Michelle Obama, more than an icon
Committed, proud, funny, impactful and demanding: the First Lady, who would have all the qualities to embark on a political career, marked her time, sometimes going as far as to eclipse her husband. She will miss
By leaving the White House, Michelle Obama will leave a great void. The woman of the year is her. Much more than a First Lady, she has that presence, that stature, that charisma that makes her someone to listen to. Far from being content to remain in the shadow of her husband, she too marked her years of presidency.
Just this week, in her last big interview with Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama dared to say that the United States had entered a darker phase with the election of Donald Trump. "Now we feel what it feels like not to have hope," she said, when Barack Obama was elected precisely on a "message of hope and change." Calm and collected, she again stressed how important it is to have an "adult" in the White House who can provide reassurance during hectic times.
"When they go down, we go up"
Michelle Obama has this class that sticks to her skin. Even while indulging in the choreography of Michael Jackson's "Thriller," at the Kids' Halloween Party at the White House. First African-American First Lady, she especially captivated her world last October, with her speech in Manchester, New Hampshire. A speech in which she castigated Donald Trump's outrageous remarks about women, with the elegance of never naming him.
She had already fascinated at the end of July, during the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, with this sentence, now mythical, chosen by her personal pen Sarah Hurwitz: "When they go low, we go high". That can be translated as: "When they lower, we rise."
An untouchable icon
Strong, impactful, effective statements that strike. And which above all reveal a passionate and genuine Michelle Obama, capable of standing up as a bulwark against Donald Trump and his excesses. She steps in to defend her husband, or when she feels America is in danger, with a candidate who campaigned like on a reality show, where all hits, above and below the belt, seemed allowed . A symbol, an untouchable icon, who has only very rarely been targeted by her husband's political opponents and Donald Trump's team.
The president-elect has reacted to Michelle Obama’s statements about the lack of hope. But in moderation, without the aggressiveness he usually resorts to when he feels under attack. He just said, in the middle of the "Thank you Tour", that she probably wanted to talk about the past and not the future. Before adding that when they first met in the White House, "she couldn't have been nicer." To believe that the "Michelle Obama effect" even works on Donald Trump. Untouchable, therefore.
"I will not launch into a presidential race"
His last major public speech, in New Hampshire, won him thousands of emails and letters. It didn't take long for many to dream of seeing her, the icon of classitude and modest achievement, President of the United States in four years or more.
A dream her husband quickly brushed aside: the popular Michelle has with rare exceptions always stayed out of politics, and will continue to do so. She herself said publicly several weeks ago: "I will not be running for president, no, I will not. I have two daughters at home, and it's not easy being a president's child. "
Michelle Obama, 52, grew up in Chicago, on the South Side, in a tiny apartment. Her father, Frazer Robinson, a descendant of a slave, was a machinist in the municipal water filtration plant. Suffering from multiple sclerosis, he died in 1991. His mother, Marian, whose grandmother also worked as a slave, in rice fields in Georgia, was a housewife and then a secretary. She now lives with her daughter and family in the White House. And will follow them to their new home.
Michelle Obama has an older brother, Craig. It was partly thanks to him that she obtained a scholarship to enter Princeton University in 1981: Craig was a star of the local basketball team, coaching the Oregon State Beavers.
Dissertation on racial discrimination
She devoted her graduation thesis at Princeton to racial discrimination. The Obamas attempted to keep the document hidden until Barack was elected. Lost sentence: under pressure from the media, Michelle Obama was forced to bring out the text.
Princeton, then Harvard, in law school. Michelle, who specializes in marketing and intellectual property, will then practice as an attorney at a Chicago business firm, Sidley Austin. It was there that she met the man who will change her destiny. Barack Obama was just an intern, also a Harvard graduate, to take care of. Both the only African Americans in the cabinet.
Michelle Obama went on to work as mayor of the city where she grew up, then as vice-president for external relations at the university hospital, where she earned $ 250,000 a year. More than Barack Obama at the time. Marriage in 1992, birth of Malia in 1998 and Natasha, known as Sasha, in 2001.
An educated black woman, she doesn't just have admirers. During her husband's election campaign, she was described by some virulent media as the president's “bitter half”. She said, in a 2007 interview, that her husband had bad breath in the morning and that he had trouble putting away his socks, "revelations" that were misunderstood. The very days when "Vanity Fair" ranked her among the ten best dressed people in the world.
Karaoke and appearance in a TV series
Today, her charisma matches that of her husband; "Vanity Fair" magazine, again, considers her a "pop culture icon", and she understood that she could participate in television shows, including the famous karaoke in the car of host James Corden, where she waddles on Beyoncé and Stevie Wonder, while maintaining her image of class and elegance. And its credibility. She didn't hesitate to appear in an episode of season 13 of the NCIS television series, where she played her own role.
Very committed, she mobilized to keep Americans healthy. We remember her campaign "Let’s move" against childhood obesity, the vegetable gardens of the White House that she cultivated under the cameras. Or its action in favor of ex-combatants through the “Joining Forces” program.
Incarnation of the glamorous couple
Michelle and Barack are also the embodiment of the glamorous couple, solid, yet bordering on cutesy romanticism. Just remember the declarations of Valentine's Day in front of cameras. It was also in a pastry trolley that Barack Obama had hidden the engagement ring in 1992. On January 20, 2009, it was she who, at the foot of the Capitol, proudly held the Bible on which her husband took the oath. .
If Michelle Obama, the one who became the greatest support for Hillary Clinton at the end of the campaign even though the two women were not always very close, today pretends to want to step aside, to rejoice in her 'moving away from the media circus imposed on her by her function as first lady is probably to bounce back better. We could clearly see her, with the verve and passion that characterize her, become more involved in favor of access to education for underprivileged sections of the population. Or for the gun ban.
