From "Michelle Obama on the Restrictive Beauty Standards of Being First Lady/In a new book, Mrs. Obama unpacks the complexities of dressing and hairstyling during her eight years at the height of American politics" (NYT).
But Michelle Obama had tremendous support in the press, including support for whatever she chose to do with her hair, makeup, or clothing. She could have led the way in any direction. If she wanted to popularize natural hairstyles, she should have done it. She could do it now, but she interviews with the Times with her hair "pressed... draping over her shoulders... and styled in loose curls." She was "pulled in two directions: toward 'respectability' or toward authenticity"? Who is pulling her? She is monumentally empowered.
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118 comments:
Whatever her and her husband have, it's not enough -- money, fame, influence, respect. Grifters continue to grift long after it's necessary.
Do either of the Obsmas ever stop whining??? They are practically walking, talking tear ducts.
She’s clearly the victim in this imaginary scenario.
Whatever happened to Black Pride? Remember "Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud"? Maybe it's that Pride got co-opted by you-know-who. Now it's Poor Black Me, I'm So Lowly and Oppressed.
It's hair speech.
Another book grift. The Obama's certainly did all they could and still do - to enrich themselves. Homes in Hawaii, Martha's Vineyard, walled compound in DC... (more?) It's good to be king.
"Whatever happened to Black Pride?"
Makes it harder to pretend you're a victim.
"..choice was left to her hair and beauty team.."
this is the case, for ALL Black Women.. Isn't It?
Don't ALL Black Women have a 'hair and beauty team' ???
serious (non snarky) question:
HOW MANY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS do the O'Bama's have now?
Michelle Obama is one of the most coddled people in history.
No matter how good she has it or how much is given to some people the will bitch about it.
She is a terrible ungrateful talentless loser.
Michelle
Oh, well
Someday someone will begin to care
About your hair
"She said that choice was left to her hair and beauty team"
Finally, me and Michelle have something in common.
I know from experience, that you have to ride herd on your "Hair and beauty team" sometimes. They've let me down in the past. Damn their eyes.
Who is pulling her? She is monumentally empowered.
This is the paradox of highly successful "victims". You can't drop the victim act because you don't have anything else to offer, but you are obviously the opposite of a victim.
BTW, the Obamas have a net worth of about a quarter of a billion dollars.
I don't really mind Michelle, She's OK. But c'mon man. She was the most protected First lady in history. No one could breathe a word of criticism in public without being called a racist woman hater.
Compare that to Melanie, who faced constant criticism most of it sexist and untrue from Day 1. Or the shots taken at First Lady Hillary. Hell, they even went after Laura Bush. And lets not talk about Nancy reagan or Pat Nixon.
Ten years ago, hubby and I took a National Review cruise (retirement celebration). David French was our table host one night and he told the story of the daughter they adopted from Africa. Daughter wanted to wear her hair natural and fought against any attempt to control it. One day, at the grocery store, a black cashier loudly criticized the wife for not braiding the girls hair. And that's how they learned that - at least in that state (one of the Carolina's??), taking the time to braid a black daughter's hair was a symbol of pride/accomplishment/devotion. So, Mrs. French learned - but that didn't mean the daughter was happy about it.
So, I say to Mrs. Obama - watcha talkin' about?
Now do Melania. Oh...... that's right. Women don't want actual beauty tips, they want to see homely, rich, entitled, complaining women made less homely. This is what they hunger for. Of course they do.
Michelle's as popular as her school lunches, and just as appealing.
Lets face it every powerful black person poses as a victim of racism. Just like every powerful Jew, when attacked, claims its all about anti-semitism. Once you get protected group status people are going to use it.
"'What I understood was that at some point I wanted to show up publicly with my hair fully as it comes out of my head,' she said."
Does she say the same thing about showing up publicly with no makeup on? Wouldn't she feel more "authentic" that way?
Michelle should've worn an Afro with pride. No one would've criticized.
"She is monumentally empowered."
