingly worn garments that are cinched at the waist to accentuate her curvy figure or risqué looks such as the off-the-shoulder fitted Zac Posen bustier dress she wore to Black Girls Rock! in 2015. The side-swept hair that hung past her shoulders and the black Vera Wang fitted mermaid gown at the state dinner with the president of China is another example of her edgier look. I remember watching the news footage and thinking, “President Obama looks like he’s got a young thang on his arm!,” as she leaned in to straighten his bowtie (one of their classic “cool kid” moves).

  Michelle Obama has forever changed the possibilities of the position of FLOTUS. Designers clamor to dress her. She even sports looks straight off the runway, such as the Derek Lam suede patchwork dress she wore to Beijing in 2014. She has created a new color palette for First Ladies and has made wearing one’s arms out cool for women over forty. But the thing that true fashionistas know is that clothes are just clothes on an unconfident body. One must embody style and attitude in order for the looks to make an impact. Because of Michelle’s reality as a Black woman, she shifted the conversation about dress, about beauty, and body. But of course, we as Black women been knowing that Michelle Obama was magic.

  Cooking with a Narrative

  MARCUS SAMUELSSON

  Both Michelle and her mom, for me, have established this base level of abnormal normalcy during the Obama presidency. I look at them as a family, a Black family in that big White House. As the First Lady, Michelle was challenged with raising her daughters in very important years in the White House, in front of everybody. A grandmother plays a critical part in that White House, to establish normalcy. I was raised just a bike ride away from my grandmother so I know how vital that bond can be. She’s the person who you can turn to and say, “School wasn’t great today, or I had a fight with this guy” or other stuff that we all go through.

  When I’ve visited that house, Michelle’s mother has almost always been there. She’s yelling at the dog or grabbing the kids. This is a big house, of course, but she’s adding that level of presence. She reminds you, “This is a real house. A family lives here.”

  They never budged on being a Black family. It means that we’re together, and we’re raising this tribe, this village together. I’m sure they had a nanny, but it wasn’t about the nanny first. It was about Grandma first, and establishing some values and deep roots in a very front and center environment. Their values of being the family from Chicago didn’t change because they moved to D.C. Even with that level of everyday intensity, she didn’t change, and I love that. Wow. Who’s done that before?

  Then you put that family element in the context of their being the first Black family in the White House, and you look at her choices after the election. I think those choices led her to me. I don’t think she would have thought about the garden and food if the kids had been 22 and out of th
e house. Eating right becomes really real when your family’s growing up. Because she is the First Lady, especially in this day and age, everything you do becomes a microphone for what you say.

  When she chose to put in the garden, I remember thinking, “Yes! She’s picking food.” It could have been anything. It could have been growing flowers. It could have been bike riding. It could have been reading. It could have been swimming, which are all amazing causes for young families to know more about, but she picked us—the food community.

  I think one of the reasons why the chef community came out in such full support of her is because she picked a topic and a dialogue that let the world know she wanted to talk to us. We could help her help the kids and generate this incredible wind of excitement for Americans. That was a big deal. She’s talking to us! Her work was our chance to open the door and get included in the conversation.

  The other thing that I love about the First Lady is how transformative she’s been in helping the world see Black beauty. When they started to talk about, “her arms are so beautiful” or “her skin is so beautiful,” that was also a way of saying, “Yeah, there’s a new normal of how people can look and feel and be.” We look different, and we’re proud of it, and we’re not going to try to put a blush on it and be a little bit blonder or a little bit—no. We’re rocking this Blackness.

  In terms of fashion, she brought in Jason Wu. She brought in Duro Olowu. She brought in an element that said, “I’m a Black woman. I’m gorgeous, and I’m not going to try to look and feel different in form. The color patterns are different. The hairstyles are different. The arms cut is different. The length of the skirt, how it falls, is different.” She never tried, “Oh, I think I should fit in a Chanel and it should be a certain size.” No. She said, “I’m rocking this body, this skin, this hair and I’m rocking it hard.”

  When I see her, when I’m in her presence, she is, to me, fierce in the way you think of an Annie Lennox or an athlete like Serena Williams or a writer like Maya Angelou was. Michelle Obama is someone that is fierce in the smartest, most intelligent way. She has this incredible balance of understanding Chicago and the world and the street, but also understanding corporate America and understanding as a woman, as a Black woman, how she has to articulate and package that in order to reach the furthest scope of humanity. That is a window into an intellect that is so different from Jackie or Nancy or Barbara, which doesn’t mean that they weren’t intelligent. But I know how hard it is, as a person of color, and being a Black woman, to be so in control of the image you are portraying to the world.

  She’s not just trying to communicate to people in D.C. or Chicago or New York. She knows: “Whatever I say, it’s going to reach Japan and back on Twitter and on Instagram.” It means that every sigh, every facial expression, is analyzed. If I’m not looking at you long enough, I’m arrogant. Other First Ladies didn’t have to contend with Instagram. Or Twitter. We couldn’t travel as fast, so for her to do that, whether she was on Ellen or David Letterman or Jimmy Fallon or CNN, and every single time, come away with, “Holy shit. She’s great.” That’s not easy.

  It’s stunning. It’s nothing short of stunning the way she manages a 24/7 news cycle.

