Inside Michelle Obama’s Memoir: 10 Insightful and Painful Revelations From ‘Becoming’
After her departure from The White House, America’s first African-American First Lady has been relatively quiet. However, in her powerful new memoir, “Becoming”, Michelle Obama’s revelations allows us to see our forever First Lady like we have never seen her before.
While the world knows Obama for her zeal and advocacy for public health, higher education, and women and girls empowerment initiatives during her tenure at The White House, her book shows the intimate and vulnerable sides of Mrs. Obama –– before, during and beyond her political position. Sharing with the world her truths, her triumphs, and even trials of growing up with humble beginnings in the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago; her life as a doe-eyed, nervous college student at Princeton University and later, Harvard Law School; to falling in love and lust with her husband, President Barack Obama; the painful experience of suffering a miscarriage and conceiving her daughters through IVF treatments; going to marriage counseling; to being mother-and-wife-in-chief and more, the highly anticipated book is an ode to the importance of finding your voice, standing firm in your beliefs and being proud of who you are and where you come from.
Personal, political, powerful, and provocative, “Becoming” further solidifies Michelle Obama as a cultural icon, thought leader, and a forever inspiration who continues to leave a formidable mark on the world.
Check out some highlights from the book and her special video message to readers:
We’re finally here! I hope that this book might help each of you embrace the beauty of who you are, and I wish you all the best in your own process of becoming. https://t.co/tOEk59nT71 #IAmBecoming pic.twitter.com/1VD6nCZN41
— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) November 13, 2018
She didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in her mouth.
Obama shares that her family lived on the second floor of a modest apartment in the South Shore neighborhood which was owned by her great-aunt and uncle, who also lived on the first floor. Her mother worked as a homemaker and later, as an executive assistant at a bank and her father was a city water plant employee. However, Obama later revealed that work became hard for her father due to his multiple sclerosis and Cushing’s syndrome diagnoses.
Her parents had very honest and candid conversations with her as a child.
Michelle recalls how honest and open her parents were with her and her brother, Craig, and answered their questions rawly, forthrightly and without sugarcoating. Obama remembers her parents discussing with her at a young age the harsh realities of the world including racial profiling, discrimination, and inequalities. She also recounts her father telling her and her brother that “sex should be fun.”
She was told she spoke like a “white girl”.
At the age of 10, Michelle shared her cousin asked her why she spoke so differently from the rest of her family and sounded like a “white girl.” While Obama knew she and her cousin were obviously related, she felt as if they were from two separate worlds. Obama emphasized that while her parents enforced in her that she and her brother should “own their smartness”, she also knew that “speaking a certain way–the ‘white’ way–as some would say it–was seen as a betrayal, as being uppity, and as somehow denying our culture.” From this experience, she recalls how many have applied stereotypes about how people should act and how those same judgements were ascribed onto her husband and former President, Barack Obama.
Michelle was told that she would not make it into Princeton.
Although she was top 10 percent of her class at Whitney Young Magnet High School; was elected treasurer of her senior class; and made the National Honor Society, her school counselor told her that she “was not Princeton material.” She proved her wrong!
She was surprised at how “white” Princeton University was.
Growing up in a racially mixed community in the South Side of Chicago, when Michelle arrived to Princeton University for undergrad, she was overwhelmed at how underwhelmingly diverse the predominantly white, Ivy League university was. However, it was through her friendships and gatherings with Black students on Princeton’s campus that made her feel welcomed, comfortable, and supported. However, Obama recalls a time during her freshman year where one of her roomates, a white woman by the name of Cathy, suddenly switched from their dorm to a single suite. Not knowing the reason why she left at the time, it was later revealed during a news segment that Cathy’s mother was so disgusted that her daughter was sharing space with a Black woman, she demanded that Princeton change her daughter’s room immediately.
She revealed she was on Harvard Law School’s waitlist.
After graduating from Princeton, the ambitious Michelle took her LSAT and applied to Harvard Law. While her family praised her accomplishments, she revealed she had been wait-listed but still was accepted. She would later work in Chicago at a high-end law firm, Sidley & Austin at the age of 25.
She wasn’t feelin’ Barack when she first met him. At all.
As a lawyer at Sidley & Austin, Michelle was asked to mentor an up-and-coming first year law student who would be interning at the firm. This up-and-coming law student was none other than Barack Obama. However, the day he was supposed to meet Michelle, he was late. While everyone in the firm praised Barack’s brilliance and intelligence, she remembers that she “checked out his photo in the summer edition of our staff directory–a less than flattering, poorly lit headshot of a guy with a big smile and a whiff of geekiness–[she] remained unmoved.” However, after spending time together, Michelle affirmed that while “there was no arguing with the fact that even with his challenged sense of style, Barack was a catch.”
She learned “motherhood has no formula.”
As a new mother, Michelle confided that she loved to be at home with her daughters. However, there were times where she felt torn about being a stay-at-home mother and whether or not she should work as well, especially as she watched her then-Senator husband fulfill his political goals and dreams. However, it was through her friendships with other mothers that she realized that “motherhood has not formula.” Michelle would later apply for a job at a university hospital in Chicago.
She didn’t believe her husband was going to be President.
While she supported her husband, Michelle did not believe he would win the presidency because of the racial divisions that are so embedded in the nation. In an interview with Robin Roberts, Obama candidly said her doubt was in line with “…what a lot of Black folks were doing. We were afraid to hope because it is hard to believe that the country that oppressed you could one day be led by you. My grandfather lived through segregation. My grandfather, his grandfather, was a slave. These memories were real. And they didn’t think this country was ready. And so, my attitude was a reflection of that skepticism.”
She finally admits that the harsh criticism she experienced during her time as First Lady really hurt her.
When critics claimed Obama did not “love her country”, she was “unpatriotic” and “angry”, although she initially said those statements did not hurt her, she admitted those words cut her deeply. Obama wrote that “I was female, black, and strong, which to certain people, maintaining a certain mindset, translated only to “angry.” It was another damaging cliché, one that’s been forever used to sweep minority women to the perimeter of every room, an unconscious signal not to listen to what we’ve got to say.”
She was not used to the formal protocol of the White House.
When the Obama family first entered into The White House, Michelle notes that she was uncomfortable and unaccustomed to the formality of their new positions as the First Family. She made several initiatives to democratize White House by making the space more liberal, for example, by having state dinners with children and inviting diverse musical artists to perform.
She will never forgive Trump for putting her family in danger.
When Donald Trump ignited the news and even the country with his birtherism comments, claiming that President Obama was not born in the United States, Michelle was fearful of possible retaliation because of his “loud and reckless innuendos”. Because Trump’s statements threatened her family’s safety, Obama says she will “never forgive him”. Of course, Trump fired back at Obama’s comments and said, “I’ll never forgive [Barack Obama] for what he did to our U.S. military. It was depleted, and I had to fix it,” Trump said. “What he did to our military made this country very unsafe for you and you and you.”
Barnes & Noble announced today that Obama’s memoir has sold more preorders than any other adult book since Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman” was published in 2015.
And Michelle Obama’s number one fan took to social media to share his praise.
Of course, @MichelleObama’s my wife, so I’m a little biased here. But she also happens to be brilliant, funny, wise – one of a kind. This book tells her quintessentially American story. I love it because it faithfully reflects the woman I have loved for so long. pic.twitter.com/X0i9jja4TE
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 13, 2018
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