Michelle Obama ‘knocked back’ by race issues in 2008 US presidential contest

During a commencement speech at Tuskegee University in Alabama, United States first lady Michelle Obama spoke frankly about the role her racial identity played during the 2008 presidential campaign. 

“As potentially the first African-American first lady, I was also the focus of another set of questions and speculations, conversations sometimes rooted in the fears and misperceptions of others,” she told the class of 2015 on Saturday. “Was I too loud or too emasculating? Or was I too soft? Too much of a mom and not enough of a career woman?”

She referred to her satirical portrayal on a July 2008 cover of the New Yorker magazine as a terrorist. 

“Then there was the first time I was on a magazine cover,” she told the graduates at the historically black college.

“It was a cartoon drawing of me with a huge afro and a machine gun. Now, yeah, it was satire, but if I’m really being honest, it knocked me back a bit. It made me wonder: ‘Just how are people seeing me?’”

Directing her remarks directly toward her African American audience, Obama spoke from her own experience

: “The road ahead is not going to be easy. It never is, especially for folks like you and me.” 

Mrs Obama then aired a laundry list of slights she said black Americans deal with on a regular basis: “We’ve both felt the sting of those daily slights throughout our entire lives. The folks who crossed the street in fear of their safety, the clerks who kept a close eye on us in all those department stores. The people at formal events who assumed we were the help.”

“And those who have questioned our intelligence, our honesty, even our love of this country, and I know that these little indignities are obviously nothing compared to what folks across the country are dealing with every single day. Those nagging worries about whether you’re going to get stopped or pulled over for absolutely no reason. ”

She stressed those experiences were “not an excuse” to “lose hope”. – Bloomberg