13 posts tagged “obama”

this is a must read post on Racialicious by Tami on what the media is doing when it comes to mediating the life of Michelle Obama.

Between “Mammy” and “Miss Ann”: The “problem” with Michelle

"Privilege hates to lose it’s place. Privilege believes that it deserves to be exulted above others. Indeed, it resents when the “other” is elevated to equal status, particularly when the “other” refuses to conform to the rules that privilege has put in place. So, the criticism of Michelle Obama’s physicality and sartorial choices comes as no surprise.

Most mainstream media are on board the FLOTUS love train. They call the First Lady beautiful. They love her unique style. They cherish those awesome, toned arms. They love her modern marriage. They celebrate her role as a mother. All of this talk about appearance and being a wife and mother–stereotypical feminine ideals–is driving some white feminists to distraction. They think this focus diminishes Michelle Obama’s considerable intellect and professional achievements. Most black women I know see things differently. The so-called feminine ideal is a tyranny to all women, but it is white women who stand as its embodiment. In the public consciousness, black women are almost never the most beautiful ones or the good wives or mothers. White women see Michelle Obama getting pushed into a feminized role and lament that this always happens to women. Many black woman recognize that it rarely happens to us and we are happy that people are finally recognizing our femininity.

The criticism that Michelle Obama has received, among the accolades, is instructive about the way black women are often viewed by the American public. Yesterday’s New York Times “Opinionator” column rounds up Web analysis of reactions to Michelle Obama’s style and appearance, particularly on the first couple’s recent European trip.

Reading about Juan Williams’ “Stokely Carmichael in a dress” comment, hearing the constant pondering of the first lady’s large buttocks and strong arms, and witnessing ongoing attempts to portray her as domineering, a narrative emerges that is not unfamiliar: Black woman are big, aggressive–not feminine, but masculine. Perhaps the only stereotype missing is the hypersexual tag that we often get saddled with–hypersexuality that is the opposite of the virginal feminine ideal.

Some folks clearly resent the presence of a black woman in an iconic position of American womanhood–one that is not meant for us.

Take the nitpicking about the First Lady’s clothing. Fashion press, as well as designers Donna Karan and Oscar de la Renta have sniffed at Obama’s choices of niche designers and off-the-rack clothes. Karan reckons Obama is going through a phase: “I hope and believe this is just a moment.” While de la Renta questioned the wisdom of wearing a sweater to Buckingham Palace. And, of course, there is the constant sniping about the First Lady’s shockingly uncovered biceps. "

update - I found two really smart posts about this media debate over Michelle's femininity - one post here and another here - both are by Cocoa Fly. Here are some pieces of writing I liked from Cocoa Fly's Back Up Off the First Lady:

"And finally, Michelle Obama is NOT Jackie O. I'm tired of folks saying, "Jackie Kennedy wouldn't do this. Jackie Kennedy wouldn't wear that," when Mrs. Obama does something people don't like. Michelle Obama is making her own legacy and Jackie Kennedy is not the current First Lady. Last time I checked my calendar it read 2009, not 1962."

"People have talked about Lady O's looks, called her "angry," "militant" and "unpatriotic." She was even called "trash" and "bitch" by pundits. I was so frustrated when I heard the "trash" and "bitch" reference. It makes me angry because there are racist undertones to some of these comments. Would they call her these things if she weren't black? I've never seen a First Lady so criticized, attacked and disrespected. I didn't agree with the way Pres. G.W. Bush ran the country but I never thought to call Laura Bush vulgar names or Hillary Clinton, Barbara Bush, Nancy Regan, etc. SOME people can't handle seeing an intelligent black woman who is poised and living a luxurious lifestyle."

just found out 2months later from kenyatta cheese that this is the best recap of the obama inauguration experience as told by Baratunde through his twitter and flickr stream. Baratunde is funny. I like him.

kenyatta and I have a copy of the Iraq War Ends, a very believable stunt pulled off the YEs Men - of course anything and everything genius comes out of NYC!  SInce the prices just keep going up and up - I think it's time to frame this copy - def not selling it!  Here is a link to the articles in the fake paper.

this new is so big that even Chinese papers are reporting it!   OBAMA SUPPORT OUR TROOPS AND GET THEM OUT!
tengo una copia de la noticia de NYTIMES -El Fin de la Guerra en Iraq- gente  esta vendiendolo para $100 y mas en ebay! que lastima no es la verdad -
la frente dice “todas las noticias que merecen ser impresas”  
Ojala que Obama sea patriótico y traiga nuestros tropas a casa!

when you see a ridiculously silly video do you ever think, hmm I wonder what  so and so would think about this video?   Like will "so and so"  think it's just as funny as I think it is?   Well I do!   And then  sometimes I wonder, hmmm, I wonder what would happen if we replaced the heads of the people in the video with wolf heads, or bear heads.  Do you do that?  Well I do!

