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• Tuesday, November 18, 2008 09:48 AM

  Steps one to four...

  Step 1: Ask yourself, "Am I an American black woman?" If the answer is yes, write and post. If the answer is no, proceed to step 2.

  Step 2: Ask yourself, "Do I have any deep, close, personal friendships with American black women?" If the answer is yes, write and post. If the answer is no, proceed to step 3.

  Step 3: Ask yourself, "Have I made a deep effort to understand, through a combination of long talks with members of that demographic, research, reading, and a lil' bit of good old fashioned imagination, the social and personal undercurrents that contribute to the collective psyche of the American black female experience?" If the answer is yes, write (carefully!) and post. If the answer is no, proceed to step 4.

  Step 4: STFU.

  Yes to steps 1-3. Therefore I will not be S-ing the FU, thank you. (Way to assume that any demographic is a lockstepping thought-monolith!!)

  I still find this article rather stupid. (I had never even noticed Michelle's backside before reading this, and I was happier.)

  "She could kick his ass" (stereotype of black women, much? Loud, tough, unfeminine?) "Ghetto ass" (because having a large butt is of course synonymous with ghetto?) EW. And also no, thank you. This is helping me out how? So far I'm not seeing much difference at all.

  And it will never be enough, will it? Her butt is ample, so now let's have a natural do! Okay, now her hair is unprocessed, but why does she keep it tied back instead of letting it flow free? Okay, now she looks like the lovely Angela Davis, but why won't she wear traditional African garb of the type that ISN'T really her birthright because African Americans are a diverse, Western and Westernized people, as any actual Sub-Saharan African would be only so happy to inform you? And why does she talk like that, walk like that, live like that... IT NEVER ENDS.

  This is taking the personal as political a little too damn far.

  This article celebrates the very stereotypes it purports to transcend. Scr*w that. This doesn't make them any less stereotypical. You may keep your bloody "amazon," your "ass-kicking" and your "ghetto." This does not empower me -- some of us have been made to feel like a freak for years for being "demure," as if this were somehow inherently antithetical and unnatural to black womanhood. I've been fetishized rather enough. I'm beyond uncomfortable to read the same thing being done to our First Lady. The article is not entirely inaccurate, but "self-indulgent" does cover it; the intent is evident, but the execution falls flat, flat, flat. (How's that for a "metaphor"? =/)

  Interestingly enough, I did very much like this writer's article on Jennifer Lopez and the double standard. Rather less fluffy. It was all in the tone.

  (And for the record, Gah54, I thought the whole positioning of Sarah Palin as the "sex kitten candidate" was gross and disrespectful too. And her own party did that to her -- I guess I should be less surprised when Michelle Obama's own side does the same.)

  Janis Grant, I very much appreciate your FDR reference. There are a myriad things that are better about living nowadays than in the 30s, but media salaciousness is not one of them.

  —galleymac Read galleymac's other letters
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