The Very Image of Affirmation

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Women Reflect on Incoming First Lady Michelle Obama

Women in the D.C. area share their thoughts on the soon-to-be first lady, Michelle Obama.

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"I think Michelle Obama is her own woman. I think people with the stereotype thing need to get over it. She is forcing people who have never taken the time to know who we are as black women to take a second look. To actually see, for once in their life, that there are black women that are brilliant and graceful, intelligent, well spoken and have their own sense of themselves. And it doesn't have to be measured up to anyone else."

Gibson-Hunter is sitting on the black leather sofa in her home with her husband, Jawara, an anesthesiologist. Their brown dachshund just jumped in her lap. Her 16-year-old son is on the computer in the other room "supposedly doing homework." They have just finished a dinner of tofu, salad and naan flat bread.

"I think for nonblack people, they are going to have to maybe deal with the stereotypes in their heads," Gibson-Hunter said. ". . . What this whole situation is doing is inviting people to look behind the projections in their own minds and maybe begin to do some work to deconstruct some of that and find the truth."

"She is educated. She is not like 'Michelle the housewife.' It's 'Michelle the attorney,' " says McRae. "She is smart. She is not an airhead. She's not the pretty girl. She's not the ugly girl. She's not the trophy wife."

"Nobody wants to see anybody in a Chanel suit," says Diavian Jeffreys, 24.

"I look at her head to toe, and I can't find one fault," says Nolan.

The stage is set for soul-searching. "Michelle Obama will be under the microscope in a way no other woman of color has been," said Donna Brazile, a Democratic commentator and strategist who offered advice to the Obama campaign. "There's no question that Michelle Obama will alter the playbook for black women for years to come. . . . We're long overdue for this."

During the presidential campaign, Michelle Obama found herself branded "Obama's baby mama" in a Fox News graphic. Some conservative pundits labeled her an "angry," unpatriotic black woman after she remarked in February, "For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country, because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction." By July came a depiction of Michelle Obama as an Angela Davis type, fist-bumping her husband on a satiric New Yorker cover that famously backfired.

She says she ignores labels, telling NPR: "I have not paid much attention about what people say about me who don't know me." She said she was saying one thing -- how proud she was that more Americans were participating in the electoral politics -- and the way people interpreted it was another thing. African Americans say they knew exactly what she was talking about: For too long, they felt excluded from the political process. The Obamas changed that.

But the controversy highlights how the first lady will need to practice "impression management," said Quinetta Roberson, a Villanova University business school professor who co-authored a law journal article analyzing public perceptions of the future first lady.

"One of the other perceptions around her is that she is a very strong woman, and her influence on her husband and family is very clear," Roberson said. "In his acceptance speech, Barack Obama said she is 'the rock of our family.' Other politicians may say my spouse is my ally or inspiration, but it doesn't necessarily suggest an equal role. 'Rock of our family' means she is right next to him and a critical part of his foundation."

Yet the positive can easily be spun as a negative, into a stereotype of an "aggressive, somewhat overbearing woman," Roberson says.