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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"She can help girls with the decision that when they grow up, what kind of man you should want by your side," Greer Jones says. "Do you want a man to stand on the corner or do you want a man who has potential to become president?"

"In Chicago, she stood right there till her man finished his last word," says Patricia Johnson, 34.

People have been drawing conclusions about Michelle Obama by refracting her words through their own experiences and biases. There are blogs following her every move: the school-selection process for her daughter, her performance on "60 Minutes," her figure. Essayist Erin Aubry Kaplan posted this on Salon.com: "Barack's better half not only has stature but is statuesque. She has coruscating intelligence, beauty, style and -- drumroll, please -- a butt."

Still to come will be more serious assessments based on the causes she promotes, her first official journey outside the country, her first state dinner.

"I have no doubt that she is prepared for the challenge," said Lani Guinier, a Harvard Law School professor and onetime Clinton nominee for a top Justice Department post. "She and her husband embody a very healthy relationship. That in itself is quite a public and political statement."

Guinier added: "I toast to the time when this is all normal -- or otherwise unremarkable."

Portia Pedro, 29, a third-year student of Guinier's, is pursuing the same degree held by the incoming president and first lady. "The hope for young black professional women that's embodied in Michelle Obama is a bit different from the hope invested in Barack Obama," she said. "As we go higher and higher into education, we outnumber black men, and there is a not-so-silent concern that you are less likely to get married and less likely to have children. The career part is not in question, but can you do that and be married and have a family?

"If she can do that, then it opens possibilities for other black women."

Alice M. Thomas, a 45-year-old professor at Howard University School of Law, said the Obama marriage should help redefine the image of black relationships.

With his election night tribute to Michelle as "the love of my life, your next first lady," Thomas said, the president-elect crowned all black women: "He had a humble enough spirit to concede the stage to her. . . . It elevated black women in a way we haven't been elevated since antiquity: Queen Hatshepsut, Queen Nzinga, Cleopatra, Nefertiti. World leaders came seeking them, admiring their beauty. They were not just beautiful, they were intelligent.

"For him to regard her and treat her and show and express unabashedly, unashamedly, his love for her, his love for her intelligence, respecting her, romancing her, smiling at her -- for the world to see that exchange between a powerful black man and a powerful black woman, I think it's what is everlasting about this," Thomas said. "I don't think we can point to another power black couple like that. Oprah and Stedman aren't married. And Stedman doesn't seem to have power. Nelson and Winnie broke up."

Some women say Michelle Obama and her family represent nothing really new -- that there have always been stable, married, beautiful black families living in beautiful houses and sending their children to private schools. Mother in pearls. Dad in sharp suits. So often, black families are depicted as statistics. But look behind the curtained windows and you'll see "normal" American behavior: working parents, live-in grandmothers.

Michelle Obama told the Cleveland Plain Dealer during the Democratic convention: "When I was growing up in the '80s, 'The Cosby Show' meant so much to African American families. A lot of people looked at the Huxtables and thought, 'There's no way that family exists.' But African Americans knew differently. If we don't see those images, then the people don't believe they exist."

If you peeked you would see yourself, too -- a family, just a regular family. All these years they were there, living in cities and suburbs, down the street from you. Soon, they'll be living in the White House -- with Michelle Obama as self-described mom-in-chief, standing in for so many women on this side of the gate.