Kathleen Reardon over at Huffingtonpost.com posted a troublesome article today about how Michelle Obama is supposedly "reinventing" herself in recent days. 
 
Reardon has to ask herself which of the women, of the white women in her life that she knows personally well, which ones does she know to have a playful, silly side. She needs to ask herself, of those women, which ones would be most likely to behave playfully in the public's eye. 
 
If she can't answer those questions easily, then why can she so certainly put forth the suggestion that somehow Michelle Obama, a woman she doesn't know personally at all, is putting us all on? How can she suggest that Michelle's light interactions with her husband are somehow not real, that she doesn't have any softness to her, similar to what the myth about the hard-edged, black woman tells us? 
 
In what way is Michelle "reinventing" herself, as according to Reardon?  To most sensible people, I hope, it appears that Michelle is introducing herself--her real self--to the public. This cannot be a reintroduction but only an introduction, because Michelle can only present her real self now as an answer to the caricature that the GOP has drawn of her. 
 
In her article Reardon suggests that Michelle ought to not do "cute, adorable things" because that's not her, apparently. I guess by "cute, adorable things" Reardon was referencing the world renowned fist bump Michelle and Obama shared prior to his speech on the night he won the Democratic nomination. 
 
Who is Reardon to say who Michelle Obama really is? 
 
Maybe the "cute, adorable things" is who Michelle Obama is. Maybe she's a goofball, devoted mother, hard worker, supportive wife, loyal friend, and politically-minded citizen. Maybe she is all of these things, because she can't possibly be the one-dimensional portrait that the GOP has painted of the angry black she-monster (as described by Cal Thomas of Fox News) who looks to enslave the entire white race (as John Stewart jokes about on the Daily Show). No real human being is that one dimensional and cartoonish. 
 
For Reardon to suggest that the Michelle Obama we see now is not authentic is just as bad as advocating the false image that the GOP projects of her. Michelle Obama can't reintroduce herself-- she first has to shovel through the sludge that the Republicans have slathered on thick and only then can she finally introduce herself. 
 
For the first time. 
 
While Obama has been in the foreground nationally for a while now, Michelle has only just now stepped onto the national stage. Sure, we have quotes from her that have been purposely mangled by vicious people beyond recognition, but Michelle has so been publicly illustrated by her misinterpreted words that she, the person, has all but been erased out completely. 
 
It's easier to assume the worst about the "Other", though. It's always easier to suggest the worst about the "Other". 
 
For some people, if it's easier to suggest the worst about the "Other", in this case the "Other" being a black woman, and also to then suggest that the "Other" has ulterior motives underneath false actions, then it's especially easy to suggest the worst about the especially scary "Other": a black woman in power. 
 
It's the same reason why it's easier to suggest that black people only vote for Obama because he is black. Some people don't want to look at the decades since black people have had the right to vote in which they've voted for white men on a whole, year after year. Some people don't want to admit that blacks vote recently and reliably en masse for Democrats who were white, decade after decade. 
 
Some people don't want to admit that white Hillary Clinton had the black vote in the bag because of her white husband until she and her white husband started insulting them. 
 
Even though his "bitter" comment has been wildly mischaracterized, there are those who cite it as a reason that they won't vote for Obama. 
 
These people say they won't vote for Obama because they felt insulted and Obama doesn't complain about it. Bill and Hillary Clinton insult blacks, blacks decide they won't vote for Hillary and then Hillary and Bill Clinton complain about it. Also, notice that there, indeed, was a double team in the insults the Clinton camp lobbed. 
 
Blacks were expected to just take the racism that was doled out, while "the hardworking, blue collar" folks were expected to be, no in fact pressed to be outraged over the fact that their dignity had been insulted by Obama's misconstrued "bitter" comment. 
 
And by the way, there's no misconstruing the racism served up by the Clinton campaign when you have on record a superdelegate saying that he was told by Hillary's camp to use racism to court Jewish voters by playing on any tension, no matter how little or how big it might be, between Jewish voters and and Black voters. And that's just one example. 
 