  It’s an amazing achievement, for her to be so relevant in those conversations, whether it’s talking about Obamacare or talking about New York Fashion Week or kids’ food. Always aware that, no matter what she says, she’s speaking to the world. She is putting something out there to the world that the world has never seen before.

  When you think about what she represents, it’s almost Mandela-esque. If you’re a Black girl in Africa and you’re told that you can only go to school to second year. Then you have someone in your image, you see a Michelle Obama, her very existence represents a path and it represents possibility. She tells African girls: this means you can vote. This means you can get a job. This means you can be a lawyer. This means you can go to an Ivy League school. This means that you can win a scholarship. This means that you can raise a family. This means that you can really transform yourself.

  She represents, on a global stage, door after door after door opening and possibility, just by her mere existence.

  * * *

  I came to my true identity as an African, late. It was later in the game. Obama searched for his African heritage and wrote about it in his book. What I love is I don’t think his Africanism is anything she would ever have wanted him to trade away. The vibe I get is, “We are truly African-American, with a foot or a toe or a hand in the continent.” I think that’s also why the hope in the continent is so much for them, and the love for Obama in the continent is so strong, because there is a direct linkage. I think that’s something that will never go away.

  I first met them when he was running for Senator and came to New York. We spoke a few times.

  It’s so funny. I still have his old number in my phone, his Chicago number.

  I still have that 312 number.

  I’ve had it for all those years, from back in the day. It’s vintage!

  When Sam Kass, who had worked for the Obamas as a personal chef and followed them to the White House, asked me to be one of the chefs considered to cook the first state dinner, he was very clear: “The garden means something. We’re going to do something around it.” I started to think about the fact that the state dinners have never been about American food. If you have a garden, let’s pick vegetables from the garden and cook from that. The fact that it was to honor Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and he’s a vegetarian, let’s show some compassion and respect to that. I thought, whether you pick my menu or not, it will help you think about what you serve in the most meaningful way.

  Then Andrea from my team started to go down to Washington to work with me. Andrea told me that during these tastings, Michelle was very present. The dog was very present. The kids were very present. She said, “It’s like you’re in someone’s home, but you’re dealing with the First Lady and the family.”

  That helped me see things differently. I thought, I can’t think about it as the White House. I’ve got to think about, we’re doing a party, a big party for a family. They are throwing a party for 400 people in a very gracious home, versus thinking about the state and city, and country. It made it more homey. It was a lighter touch point, it was a better reference point than thinking about the first state dinner, and the pressure that comes with that.

  When you cook around something that is so big, you can get nervous. My staff could be a little bit nervous, but I couldn’t be nervous. So I thought, I’m just cooking with this great family.

  I wanted to bring being African and being Black into the menu. I wanted to cook collards and cornbread, put that on the very first state dinner menu. I wanted the meal to read as a story of migration. We wouldn’t put that aside. I wanted to write a menu that said to the world, “We can be thoughtful. We can be American, and come from us, by us, for us, but it’s for everyone.” We put the collards in. We put the cornbread in.

  It was easier for me as a chef to craft that narrative than it would have been for her as First Lady. But she okayed it; then it was on.

  There were a lot of things that had never happened before. There’s never been a bread course. I thought: What would be better than for 400 people who really didn’t know each other to be able to pass the bread? Now we’re breaking bread. Cornbread and chapati, very Indian, very American. Like pickles and achar, some American, some very Indian. I was just imagining these dishes in conversation with each other.

  I felt like shrimp from New Orleans was the right choice. It was right after the BP scandal, so it was important to say, “We’re buying our seafood from New Orleans.” We have cornbread. We have collards, this very American show-and-tell, but not the obvious stuff. That is very American to me. Showing in a very soft way, we’re going to start this off right.

  This is how we set the tone.

  That’s what hospitality comes down to. I’ve cooked for so many presid
ents and kings and queens, but this is something where I emotionally feel very, very connected.

  We served okra, of course, and chickpeas, that felt very Indian to me. We knew we’d serve rice, but how did rice come to this country? Through the slave trade, and in Washington, D.C., you’re very close to Virginia. All of that history is right there. Right there! D.C.’s really the last stop or the first stop of that slave route, depending on which direction you were going.

  The migration story was very much at the heart of the menu I created for the state dinner. Cooking with a narrative is something that’s possible for every family; it’s as relevant for Sunday supper as it is for a state dinner. You can own that in whatever capacity you want. Let what you serve be a way of connecting: you cook and all of a sudden, you’re connecting to your college year in New Orleans, or now you’re connecting to your crazy cousin in California. Now you’re connecting to your auntie in Chicago. It’s cooking with a narrative, the way we keep telling our story. Feeding itself is pretty flat and boring, but eating with a spiritual compass and cooking with a narrative is what’s going to connect us, especially since our day-to-day life is so different from the way our parents and our grandparents lived.

  In Sweden, I grew up with Canadian cousins. When they came back with something from Quebec, it could have been maple syrup, that was their way of saying, “We missed you guys. We know you can’t get maple syrup.” It’s cooking with a narrative. No family story’s better or bigger than anyone else’s. This is important. Being an immigrant in this country is being challenged. Being different is being challenged. Don’t let them take your story away from you. Hold on to Honduras, Ethiopia, England, Miami, whatever it might be. Music and cooking might be the two strongest ways of connecting to who we are and where we come from. We are all Americans, of course, but dig into the places you’ve come from. This is what makes you you. That’s the new version of soul.