Something clicked  when i saw this video of dancing poodles working out.    I've been a proud American for almost 24 hours now since Obama won last night .  So that means my confidence and happy levels are pretty high - which also means that I embrace my altar ego wolf personality to the most extreme ways  - - like constantly referring to people as animals and etc.   So when I saw this video all I could think was "WOW this is so genius!  putting poodle heads on people and giving a cultural critique of workout videos that encourage anorexia?  How ironic - how retarded - how brilliant - how silly - how fabulous and how many times will it take for me to get bored of watching this? 

Then the light of all lightness of all brilliance TA-DAHHHHH high pitch angles in the sky of triple cosmic illuminations shined it's light on my god-fearing soul of the virgin of gaudalupe's immaculate conception from ganesha's trunk to buddha's ear-lobes  -  I thought out loud, "WHAT WOULD OBAMA THINK OF DANCING POODLES?   WOULD HE LAUGH?  DOES A PRESIDENT LAUGH AT DANCING POODLES?  WOULD HE THINK THIS IS A SMART CULTURAL CRITIQUE?  WOULD HE WATCH TILL THE END?"

Tricia why are you sharing this with us and why is this so important that you are twittering, facebooking, double emailing and blogging about this?  

because colleagues, animals and friends - this is monumental - a rare moment indeed   - Once you start wondering what would "so and so" do, is the precise moment you begin to idolize, mythologize, and celebratize a human being - that is the moment the person become magical.  

This moment of watching the poodle workout video was a special recuerdo for Obama and I.   This was the moment I began mythologizing Obama.  All the posters, artwork, t-shirts, rallies - all of those have been building up to this moment where I could I ask "WHAT WOULD OBAMA THINK OF DANCING WORKOUT POODLES?"

NEVER before have I ever wondered what would THIS PRESIDENT think of this?  I usually think ok I know what president blah thinks - he's got X cabinet member and Y advisor - he's being puppeted by X and Y by  or he's using X and Y as puppets to speak for him - blah blah --

To all those critics who say that by mythologizing Obama I set him up for failure and if he falls well there goes our hopes for democracy to work for all.  OK  democrazy is a mythology folks - it is something you believe in - it is a thing we make real through myths about town-hall meetings among equals when really it has been a discriminatory process from the very beginning.   I propose that we frame the discussion around 2 things here - mythologies of democrazy and indices of democracy.  

SInce the beginning,  democrazy has just been another political classification mechanism to determine who is in and who is out (damn heidi klum always knows what's up) of the community, city or nation-state.   For a long time, non-property owners and women, and even longer, blacks, were not considered citizens and therefore could not enjoy the full rights of a democratic system.  One was democracy works, is that it serves as a sorting system to determine who is given rights to the system - which leads to my second point on how sorting systems are determined.    

Democracy as a boundary drawer is not a failure because it is a discrminatory sorting system.  What makes the sorting system function are the indices that are used to determine who is in and who is out.  The index for inclusion is what is important to look at - and in western society, laws usually have the final word in how the index functions.   

What I love about Obama, beyond that he's "real" or he's "down,"  is that he gives us a whole new index in which to consider who is in and who is out.  therefore democracy itself can be reinvented, re-owned, and re-claimed by people who have never felt that  they had a claim or even a claim large enough to give a voice loud enough.   Simply look at how many people voted!

For me, the notion of Obama thinking about poodle workouts is symbolic of a new era of politics that I get to witness in my lifetime.  Obama gives us a whole new paradigm in which we can think about how an institution like democrazy has changed throughout the years.  Like any institutions, it has the power just by sheer tradition , memory and practice, to define who participate in the institutions and believed who is out.  But like all institutions, they can be taken over, reshaped and  shaken up.  

For me, mythologizing Obama is about re-believing that democracy can be reinvented through practice.   For this round of reinvention, the scale was created by 63 + million voters in the US who believed in Obama.

For me, the role of the president in a nation-state as large as the US is an important symbolic role and if a president can be a strong symbol, then s/he plays an actually transformative role. 

