I'm white. I grew up in an Irish middle-class family outside Boston. The n-word was used frequently; n-jokes were told. I was taught black people were different and dangerous.

And the bad thoughts sometimes pop into my head. I don't agree with them, but they're ingrained.

And I feel like an asshole.

I have tried all my life to get those thoughts out. As well as thoughts about Latinos, and Jews, and...I don't know, anyone who is not Irish.

I sound like a jerk, don't I?

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Actually Anna N., this is not too far off. I'm not sure why you are so incredulous.

Dr. Mae Jemison, the first black woman to go into space has mentioned the influence of seeing actress Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura on Star Trek) on television as a little girl. She has mentioned her as an inspiration time and time again. Oprah Winfrey has mentioned how seeing Diana Ross and the Supremes on Ed Sullivan inspired her as a child.

You have to remember that there was a time (as late as the 1960s) when some black artists were not even pictured on their own record albums because the powers that be assumed that white people would not buy the records. An example is the Isley Brothers.

Also, I would recommend Veronica Chamber's book "Having It All: Black Women and Success" where Claire Huxtable is specifically mentioned as an inspiration for many real professional black women:

Twenty-first century black women draw their inspiration from a wide range of sources: Claire Huxtable to Audrey Hepburn, snowboarding to basketball, Gloria Steinem to bell hooks. They choose what they like. Yet they are misunderstood by mainstream America and lack an accurate portrayal in the media of their lives.

[www.veronicachambers.com]

I don't find Robin Givhan's take "troubling" at all and I think that you are too quick to dismiss something that you are clearly not getting...

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Not that you can always blame people or be surprised...there are plenty of things I was "vague" about until I was exposed to information about it time and time again.

That said...yeah, it makes me kind of sad and I find it embarrassing that (as the media has it) the public is shocked by the Obamas.

I wonder how many observers shocked by the "eloquence" and social/educational mobility of the Obamas have gone to college, or gone to college with some racial diversity.

If nothing else...there are plenty of nonwhite authors and scientists I can think of that are on cable news, the Colbert Report or the Daily Show (younger audience, I guess), and the astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson has been on everything from Colbert to Conan...for such an obscure field, he's a fun guest wherever he goes.

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After all, Mrs. Huxtable, FLOTUS, Oprah, and Queen Latifah are the only functional black women ever.

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After I told her that I have a BA, and that I was in grad school, the look of shock on her face spoke volumes. It was as if she'd seen the yeti, right here in San Francisco.

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What [people] do not see on a regular basis, they assume to be rare or even nonexistent, indeed.

(My dad has stayed mysteriously silent on the subject of the Obama presidency, and I prefer not to rock the boat for the sake of peaceful phone calls home. Yes, he is a racist dork, but he is also my dad.)

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But, there's a point here that I think you're not giving enough credence to.

Television is, for better or worse, the village bonfire around which we tell our stories now. All societies decide what's important and tells stories about those things; if an idea, a group, a point of view isn't talked about, it's judged as unimportant. True, the village has about 300 million people, and the bonfire is much more diffuse than it once was, but it shapes our view of reality to a really powerful degree. People see as normative that which they know; if they know no people of color (see: Iowa stats), or openly gay people, or Jews their only really source of information is the media.

The worst thing about comparing Michelle to Claire is the implicit acknowledgment that the Cosby Show was the last time that the American public, as a whole, told stories about professional Black families. It's not "television's responsibility to prepare us for successful black women like Michelle Obama" -- but it is what TV does, or in this case mostly doesn't, do.

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I DO think increased visibility of minorities on television in a wide variety of roles is an important goal-- it's a pretty horrifying FAIL right now, and TV is an important part of our culture. The problem is that without better viability and variety, TV tends to either act like minorities don't exist or play on and confirm old stereotypes.

But yes, if someone still needs to make Clair Huxtable reference to "get" Michelle, they are lazy and have not being paying much attention.

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Much like Soylent Green, BLACK WOMEN ARE PEEEEEOOOPLE!

WOMEN ARE ARE PEEEEEOOOPLE!

BLACK MEN ARE PEEEEEOOOPLE!

HISPANICS ARE PEEEEEOOOPLE!

ASIANS ARE PEEEEEOOOPLE!

White dudes do not have the people thing tied up. That is all.

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