Know Your Role And Shut Your Mouth

Here's Nia-Malika Henderson over at Politico (natch!) doing a great disservice to both African-Americans and to women by implying very strongly that Michelle Obama is above her station:

Traditional? Hardly. In fact, Obama’s approach so far is decidedly different from the usual model of the modern first lady — pick a platform of two or three issues and stick to it, by and large, for four years.

She’s become the spokeswoman for all sorts of issues and topics — from fitness, parenting, the environment and women’s rights, to redefining images of black women in American culture and promoting self-esteem for young girls.

Yet in the midst of all those themes, it isn’t yet clear whether her self-described core messages — about military families, volunteerism, and helping working women balance work and family life – are truly breaking through. Some wonder if she’s spreading herself too thin to emerge in the public mind as a leading voice on those topics.

Give me an almighty break. If Michelle Obama was nothing more than a feel-good accoutrement on the arm of the President, I swear conservatives would be attacking her for "not doing enough given all the problems facing the average American family these days".

Yet here we have an accomplished, intelligent African-American woman in her own right as First Lady and the charges leveled against her are "she's trying to do too much." That smacks of the code word "uppity", a double foul against a black woman, charges being tossed at her by another black woman, as it somehow makes it all okay.

It does not. Only at the end of the article does Nia-Malika Henderson grudgingly admit that the First Lady's approval ratings are in the mid-60's and that she's "connecting" with Americans.

Those Obamas. Trying to do too much in an age where Presidents and their spouses are apparently supposed to do nothing but demogogue and snatch at low hanging fruit.

New long overdue tags: Michelle Obama and Gender Stupidity.