Here’s why..
How many of us have attractive, intelligent, out-spoken, confident women in our family? I bet you can name at least a couple would you CHANGE her/them?
How many of us know of a woman who would put us in our place in a minute if we got out of line? And that includes your mom, would you tell HER to shut up? You wouldn’t dare….lol
How many of us know of a woman/women that are just as witty and just as sharp tongued as any man? And that could include the female co-worker who just told you that ‘dirty’ joke..(come on, we all know and like her..lol..)
How many of us know of a woman that pulled herself up by her bootstraps, kept her head down and powered through and MADE IT against all odds? Hasn’t she earned our respect?
She’s the woman, who was the first in her family to get a college education, or the high school drop out who refused to take welfare and worked two jobs to support her family and is now the proud matriarch of a family, loved and respected by all, or even the girl next door who took a few wrong turns but finally got her act together and though she doesn’t have the fancy degree or the greatest job everybody in the neighborhood is glad to see that she’s not doing that ‘s$%$’ anymore…
I ask again how many of us know of a woman/women like that?
MICHELLE OBAMA, is not and will not be the typical first lady but this country is not the typical country.
Her image does not need softening, neither does it need a makeover or even a ‘re introduction’ what the Obama camp needs to do is allow Michelle to be Michelle.
She’s a daughter, sister, wife, mother and a working woman…tell me how many women are all those things and then some?
Yes, she might say some controversial things. Yes, she might make a few slip ups that could cost Obama a few news cycles. And yes she should be a bit more careful when she’s on the stump but in the end Michelle Obama is who she is and unlike some who claim that she too, is applying for the job of ‘first lady’ I beg to differ the job of first lady is already pre-determined, if he wins you can be assured she’s gonna get the job but the role just like the office will change somewhat depending on the person who occupies it.
As an intelligent, attractive, outspoken, confident and less I forget ‘fashionable’, lol, black woman, for the first time in my life probably and hopefully, fingers and toes crossed, next year I will see a black woman who too exemplifies all these qualities be called ‘Madam First Lady’.
In the past our first ladies were white and we admired (Jackie Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt are two of the seven women I would like to have dinner with..if it were possible…) and continue to admire their personal traits and qualities.
In the future, our first lady might be an attractive, intelligent, out-spoken, confident, fashionable black woman and I’m willing to bet that we wouldn’t stop admiring and respecting those qualities in her.
Obama and his pastor..
Obama’s pastor and spiritual advisor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who married the candidate and baptized both of his children, has made some extremely controversial comments about 911, American foreign policy and Hillary Clinton.
Rev.Wright in trying to fire up and motivate his congregation on behalf of Obama made this insensitive and racially charged comment about Hillary Clinton, ” Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary would never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a n**ger. Hillary has never had a people defined as a non-person.”
Now, we can argue the merits of this statement which is akin to saying that a white person will never understand what it’s like to be black in America (of which I can talk about from now till the end of time…lol) but in the end I have to say that a statement like this, in this particular context, from this particular individual, should not have been made in the first place.
And Obama should, quite rightly, distance himself from such comments he’s tried to do that for the entire day via press releases and on blogs but that’s not enough.
In addition to those avenues Obama should take the opportunity tonight, when he appears on MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann to reject and repudiate (those two words are quite popular this week aren’t they..lol) the statements of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. On a current blog Obama states that he believes, ‘ that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit…I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.’
He should reiterate this once again tonight just to hammer home the point that he’s not just running for president of the African American community he’s running to be president of America!
Obama and those around him should remember that in order for him to achieve the presidential post he cannot allow himself to be labelled as just another ‘black politician running for president’. Obama cannot win by just garnering the black vote. He can only win by amassing the majority vote and some of these comments by Rev.Wright and others could ultimately marginalize and confine Obama as ‘just another angry black guy’ and cost him the presidency.
And the more time he spends talking about and defending statements made by his surrogates, campaign staff and associates and even in some cases associates of his opponent, on race, detracts from his overall message and his policy agenda!
In addition Obama, his surrogates and any one with even the slightest association with the campaign must remember that Obama is not running to be the president of the African American community he’s running to become the president of the United States of America and he can’t achieve that if other communities believe that he can’t or wouldn’t represent their best interests of the United States as well as the interest of the black community.
Obama, ultimately will have to put country first and community second and of that there should be no disagreement!
13 comments | tags: 911, African American, Barack Obama, blogs, controversial comments, controversy, foreign policy, interest, keith olbermann, msnbc, pastor, presidency, press coverage, reject, repudiate, rev.jeremiah wright, united states | posted in current news analysis, Election '08, Politics