Show me where they hurt you. Use the straw-woman with braids.
All she does is complain. Her mom passed away last year. I wonder if her mom restrained Michelle's grievances and resentment, or if Michelle got her complaining nature from her mother, or if there was no connection.
Michelle complains that she wasn't praised for wearing a sleeveless dress as Jackie Kennedy was, but women's magazines fell all over themselves praising Michelle's beautiful arms. Nobody else objected or cared or noticed. I suppose it was the same way with Jackie.
Michelle should've worn an Afro with pride. No one would've criticized.
The press would have made up people criticizing her to support the narrative of racist hillbillies locking Barack’s signature legislative achievement.
Weak sauce.
If Big Mike's hair comes out in braids, all by itself, that is some seriously wierd hair.
John Henry
Poor Michelle. She has everything in the world except the ability to pick her hairstyle.
"BTW, the Obamas have a net worth of about a quarter of a billion dollars."
And we all know they didn't come by that honestly. The Inags are completely uninterested in the chicanery and corruption behind that vast wealth, and at the same time they are completely hostile to Trump's fortune which was built decades before he entered politics.
These poor, put-upon, given-less-leeway-Hampton-home-owing negroes were the same people who commissioned a credibly accused homosexual groper to paint the most ghastly unorthodox official White House portrait in history.
I'm am so ever-loving-tired of these race-baiting bullshitters. The magically-black-wonder-couple can go fuck themselves.
In the second term, there would've been nobody saying "you can't".
Diversity blocs and prejudice.
shaved head was also option unless it is Sinead appropriation?
Well, to be fair, many of us do want to see how homely women can look less homely - or to put it in positive terms, can maximize their natural assets. Is this wrong? It seems to me to be evolutionarily sound, since our looks are our first (and sometimes primary) currency, even if in these modern times we may be appreciated - and even find mates - because of our other assets. (I have a friend, for instance, who is one of the least physically attractive women I've ever known - but she is absolutely fascinating. Talk with her for 5 minutes at a party and you want to stay next to her for the whole night. She's long married to a man of above average looks, with two great kids.)
As for Michelle Obama's hair - I very much wish that while she was first lady she would have come out even once in a natural style. She talked such a good game about the responsibility of being a role model for young black girls and women - she could have extended her influence to those who wanted a natural look. Such a lot of the "pressure" women say we're under to appear a certain way in public is self-enforced.
But Kamala Harris also seemed to struggle with self-confidence (not just about appearance), and Lord knows I and many of my female peers have. We don't all show it in the same way - or at all, if we can help it - in professional settings, but self-confidence is a big ask for many of us. And I have to think it is for men too - so, guys, how do you cope with self-doubt, imposter syndrome, the dreaded inferiority complex, and suchlike? What kind of pep talk do you give yourself, and is it convincing, or do you just go out into the world anyway, putting on the best act you can, because what's the alternative?
Michelle Obama is a privileged, ungrateful, affirmative action woman who is preoccupied with her race. She and her husband have left a legacy of racial disharmony and approval of the black criminal culture and not much else. Who cares about her hair?
Regarding black women, money, and hair: The first black millionaire in the USA was "Madam C.J. Walker" -- she sold haircare and beauty products designed for black women and stuff to un-natural their hair. Flatten, straighten, soften, process, and transform. Also see the documentary film "Good Hair" (2009) with Chris Rock.
Hair anxiety and transformations are a deep, deep, deep tradition with black women.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madam_C._J._Walker
Self-confidence develops with productivity that tests your mettle. That said, life is an exercise in risk management.
Gee, I wish I was a multi-millionaire member of an established victim group so I could publicly whine about how terrible I have it and why it is everyone else's fault.
She should take her ill-gotten money and just go away. Go enjoy life. Stop looking for validation from others.
Hey, Trump feels compelled to put his hair through all sorts of unnatural contortions. And JD only felt free to wear his culturally authentic redneck mullet for Halloween! So I'm picking up what Mrs Obama is putting down. CC, JSM
Can this woman just please go away?
