Michelle Obama shatters stereotypes, provides new role model

By GottaLaff

I haven't been this inspired by a First Lady since, well, ever. Michelle Obama is as bright as they come, beautiful, kind, accomplished, funny, and gracious. I've always appreciated Hillary Clinton, but I am utterly taken with Michelle. And the following statement makes her that much more universally attractive:

"I wouldn't mind being married to the president," said Mykesia, a 5th grader from Atlanta. On the surface, it was a simple statement, the childish fantasy of a young girl. But since Michelle Obama's rise to prominence as the next first lady, that idea—or even the dream of being president—no longer seems far-fetched to young African-American girls like Mykesia.

When Obama moves from her Kenwood neighborhood to the White House next month, she will have a unique opportunity to knock down stereotypes about African-American women and serve as a model for girls and young women struggling to find their identity. [...]

[W]hile the election of the first black president has shattered some racial and social barriers, an African-American first lady could transform perceptions of black women.

How about that. Michelle is changing past criteria and will shape future generations:

Obama is an affirmation that black women can have a successful marriage, a family and a career, despite a bombardment of messages over the last two decades that it is not possible, according to Tarshia Stanley, an English professor who teaches a course on media images at Spelman College, a historically black college for women in Atlanta.

Music videos and rap music, she said, have helped shape the identities of many young black women, and those stereotypes have proliferated through the Internet, in magazines and on television, said Stanley. For many young women, self-image has been formed by what they see in entertainment media: single mothers unable to properly raise their children, scantily clad young women dancing in front of video cameras and targets of derogatory and disrespectful names hurled out in rap lyrics.

Why must there always be a "but"? Here comes Debbie Downer:

While Obama provides an excellent example of someone who supports her husband without losing herself in the process, it will be impossible for her to live up to everyone's expectations as a role model, said Nadine Kaslow, chief psychologist at Emory University School of Medicine.

"People are going to project all sorts of things onto her. And whenever you put someone on a pedestal, there's only one way to go and that's down," Kaslow said. "People expect so many different things from her, and there is no way she can deliver everything. Someone is going to be disappointed."

Party pooper. Let's go back to Ursula Uplift:

Obama offers a modern example for parents, educators and youth advocates who have long strived to instill confidence, self-respect and hope in the lives of girls and young women.

Community activists in Chicago are particularly hopeful that Obama's willingness to embrace her South Side roots will have an impact.

For reelz, as a friend of mine likes to say. Tamica Thomaston, 29:

"With her stepping up from the South Side, it gives me a lot of encouragement," said Thomaston, an emergency medical technician and single mother of two young girls. "I've met smart people throughout my life, but this side of town is my home. She is like a part of my family, like a sister from the South Side."

That's more like it.