But back to Michelle Obama. Most of the witch-hunting that has taken place over the last couple of months has a lot to do with projecting. There are those who will always fear what they do not know. And they handle that fear by making outlandish, cartoonish assertions and then projecting them onto whomever or whatever they know little about. Thus, for the first time, a black woman stands to be the First Lady, but some people can't see that outrageously false idea of what a black woman is that they've created in their minds possibly residing in the White House. 
 
Those people's problem is that Michelle is none of what they've made up in the darkest corners of their minds.
 
And essentially well-meaning people like Reardon can't see Michelle as having a soft side that gives way to "cute, adorable things" because Reardon's outlook on Michelle has already been shaded by what Reardon expects of a black woman. I don't purport to know exactly what those expectations are, but I do know Reardon's expectations consist of the idea that "cute, adorable things" are a possible mask that Michelle puts on and Reardon assumes those things can't possibly be a part of Michelle's personality. Reardon says as much in her article. 
 
Reardon's opinion is also shaded by vicious, ugly rumors and insinuations the GOP has disseminated about Michelle Obama--insinuations that have seeped and settled into Reardon's brain without her even realizing it. 
 
However, the word "racist" does not even fit Reardon's and so many others' thought processes when it comes to how they look at Michelle Obama. More to the point, people like Reardon don't possess the mental or language tools to discuss or assess a black woman in Michelle Obama's position because these tools have never been needed in our society before now. 
 
Only today do we have the possibility of a black woman being the First Lady. Only today is there finally a nationwide interest in black people and their perspectives. The fact that this is true is evidenced everywhere, from Obama's speech on race--a speech no white politician has ever thought to give or has ever been pressured to give-- to the fact that CNN is doing a whole investigative series on being "Black in America" 
 
To some whites, more than a lot of us would like to admit, blacks are specimens to be examined because we (blacks) are so foreign to them. Michelle Obama is so foreign, even though she's lived in the same country with whites all this time, because she is a member of a race that still doesn't have too many representations in today's America that reflect the true variety existing within it. 
 
Whites can look at T.V. and see so many different representations of themselves that reflects reality, but blacks are only given a set number of representations that tell narrowing lies about reality-- the rapper, the basket ball player, the criminal--that get drummed in society's collective conscience. 
 
Blacks, black women in particular, are not represented in television in elegant, smart, soft, supportive ways that give way to the role of a First Lady. And not a lot of white people, even the most open minded, have interactions with a variety of black personalities and intellects on a regular basis-- personalities and intellects that in reality do exist. 
 
Blacks are as diverse in education, opinion, intellect, ability, and a whole host of other factors as white people, we're just not shown that way in images that are propagated through mass media. 
 
This post is not an indictment of all white people. As a matter of fact, I've been pleasantly surprised that the majority of whites and other races alike are so receptive to a black man as president. However, this post is a heavy criticism of a way of thinking that, whether done on purpose or not, still lingers. And this way of thinking shows up in the most interesting places, however unintentional, like in a piece by Kathleen Reardon on Huffingtonpost.com. 
 
And some people might even think that for this mode of thinking to still exist is not a big problem, that at least it's not the out-an-out, disgusting racism still found in pockets across America. 
 
But it is disturbing that a woman like Michelle can still garner accusations like a "terrorist fist jab" when all she did was give dap to her husband, a move athletes and even the current President has done. It is disturbing that an accomplished woman like Michelle can be demonized and that characterization can be believed by so many in this country. It's insane that a-more- than- capable black candidate for president has to overcome these racially-motivated obstacles and could possibly not become president because of them. 
 
It is shameful, heartbreaking, disturbing, and sad. 
 
And you have to think of all the other accomplished blacks across this country who are not considered for employment still to this day at certain companies, leaving their families languishing and a person of wonderful talents out of the work force, because of a nagging misperception of blacks. And to think, also, that all of this happens partially because that talented black person doesn't have proper and real representation nationwide in our media. 
 
And finally, it's insane that if not believed, these outlandish rumors about Michelle submitted by the GOP can still be considered as a reasonable possibility by some in this country. It's insane that these outrageous, demonizing characterizations could be considered in the backs of the minds of so, so many. In fact, so much so, that when Michelle Obama presents herself, it is seen as a "reintroduction" and not as what it really is-- an accomplished woman being her goofy, smart, tough self.