Once you get protected group status people are going to use it.
You hear that, John Roberts?
Reagan felt like he needed to dye and spray his hair into a Lego headpiece - it was even a separate character in Zippy! So there are pressures on people who live in the WH. CC, JSM
Michelle's wigs are awesome- I support her wearing of them.
"Reagan felt like he needed to dye and spray his hair into a Lego headpiece"
LOL!!
Yes - I wish I could have black hair for a week, or a month, so I could have a better understanding of the unspoken or enigmatically spoken social requirements. My husband once heard a pitch from an investment house that focused on black-founded and -owned businesses, in which they highlighted* a black woman who had been very successful as an investment banker in NYC and left her position to start a wig company for high-level professional black women - something white women would never wear (or admit that they wear) today, barring cancer treatment or something like that. I had never even thought about wigs past childhood, when my mom owned two that she occasionally wore to parties and such - and they disappeared from her closet in about 1974.
* This woman found her financing through "traditional" means, not this investment house, because as a successful investment banker, she had plenty of contacts and a strong reputation. My husband mildly pointed this out to the investment house; they were like, "But we would have invested in her." I should see how they're doing these days.
Now, I don't blame her for accepting the services of a hair team. I'm amused to think of living that way. Someone is helping you with your expensive clothes, doing makeup looks that other women can only dream of, and whipping your hair into a fantasy. I've never had that done even once in my life, and I used to appear before a crowd that had to look at me. It would be cool to have 2 or 3 personal servants to create a unique and striking visual festival out of my humble person. But I'm equally content to spend less than 5 minutes getting ready in the morning — hair, makeup, clothing, everything. It does leave me with a lot more time. But maybe my 3 servants could be jesters, making me laugh while they work, or Socratic philosophers elevating my mind as they tease my hair into the tallest beehive. Then go ahead and take an hour. I'd sit for that. Not for 2 hours though.
@Jamie on black wigs: There's a beauty industry subculture that involves selling Indonesian female long hair to blacks for wigs. The Indonesian women grow hair straight, black, and long -- and are poor enough that it makes economic sense to maintain it for a couple years for the money.
Also look up "hair locs" for the wig-like fashions derived from dreadlocks.
[I know this stuff because I worked with black female colleagues for a while.]
Seems like she should be mad at her husband not the country. We didn't require her to wear her hair any way at all. It was either her husband (the politico) or the democrat party. They can wrestle with their own racism on how black women are supposed to wear their hair. I don't GAF. Perpetually aggrieved, perpetually whining.
Michelle Obama as a teenager was a frequent visitor to the Jesse Jackson household, so learned from the most prominent race-grifter of our times - Jesse Jackeson, his family's wealth accumulated through grift and extortion. Ms. Obama is a champion whiner, and a DEI crown princess, from her HS attendance at selective-enrollment Whitney Young public high school her in Chicago, to Yale, to Harvard, to white-shoe law firm in Chicago again, to her no-show job in Daley's mayoral administration as a Valerie Jarrett flunkie, one golden ride, millions of dollars later in celebrity endorsements and vanity press ghostwritten books, she still whines at us with regularity. History will not treat either Obama well. Champion grifters, both of them.
When I started working in offices, I cut my long hair in a short, professional style and removed the earring. Got conservative office attire, too. In short, I was there to get the job done and not so that people would look at ME or what I thought was stylish.
Remember during the goverment shut down caused by her husband during the Great Recession (caused by her husband's party) when she was donning her $15k dress over in Spain on holiday?
Pepperidge Farms remembers...
Remember when the left-wing media fawned over her playing Barbie then, while the average tax payer had to pay more in premiums while Tim Geithner got to cheat on his taxes?
Pepperidge Farms remembers...
Who is pulling her?
