Argh!

What a bad article.

Joan Walsh and Erin Aubry Kaplan's bottoms need spanking.

I'm so tired of hearing people call women "females". You know what we call females? Female animals. In psychology, in biology, if you're calling something a female you're either making clear it isn't human or you're dehumanizing it with clinical-speak or because you're afraid of offending the GLBT crowd by reducing womanhood to biological fact.

It's just a little gripe, but whenever I hear someone refer to me or someone else as a "female" as if this is a term of respect I get mildly offended. It makes me feel like I'm in a box of hamsters or a zoo (we keep the females over here.....).

And I thought Salon couldn't sink lower than Kansas O'Flaherty.

No, I am not complaining about the subject matter - repellent though it was. I am complaining about the writing.

So anxious and indignant were we about Michelle getting attacked for saying anything about America that conservatives could turn into mud, we hardly looked south of her neck.

Do you people have fact-checkers? Shouldn't you get some - NOW?

How many gluteally endowed nonblack women have been derided for having a black ass? Well, Hillary, for one.

Don't you people have copy editors? Who allowed that sentence to pollute my computer monitor?

How sad that, in order for a black family to prevail -- because Michelle and the girls were all running for office, not just Barack -- they had to sublimate their blackness like crazy, starting with the visuals.

Yup - that's why they did it. I didn't even notice they were black and scary until you pointed it out.

the closest it gets is "hips," but even white women know that's not equivalent

Sounds out-and-out racist to me.

Oh well. It's good to know that rappers are discussing women's asses and that Salon can convert it into long articles.

I am appalled! Michelle Obama is gorgeous -- can't you just leave it at that? Say, "It's so affirming to have the image of a beautiful Af. American woman in the White House." ????

Would Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, any other First Lady be subject to an entire essay on their backside? (Or other physical attribute?).

Boo, hiss, Salon.

If we have new leaders, and they represent a fundamental sign of progress in the nation's social history, it's not really appropriate to suddenly be singing praises to someone's butt, is it? Actually, the word is "tacky." And the comment that white men are so attracted to female black butt is wishful thinking; historically, it was all about power.

I doubt that Mrs. Obama will print it and post it on the refrigerator, but precisely because she is such an accomplished person in all ways, this article should round out her resume.

that mean-eyed woman from the mean country of USA aka land of opportunity chooses lobster and caviar at the Waldorf. So I guess we'll never be happy with grits and gravy agin!

you guys can do better than this. more so, this is inappropriate.

the San people of the Kalahari Desert who accumulate large amounts of fat in the buttocks which is stored in the body for energy in times of hunger. The backside has been a fat-store for women in particular for thousands of years, especially important in areas of drought and crop failure. Ms.Kaplan has not succeeded in what she set out to do because in this silly article all she has done is reinforce a stereotype and attempt to turn the future First Lady of the USA into an erotic symbol just because she needs to feel good about herself.

Barack Obama's mother was an anthropologist and I can't help feeling that if Erin Aubry Kaplin knew even the most basic thing about body-shape and evolution she might have had the good sense to concentrate on something more germane than this butt-end of subjects. A butt is also a barrel, of course, but she's definitely scraping the barrel.

Wow, what a completely tasteless and inappropriate article.

Comenting on this might give it credence but it just seems really, really, lame to make such comments about the in-coming first ladys physical appearance in anyway let alone the subject of this post.

It seems to me what sd. be pointed out is her intellect, education, law degree, and her role as a strong model for mothers, parents, and so forth.

If this country and its people are to move beyond geneder, class, race, sexual orientation, it might be a good place to start commenting on such non-sense as the future first ladies physical.

I hope THAT was written tongue in cheek!!!

Really.

So this is the direction that you want to go in, an upscale version of People Magazine?

Well, I've watched Time turn into tripe. Now we have to watch online magazines go down the drain too. How scatological. Sexist too. It's like Arnold talking about Obama's skinny legs.

Who gives a crap about this kind of stuff. Booo.

Every single one of my college communications professors would be petitioning for the revocation of my diploma if I wrote an article such as this one, Ms. Kaplan. This does nothing but vulgarize the conversation and it serves as a distraction from Mrs. Obama's role in the White House. Am I to understand that the great achievement I have been hearing so much about boils down to good looks?

isn't there some white woman, name of Kardashian I think, famous for one thing and one thing only, and that's her protuberant backside. P.S. - That url for the author brought up a bunch of pix, but none of her rear-end. I want my money back.

I have loved Erin Aubry Kaplan's writing since before I joined Salon, and I'm proud of this piece. If having a black president and first lady is going to narrow what we talk about, wow, that would be sad. But I promise it won't -- at least not on Salon.

-- Joan Walsh, the editor of Salon.

If anyone was actually talking about this, then you MIGHT have a point.

The people I have run into want to know if BO is circumcised or not. I mean, as long as we are covering and celebrating demeaning old plantation stereotypes, then I want my circumcision and cock-size article, too. People are talking about it, you know.

The point of being an editor is, in fact, to narrow what we talk about. You failed miserably.

When and if you meet Michele Obama, I hope you hand her a copy of this racist "pride" prose and ask her opinion about being a body image for weird young black girl writers.

If you are so damned proud of this prose poop, then send a copy to Ms. Obama. And to her daughters. I'd be curious to hear what they think. Maybe you can send the author to interview them.