For me, mythologizing Obama is humanizing Obama.  My fingers shake with joy as I push play again on this youtube video, and I invite you to also join me in this moment by pushing "play."  

thanks Adriene 4 sending it to me at such an opportune moment!

REJOINDER TO DON'T Mythologize OBAMA NAYSAYERS:
And here again come the naysayers who claim that by putting Obama on a pedestal, that in effect I make it hard for people to see Obama as a human being----  First, people aren't retarded.  Obama was born in an earthly way just like you and I.   Secondly, once people believe in a person and that person ends up making a mistake, if that is person is worth it, people find a way to accept and rationalize it.

It's  totally ridiculous to say that once Obama  makes a mistake, people will stop believing in him.  No, that's not how we are religiously or spiritually.   There are many times when some Feeling, Spirit, Ancestor, God, Buddha, Jesus, Ganesha or Mary - or whoever, is not there for us - that a wish of ours didn't come true or life is falling apart even when we are praying our hardest- but we don't stop believing in our deity - if we find them to be worth it -  we find ways to rationalize why they couldn't come through in the way we had hoped.  We develop beliefs about after/before earth life to rationalize how our society or our gods fail us.  We will do the same for Obama when he makes a mistake - and he will - cuz everyone does.

I mean look, Shiva didn't become less popular because he accidentally ripped off Ganesha's head out of anger (or shani lasered his head off with his eyes), Zeus was still the god of the pantheon after he tried to hang his wife Hera for drowning their son Hercules, God wasn't demonized after he turned Lot's wife into salt before even giving her a chance to even ask for forgiveness,  and we don't love Buddha any less knowing that he had a princely life as a spoiled brat with consorts galore.  Around the world, religions and their adherents have long rationalized and forgiven gods/heroes - that is if they are worth it  - and continue to believe in them.  So if we find obama to be worth it, then people will not stop believing in Obama,  So for now, I'm still going to ask , what would Obama think of dancing workout poodles? 

I believe that Obama would have found this poodle video workout funny  - he would sit there - say - huhhhh, well,  the white side of me finds this funny and say I need to buy a poodle, the black side of me says - what are those crazy asians doing.  What do you think Obama would say?

The media is not helping obama by referring to him as the "First Black President."  Even John Stewart referred to him as America's First Black President and I rely on him for the real news.  The media is also not helping Obama if they ONLY show working-class blacks as identifying with Obama - because guess what - OBAMA ISn't ONLY BLACK and It WASN't JUST BLACKS WHO VOTED OBAMA INTO OFFICE!

What about all the working class white people who voted for Obama?  And what about middle-upper class whites?  And all the Latinos who voted Obama? The Asians - well the asians we are totally absent from the story.  What about all the other minorities who together formed a large bloc of voters?

My point is that the media needs to give a more balanced coverage of voters who support Obama. Obama won because he is a unifier - he didn't JUST appeal to blacks.  ANd in his speech on Nov. 4th - he ackonowledged all the people from diff classes, ethniciteis and races who helped get him into office.

So please, call him bi-racial, post-racial, multi-culti, multi-ethnic, human, mixed - whatever- just stop calling him black - that's not helping him and it's alienating all the whites, latinos, asians and other minorities who worked hard to get him into office.

The media discourse needs to do a better job of reflecting reality and the kind of reality we want to achieve - one that is open to all backgrounds.

addendum: I posted on twitter 2 days ago: "today is one of those days I truly feel my country's joyful soul - we finally have our first CONSCIOUSLY bi-racial pres"   so I said "consciously" because there is such thing as only black or only white - especially in the US with america's history of slavery.

addendum #2 of a comment from facebook:
my friend wrote this comment to my post:

FRIEND:
'm not sure what to think about this. I see your point, but allow me to play devil's advocate: it also seems to me like insisting on identifying him as multi-racial advances a sort of biological-essentialist, where race is determined exclusively by parentage. What seems more important is that he fits the prevailing social conception of blackness, and to some extent embraces it. I doubt his white mother makes racists like him any more. In that sense, I think he's overcome just about all the obstacles he would have faced if she had been black, and to take note of his blackness is to acknowledge the magnitude of his accomplishments in overcoming them.

ME: 

well and you knowI am the first person to agree with you that "race' is a very freaking problematic category - yes. but I was just giving some alternative "words' for the press to use- it's all problematic no matter what. obama himself insists that he is post-racial. i am simply echoing what obama himself has asked of us = which is to not refer to him as ONLY black, and to keep in mind everyone who voted for him

FRIEND:
Right. I do have a major problem with the fact that seemingly few people, even people within the media, have even stopped to give any thought to this.