She's pulling herself. Look, my grandfather was a farmer back in Appalachia. From what I can tell he spent about 95% of his life wearing bib overalls and my father did the same thing up until WWII when he traded them for a set of Navy blues. If I wanted to be "authentic" to them I'd wear bib overalls all the time. It would have its advantages; I'd never have to worry about my pants falling down and there's plenty of pockets. But even though that would make me 'authentic' it wouldn't do me any good to wear them on an IT job interview. Life is like that. Sometimes it's to your benefit to follow the old "When in Rome..." advice, other times you can be yourself. Michelle O just needs to grow up and shut the fuck up in that order. Whining doesn't make anyone look good.
Democrats care more about the welfare of ILLEGALS, than poor black families.
Grok, LOL
The First Lady’s Burden
(After Kipling, with measured irony)Take up the First Lady’s burden—
The crown of coiffed restraint—
Go bind your curls to duty,
Lest critics feint and faint;
To smooth each rebel tendril
Beneath the public gaze,
Your new-caught, anxious tresses
Must bow to paler ways. Take up the First Lady’s burden—
The press will praise or flay;
The gloss of straight obedience
Must sheen the White House day.
No kinks may knot the narrative,
No frizz disrupt the frame—
For empire’s eye demands the calm
Of one unthreat’ning mane. Take up the First Lady’s burden—
And smile through every coil;
The stylists’ heated irons
Exact their silent toil.
Your roots, though proud and storied,
Must vanish ‘neath the sleight;
The burden falls on you alone
To keep the kingdom white. Take up the First Lady’s burden—
The years will not repay;
The mirrors of the Residence
Reflect but one ballet.
When history’s gaze has softened,
And coils may freely rise,
Recall the weight of straightened grace
That veiled your true disguise
I thought this was settled in the 70s with the Afro.
would hijab or burkha solve such conundrums
https://www.reddit.com/r/Hijabis/comments/ufga0c/black_hijabis_type_4_hair_coarse_textured_hair/?rdt=63572
If she had worn a Soul Pic Afro Comb in the White House, that might have demonstrated An iota of backbone.
This is just whining. And, still lying. Still falsely accusing. Over her invisible chains. Nasty ingrate.
Dave Begley said: “ Can this woman just please go away?”
I agree completely. The woman begs for attention and whines about getting it. Why can’t the former President and his shrill and repetitive spouse disappear?
Michelle is such a poor victim. Won't you buy her book?
Isnt she on minute 15:45
"maybe my 3 servants could be jesters, making me laugh while they work, or Socratic philosophers elevating my mind as they tease my hair into the tallest beehive."
I thought this is why you have commenters. Meade was supposed to be the one in charge of the beehive teasing.
Barry Blitt's fist-pump cartoon of Barack as a jihadi and Michelle with an Angela Davis afro assured that Michelle wouldn't have an afro in the White House. That cartoon gave me some hope for the New Yorker, but everything Blitt's done since then has been predictably anti-Trump.
These people never fail to make me want to throw up. Privileged. Narcissistic. Entitled. Go away, assholes.
It must be so disheartening to be pampered for one’s entire adult life.
She’s a whiner amidst all dat gov’mint cheese…
Michelle Obama complains: “We didn't get the grace that I think some other (first) families have gotten."
https://x.com/WesternLensman/status/1984348309150941670
’But maybe my 3 servants could be jesters, making me laugh while they work, or Socratic philosophers elevating my mind as they tease my hair into the tallest beehive.
As I know you’ll blog about it, count me in as your first GoFundMe contributor.
I feel terrible about what I did to Michelle. I apologize, not only for myself, but for all people so heartless and insensitive as to not apologize.
"Michelle Obama complains: 'We didn't get the grace that I think some other (first) families have gotten.'"
The never-ending and innate gracelessness of the American black female and her offspring is this country's single greatest regret. One they'll ensure is continuous (h/t JEB).
