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Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?

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debo matar la zombi goldberry83
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
I am the most shallow person ever - I totally bought that cardigan.
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PrettyPrettyPrincess
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
She looks like the kind of friend who would let you cry on her shoulder for maybe a few minutes - and then tell you to put on your big-girl pants and go fix your problem. I love that!! She may walk softly but I bet she carries a big stick.
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lisas
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
If I was going to pick a list of top 5 women TV characters that I identified with and wanted to be like as a kid, Claire Huxtable would be in slot #2, right behind She-Ra. Claire was a smart, funny, awesome lawyer and mom, She-Ra had a flying unicorn.

Michelle Obama is a black female role model, and I'm surprised by the resistance to calling her one. It seems to me that it is just as rude to treat Michelle's race as insignificant as it is to treat it as the sole source of her identity. She is a black female role model, but not exclusively. You're allowed to model yourself on her if you're not a black woman. So what's the problem here?
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zafera
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
...since Oprah

The Obamas are totally the new Huxtables. That's why I can't get enough of the family photos of them. Reminds me of my childhood and the heyday of sitcom TV. They are the best role models for the black family. Just what I'd like to see for myself in the future.
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FourInchHeels
11/04/08

@zafera: Hell, they're the best role models for every family, I don't care if you're black, white, green, or fury like a muppet.
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ceejeemcbeegee is not here
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
I can't believe we even have to have this discussion.
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hellosunshine
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
Man. I want the Obamas to adopt me. Actually, wait, no, because then I couldn't lust over Barry because that would just be icky, and he is quite dreamy and...

What was the question?
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Lizawithazee
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
Also-- let's rejoice because Mrs. O is REAL. Dr. H. was PRETEND.
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kit10indublin
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
I'm a bit disappointed by the headline.

Michele (if I may use her first name here) is a SUPERB role model. Role models shouldn't broken down into categories.

She is a great role model - FULL STOP.

Or 'period' - as youse in the US say - to my immature laughter (periods - hee! yeah, I know...)

Michelle rules - as a role model in modern society, for a-n-y-o-n-e. FULL STOP.
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Jessi Ramsey
11/03/08

@kit10indublin: I'm not sure what the issue with the headline is. There aren't many high profile black women, outside of entertainment, for young black women to look up to.

Yes she is a great all around woman but it means something to me as a black woman to see Michelle in the position of influence that she is in.
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ambitious
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
I think 'normal' here functions in a way that is beyond a statistic. In the same way that people talk about Warren Buffet as eating that same damned sandwich every day and being down-to-earth making him more of a normal guy (who happens to have billions) than that Blackstone dude who had the $3 million birthday fete.

Normal as in, not abnormal. Not normal as in less than exceptional.
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citrus buddha
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
Michelle Obama is an amazing role model, and is a black woman, but do we have to underline that she's "normal"? Unless normal means all Princeton/Harvard educated lawyers.

I just...something rubs me the wrong way here, and I'm not sure what...
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samethingwedoeverynightpinky
11/03/08

@citrus_buddha: No i feel the same way. I tried to kind of articulate it upthread, in terms of why we value certain kinds of female behavior and devalue others. I think I'm also a little bugged by the Look! She's not a single mom! attitude some people have. I was raised by a single mom, and she was awesome, and I hope the Obama's are as happy as they seem to be, but it seems strange to me to praise a woman for being and staying married, or marrying a seemingly decent guy. Sometimes marriage isn't a good idea. Sometimes it just doesn't work. And I don't think we'd be praising her for being married or treating hat as at all unusual if she were a white woman, especially a white woman, which instead of combating the image of black woman as unlovable or difficult or whatever, seems to imply that if the rest of us behaved like Michelle, we could be happily married to successful men too. I don't in any way begrudge her her happy marriage, but I think we shouldn't be saying look, not all black mothers are single mothers, we should be saying it's bullshit to paint all single mothers the same way, or assume that they got to be sibngle mothers because they screwed up somehow.
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PilgrimSoul
11/03/08

@samethingwedoeverynightpinky: You are kicking some major ass in this thread.
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Understater
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
"Michelle Obama is totally normal. A normal, well-educated wife of a politician and mother of two."

