For many, Michelle Obama is a source of inspiration. She is no longer just the wife of former President Barack Obama.
One would almost think that Michelle Obama, who appears so youthful, is unaffectedly cheating on her real age. The former First Lady of the USA will actually be 60 years old on January 17th.
She appears relaxed and casual since she has largely given up her representative first lady look. The elegant hairstyle with straight hair has also given way to its natural curl, the curls flowing down like a young girl’s.
It’s hard to believe in this country, but this hairstyle is also a political statement. In the USA, African Americans are repeatedly discriminated against because of their natural, frizzy hair. That’s why the Crown Act (“Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair”) movement was launched in 2019. The Crown Act is described and opposed by parts of the Republican party as a “bad hair bill”, but was passed in the US House of Representatives last year as a law against racial hair discrimination. It is valid in 24 US states, but has not yet found a majority in the Senate.
Years of fighting racism
Michelle Obama decided to straighten her hair when her husband Barack Obama (62) took office as the 44th President of the USA (2009-2017). At that time, the American population was “just getting used to” the fact that a black presidential family lived in the White House; they were “not ready” for frizzy Afro hair, she said in an interview with US talk show host Ellen DeGeneres (65). This allowed the government to focus on her husband’s agenda instead of having to answer racist questions about her hair.
Michelle Obama believes hairstyles are another hurdle for African-American women in the workplace and natural hairstyles are criticized as unprofessional. And she fought against racism, no matter what kind, all her life.
An impressive career
She comes from a working-class neighborhood in Chicago; her father was a butcher, then a machinist, and her mother was a secretary. Their ancestors came largely as former slaves from the southern United States, with one of their ancestors being the white Texas slave owner Henry Wells Shields, according to a 2012 DNA analysis.
As a student, the highly intelligent and self-confident Michelle ignored a teacher’s advice not to set her goals too high – as a black child: she applied to the elite Princeton University, got a place and went on to study sociology after graduating and African-American studies on top of that: She studied law at Harvard, the most famous and probably best university in the world, and received her “Juris Doctor” before starting a career as a top lawyer at the renowned law firm Sidley & Austin.
And then came Barack Obama
There the brilliant lawyer met a certain Barack Obama, who was doing a summer internship at Sidley & Austin as a law student and whose mentor Michelle became. She made it clear to her charge, who could flirt so charmingly, that he shouldn’t waste his time falling in love with his superiors. It didn’t help; Michelle also felt, as she later confessed, a “strange heat” that “crept up her spine” when she saw her protégé.
The two married in October 1992 in Chicago, where their two daughters Malia Ann (1998) and Natasha (2001) were born.
Michelle Obama once said about the distribution of roles in her marriage: “We are who we are. I have a loud mouth, I raise my husband. He is incredibly smart, and he is very capable of being with a strong woman Dealing with me is one of the reasons he’s fit to be president.”
Today it is clear that Barack Obama’s outstanding political career from political lawyer to US senator, which ultimately took him to the White House for eight years, would not have been possible without his wife. She wrote or edited his speeches and was his first advisor, but also a critic. Some observers see her as a “Black Hillary” (Clinton).
Self-doubt accompanies her life
“No one could miss Michelle Obama when she walked into a room,” “Welt” once summed it up. “Almost 1.80 meters tall (with heels on the same height as her husband), trained daily (her jump rope classes for her daughter’s ballet class are legendary), broad-shouldered, almost austere in her attractiveness. A touch of hardness and ‘Lie down Better not with me around your mouth, passionate intelligence in your eyes.” Her lower-middle-class background “made her proud and, beneath an armor, warm-hearted. She believes in hard work, in her family, in her faith, in herself. She is a woman who doesn’t need a man who needs a woman.”
It was only years later, after moving out of the White House, that she described her career very personally in her memoirs “Becoming – My Story,” which was published in 2018. She writes about her father’s death, about her miscarriage, about artificial insemination (for both daughters) and again and again about her self-doubts (“Am I good enough?”) that she experienced as a schoolgirl, student, lawyer, successful woman, mother and politician – Accompany wife.
She sensitively and humorously describes scenes from her marriage, for example how he lies awake at night, staring at the ceiling and asking her: “Hey, you over there, what are you thinking about?” To which Barack explains “a little embarrassedly”: “Oh, I was just thinking about our income differences.”
Michelle also writes about the ten years in which she “couldn’t stand her husband. That was exactly the time when the children were small.” And she doesn’t hide the joint marital therapy and the fact that she only supported his campaign for the White House on one condition: he had to give up smoking.
Her memoirs have sold over ten million copies
Critics love the fluid, almost literary style of the book, which was written by Michelle Obama herself. The self-ironic passages in particular are very well received, and not just by the audience. So wrote a critic of “Zeit”: “What is new and unheard of in the former First Lady’s autobiography is the unsparing self-criticism with which she examines her life to date.” The interest in the work was so great that the author appeared in packed stadiums on the reading tour through the USA. The book has sold over ten million copies to date.
The same applies to this topic: The Obamas have delivered. After leaving the presidency, the couple sold their book rights to the publisher Penguin Random House for over $65 million. The first part of his memoirs, “A Promised Land,” also sold millions of copies.
Her book has finally made Michelle Obama one of the most famous and popular women in the USA. The publisher and Penguin Random House boss Markus Dohle even calls her “one of the most convincing women” of today. It seems that (not only) in large sections of the population of the states there is a deep longing for people who are equally smart, empathetic, assertive and, above all, honest.
Michelle Obama knows this, but avoids further political speculation. The woman, who is “horrified” by a possible second presidency of Donald Trump (77), rejects a candidacy for the highest office in the USA. At least so far.