What’s most amusing about all this is that the other black woman who’s been most in the news lately, Karine Jean-Pierre, (1) is widely despised, (2) has (had?) a distinctively and blatantly black hair style, but (3) absolutely no one is criticizing it. In fact, KJP’s spectacular mop is the only thing I ever liked about her. Absolutely no one would have had any objection if Michelle had worn her hair that way, or in some other typically black style, e.g. cornrows.
Frankly they were not sufficiently held in contempt
The Bitter Beard complains about her hair instead of about her husband.
This is projection. I’ve had a couple of conversations with black women friends. They admit they’re generally critical of other black women’s hair. The pressure Michelle faces isn’t from white America…it’s from black women. And, I agree. I’ve never seen someone who has received so much adoration whine as much as she does.
Hair anxiety and transformations are a deep, deep, deep tradition with black women.
From my own experiences with Black women, this is quite true. Michelle is only voicing a fairly normal complaint that middle class (and above) Black women have.
It is interesting that Michelle forgets (or never understood) the 60's empowerment of natural hair styles and the attempt to abandon "White standards" of female beauty.
"What I understood..." "Our full selves..."
On a different butt I think maybe in some way related subject, how do humanities- educated women so fully integrate this speaking style into their normal speech?
For the last 5 years of his career, my husband worked for a foundation. It was significantly majority female, and the conferences he would attend as a representative of the foundation were also significantly majority female. The seminars and sessions at these conferences were filled with this kind of speech. These women could talk for an hour at a time, saying nothing worth listening to.
"In fact, KJP’s spectacular mop is the only thing I ever liked about her."
I also liked her white eye shadow. Not a joke. I thought it looked good on her.
Always a victim. Poor Big Mike.
" The first black millionaire in the USA was "Madam C.J. Walker" -- she sold haircare and beauty products designed for black women and stuff to un-natural their hair. Flatten, straighten, soften, process, and transform."
This is the fundamental operating principle of the entire beauty industry. When my son got married, my daughter-in-law paid for hair dressers to pretty up our hair. My daughter and I were the only non-Asian women. The stylists curled all the Asian women's naturally straight hair and straightened my daughter's and mine.
Althouse was enamored by a picture of the Obamas and their daughters and became emotionally attached to that image as the reality they would bring to the White House. In the end, they were the most entitled, bitter divisive couple ever to hold power in this Country.
When you are used to sycophancy, mere fawning is seen as oppression.
“"'What I understood was that at some point I wanted to show up publicly with my hair fully as it comes out of my head,' she said. For her, that meant braids.”
Her hair comes out of her head in braids? Wow. Just goes to show, even the most boring mutt might have something interesting about her.
Not a single comment about ‘Soul Glo’? Sheesh…
Back in the day I had fabulous hair and my hair stylist and I had great fun playing with it. During the Flashdance era we did a super curly look (think Donna Summer) and I really did have an afro pick to keep it looking good. I suddenly noticed a lot more attention from the men of color in my company. Anyway, after a while I moved on to a different look, as I always did. I suspect women of color have fewer options. Not every woman wants the same hair every day.
Several things can be true at the same time.
1. The victim channeling gets old pretty fast and maybe is reflected in the poor performance of The Look (#9 on Amazon’s best seller list.)
2. Straighteners really are a problem for black woman. In the NYT (6/13/24): “the Sister Study, which was led by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and followed a cohort of nearly 34,000 women, found that those who frequently used chemical hair-straightening products, a majority of whom were Black women, were two and a half times as likely to develop uterine cancer as those who did not use the products.”
3. Both women and men (of all colors and ages) feel pressure to color their hair, banish the gray. Of all of life’s pressures this is a relatively minor one. But it is there.
I have black female hair fatigue.
I have never seen a baby born with braids in their hair. Im sure she is written up in a medical journal or beauty magazine.
I always thought that George and Louise Jefferson were the model black couple. Michelle could learn a lot from Louise. Primarily because Louise had to be attractive to a broad audience.
Monumentally empowered--also monumentally clueless--that's true of Barack as well as Michelle.