ME
yah you're right.
I mean either way -if we talk about 'race itself" or of "social conceptions of blackness"- well its' just that - it's socially constructed - historically constituted - orally created - blah blah - I mean what is the "black experience" - to even single out one black experience ignores the diversity of blacks - like not all blacks are working class and etc .  so even to say "black" does not refer to a singular experience. this is not to say that people can't say he's black - or that someone can't just say "I'm black."  What is going on is that it's all complicated, socially constructed and messy - and when the media is as powerful as it is- it should be more concsious of how it frames a "person" as powerful as obama now - even Obama is conscious of it - he has asked us not to call him black - this is not to say that he doesn't think he's black or that he's not black or denying the a "black experience."

This is simply a matter of trying to figure out what is the best way to unite a country that has had and continues to have a diffcult time with race - so that is why I think he's asked us to consider him as "post-racial."  in no way am I denying the whatever kind of life experience obama has had - or what other blacks have had .  I just want the media to be more critical of how it frames obama and what kind of implications it has when it ONLY focuses on the happiness of black voters who can now identify with the president.  i think the media should also focus on how iraqis can now have hope this war will end, how soldiers can know that they were will be an end to this terrorism we have waged on the middle east, on all the undocumented migrants who can have a chance to become documented, on all the gays who can now have hope that on a federal level there can be more openess to equality - for latinos who have also worked their asses off to become citizens and many who just voted for the first time - also highlight those stories ALONGSIDE the 106  year old black woman who just voted for obama - a diversity of voices is reflective of our diverse country.

 

Differences, borders, lines, surfaces and boundaries do not really divide things from each other at all, they join them together. All boundaries are held in common.” Alan Watts

ok I isolated myself for 4 hours in my house today before I go out tonight so that I could get WORK done - I have DONE NOTHING!  NOTHING!  I thought well since I don't have a TV it will be EASY to get work done with no distractions.  I WAS WRONG.  I have CNN streaming on one computer and MSNBC on another - with the nytimes blog up and checking out twitters and blog updates - 20 tabs open do diff sites.   I CAN't WORK  I Can't WORK - so I might as well not work for the rest of the hour and make pictures of animals voting and add cheesy designs to my photos. 

So in the suburbs - people go to garages to vote! who knew?  I thought it was just churches and schools and libraries.  I was hoping it was in their house so I could take pictures of their furniture.  As I walked up with adriene, I was treated VERY rudely by the women running my local voting center.  She said you NEED to put that camera away, please delete that photo - NOW - I want to see you delete the photo!  It's not in my persoanality to fake it - I really wanted to say you could've told me in a much more calm manner -but of all days to keep my mouth shut  - this was a day.  I wanted my VOTE to count.  So I "pretended" to delete my photo of their garage.  I understood her point - it is illegal and people do use cameras - like the minutemen - to intimidate people from voting. so technically yah I was doing something illegal.  But my intention was to say WOW I'm being an active citizen!  she could've just told me much more calmly. 

Then I was told by another old lady- "please cover your shirt up" I was wearing my "migrantes 4 obama" shirt  - she treated me as if I was wearing a tube top with my double D boobs hanging out.  .  oh well - I understand - just would've been nice to not be treated as a criminal.  We only freaking VOTE 1 every 4 years - it's not like I HAVE THE RULES memorized!!!!  Old cranky ladies.  But they didnt' deter my at all!  As you can see in my previous posts, I take a video of me marking my vote for obama!  You can the rest of my photos here!

 

Ok I voted.  Adriene and I went at 8am and voted in a person's garage - I guess that's what voting is like in suburbia.  I've been in nyc the last 2 elections - so I actually have never voted in california really.  

I anticipate the moment when I can say tonight that I am going to cry out of happiness that america will have its first consciously mixed-race president.   (why do i say consciously? no need to go over US slave history why some whites may deny being part black and vice-versa.)  The media needs to stop saying "obama, the first black or african-american president."  He's a mixed! he has never referred to himself as only black. 

What's made me sad is that hilary clinton has been so absent in all this election business. where is her support for obama? sore losers are no phone.

oh well - I'm going to be patriotic tonight - I am going to be an american - I am going to the madonna concert in SD!  One of my advisors offered me a ticket so I could not pass up this opportunity.  Madonna is the queen of contradictions - how much more american can that be?