I think you're playing it a bit fast and loose with the word "normal". Michelle is an exceptional woman, regardless of race.
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morninggloria
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
Oh no she didn't!
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badmutha
11/03/08

@morninggloria: @citrus_buddha: I can drop it like its hot, but I am no Michelle Obama. She is pretty effing awesome.
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clevernamehere
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
As much as I disagree with her, what about Condi? She has an incredibly powerful and prominent position.
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SunburnedCounsel
11/03/08

@clevernamehere: interestingly, I think there is probably a whole different article in there about how we devalue women who are not mothers, and do not consider them the "right type of women" to be looking up to. Because I think there is a whole lot of that going on in how we all view Condi.
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Mkp-hearts-NYC
11/03/08

@clevernamehere: ...she does, and in terms of banishing stereotypes and upholding dignity of an office regardless of gender, I'd put her in the same category.

Unfortunately she also goes in the same box as Sarah Palin and Elizabeth Dole...I can't support them just because we happen to have the same chromasomes, and I can't admire their achievements in the same way because I disagree with their goals.
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Schm
11/03/08

@clevernamehere: You make such a good point about Condi... sometimes I feel bad for her because I think her accomplishments as a black woman in such high office are being ignored and will continue to be undermined in history because of her association with this awful administration. But then again, she could have had some more integrity and not fallen into all that Bush cronyism, so I can't really bring myself to respect her all that much at the end of the day. Oh, Condi...
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clevernamehere
11/03/08

@Mkp-hearts-nyc: I think Condi can still be a role model in terms of her career and her dignity. (Seriously, she's had more grace than most of the Bush administration).

I think Michelle is awesome, but I'm not really sure what we are expected to admire her for. Yes, she has a career as a lawyer, but all I know is that she's on leave from a hospital and I doubt most people know that much. We know her as a wife and mother, not a professional.

Should first ladies really be our role models in this day and age?

Its not like little boys want to grow up to be Todd Palin.
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Lizawithazee
11/03/08

@AliyaRoger: Plus, she's closeted and that always makes me sad. Especially when it's someone who would blow people's minds open and maybe really knock down some barriers.
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Tart of Darkness
11/03/08

@Lizawithazee: I think you have an enormous point there. Also the feeling I get about her is that she would not be comfortable being identified as a role model for black women because I think she tries very hard not to identify herself with her race or gender. I think she tries to see herself as an exceptional individual without regard to the barriers she has surmounted as a black woman (who is, as you say, probably gay).

I think I remember reading somewhere where she said she had never experienced prejudice. I find that impossible to believe just as a woman alone, much less a black woman.
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aShinyGumWrapper
11/03/08

@Lizawithazee: really, she's gay? I thought she was in love with Bush. That's why she doesn't seem admirable to me, because she was some sort of blind follower under a spell. Remember when she called him her husband?
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bowleserised
11/04/08

@umm_okay: Yes, she's gay.
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commu6
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
*Stands up.*

I'm black and I'm normal too!
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lovelyivy
11/03/08

@commu6: I'm black and I am really, really not normal.

I rocked braids for about ten years, dance like I have lost my mind, have been known to tell people about themselves, and apologize for none of it.

I don't do any of those things to be like anyone else, black or white. I do them because I'm me. The funny thing is, I know plenty of black, white, asian and hispanic women who are the same way. What about that for normal?

Fuck "normal."

*not targeted at you, I just get really frustrated because so many people, very well meaning, want me to conform to some kind of pre-conceived "norm" or be "ladylike". I can and will behave appropriately for my situation, but outside of that I will not pretend to be demure, not for anyone.
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katekate is squared
11/03/08

@lovelyivy: Yeah, god, I bet that's seriously so frustrating. I don't like the "normal" tag, either.
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BrutallyHonestBabes (aka Mrs. Sarah.of.a.Lesser.Hobbit)
11/03/08

In reply to Michelle Obama: The Best Black Female Role Model Since Claire Huxtable?
So... black women are people? PEOPLE? I'm... I'm so confused.
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Mkp-hearts-NYC
11/03/08

@BrutallyHonestBabes: From the second they leave the ovary, you betcha!
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badmutha
11/03/08

@BrutallyHonestBabes: WOW. What a revelation.
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BrutallyHonestBabes (aka Mrs. Sarah.of.a.Lesser.Hobbit)
11/03/08

@badmutha: I hope that people thing doesn't extend to all women.
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hellosunshine
11/03/08

@BrutallyHonestBabes: Right? Next thing we know, they'll be wantin'ta leave the house without a man and gettin' all mouthy.
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