How can we miss you
If you won't go away?
Mooch should go the route of Alopecia Pressley, and lay some lemon Pledge on that wooden knob while she’s at it.
"I'd sit for that. Not for 2 hours though."
I've occasionally wondered about Althouse's fantasy life. No more. Now we know.
Meade, you paying attention?
Some women are just born beautiful. Althouse is one of them. They can get away with no or minimal attention to appearance and still look stunning. My daughter is one of these (doesn't look like Althouse, think more the gamine form of Audrey Hepburn). She gets a regular haircut to keep the gamine look - I was sad when she cut her long hair, but I've come around. Never used makeup ( that I know of). Certainly not mascara or lipstick.
Thankfully she got into tech and is doing extremely well.
Bitch, bitch, bitch.... AND she complains a lot.
Ann: Could you please deplatform RCOCEAN? Yes, he has the right to hate Jews. But his evocation of that privilege has made your blog unenjoyable for me. For instance, here I wanted to see what your readers would say about Michelle. I did not want to read how she is like "every powerful Jew." Are none of your other readers bothered by these constant attacks on a minority group? Do you feel at all guilty about mainstreaming this hate?
Michelle’s recent comments make me think she is disappointed or even angry that she is a black women. She complains incessantly about the trials and tribulations it brings her. If she were comfortable in her own skin, none of those things would be on her mind.
If she were a touch more grateful for the privilege granted to her but she still has a yuge chip on her shoulder
"...she is disappointed or even angry that she is a black women."
Oh, if you only knew...
KJP looked a lot better with the old hair style. Now she straightens her hair and it makes her face look chubby.
Ilhan Omar has silky black hair which she rigorously keeps concealed though, apparently, other black women are striving for the look she naturally has. I wonder why she hides her hair.
"Ilhan Omar has silky black hair which she rigorously keeps concealed though"
Muslim thing.
Her hair is a racial-genetic characteristic. East Africans are very different from the American "black" norm, which is West African.
Victimization is an addiction. This woman, as evinced in her Princeton senior thesis, has never not seen the world through the eyes of a victim. The things she has to invent about reality in order to keep up the routine would be funny if they weren't so appalling.
"Ann: Could you please deplatform RCOCEAN? Yes, he has the right to hate Jews. But his evocation of that privilege has made your blog unenjoyable for me. "
John Podhoretz is that you?
Well hes also ignorant of much of history and economics
It took me years of research and study, but I found the way to enjoy the Althouse blog despite the comments of people I dislike or find dull.
I will pass it on for free. Whenever you see a comment by someone you don't like - skip it. Dont read it.
Problem solved!
Thank You.
"Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me"
If the woman was white, she'd have nothing to talk about.
How many magazine covers was she on?
Always amazed at the Michelle hate. Compared to Hillary, Dr. Jill Biden MD, and "Barb" - she's not that bad.
She hates america more than those three combined 'the first time i was proud of my country'
@RCOCEAN, I don’t hate the woman; I hate the neverending whining.
She most assuredly hates any 'bitter clinget'
Black Christians are being slaughtered by the 1000's in Africa by Muslims and not one peep out the 2 most entitled grifters in US History.
Buwaya,
I don't even like to apply the term East African to Somalis.
Somalis, Ethiopians, Eritreans look quite different from Ugandans, South Sudanese, and Kenyans and Tanzanians except for the very coastal folks with a lot of Arab DNA mixed in.
RC,
I am obviously more dense than usual today, but who is "Barb"?
She gains her biggest strength by continuing to leverage victimhood
Barb = Barbara Bush
Or course! Duh. (I said I was feeling extra dense today...)
Mrs Obama was a corporate lawyer? Really? Is she referring to that Big $$$ Payola gig in Chicago. The IMPORTANT job that did not exist before she had it and was never filled when she moved on? Was she even a member of the bar? Did she even take the exxam?
Is there anything about which Michelle Obama will not complain and claim grievance?
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