Oh The Times They Have A'Changed!
Can you imagine it: Mary Todd Lincoln first lady in 2009? And Michelle Obama First Lady in 1860?
Yes, Mary Todd Lincoln --she would be a lot like our present day First Lady--extremely well educated, politically savvy, a staunch stand by and behind your man. a socio-politically engaged woman with great intellectual and life scope, a devoted mom, a passionate sexual and life partner, a fashionista, and a serious contender in her own right.
Michelle Obama--well, she would have been a slave as were her ancestors. Her life scope would have been nil. Her education non-existent. Her work in the rice paddies. Her life expectancy short and her children many. Her great great grandfather, Jim Robinson, was a slave on Friendfield Plantation in South Carolina and likely she would have been as well. The Cohen branch of her ancestry were "Black Cohens" owned by Sephardic Jews. The Robinson's sought education and after the Civil War each succeeding generation was better and better educated--culminating with Michelle and her brother Craig having advanced ivy degrees--hers Princeton and Harvard Law.
A Different View Of Mary
Mary Todd Lincoln, who Anna Quindlen calls The Other Lincoln, in her Newsweek Article of Mar 2, 2009, is now considered a tragic figure.
A woman constricted, constrained, ridiculed and ultimately consigned to the looney bin by her son, for being too out spoken, too strong, too frustrated by her life limitations, too passionate, too smart, too educated, too expressive, too saddened by the deaths of her sons, beloved husband, mother and father and brothers. Too outre, too too and too too much.
Would we admire her now?
Would she be running for president--she with 12 years of education and her husband Abe with less than one? I don't know. We've come a long way baby...but we have a long way to go to really accept woman and power in the same sentence. I do think, I hope, in 2009, we would see her totally differently and she would not be tagged crazy (or fashion obsessed ), as Martha Mitchell was during the Nixon era. And Martha, as we all know was RIGHT!!Without her speaking truth to power, there would have been no Watergate and all the scum scoundrels, thieves, liars and criminals would have gone unnoticed. But like Mary (dead at 63), Martha died young at 57-- scorned and unmourned.
Michelle Negotiates a New Era
Book Review: "Michelle"
Liza Mundy's 2008 biography of Michelle Obama called, no suprise, simply, Michelle, paints a picture of a very strong, brillant, steady woman.
Family grounded and surrounded, great leadership, All American African American woman who is a no BS person, and who has done a pretty good job of gaining a bigger view of life in a few short months.
From her Chicago neighborhood roots to the White House and beyond--hugging the Queen, sweet and a protocol faux pas--Michelle will never be The Other Obama. At least not as an object of ridicule.
She is way too savvy and ...the times have a'changed--thankfully.
Michelle And Barack--A GQ Couple
Looking back over the last hundred and sixty years to the pre-civil war era, clothing of any kind beyond rags would have not been possible for Michelle and dress has been a distinct marker of achievement--especially in the Black community--precisely because of the field hand and mammy images that are still all too familiar. And Michelle is more the generation of Sex and the City, with its emphasis on style, sex and shoes and getting married, than on the earlier boomer generation with its emphasis on breaking barriers for women and minorities and getting ahead professionally. most of the Sex and the City "gals" have professions, but lack love. Michelle has benefited from the battles that Secratary of State Clinton's generation had fought and won: Title IX and Title VII, Roe V Wade. Simple but far reaching changes like eracing 1950s and 60s standard newspaper sex differentiated classified want ads that consigned women to domestic, clerical, factory, nursing or teaching work.
With these social changes to back her, her family and community to support her, and her brillance and education to shine, it's no wonder she could become a prominent hospital administrator. And more power to her!!
It's easy to dismiss her by judging her as a mommy, self-effacing fashionista, and judging her as shallow.
That would be a mistake. She has depths of knowlegeble anger that rise out of her slave ancestry, her Chicago Black community background--that was a segregated one--de facto if not by intent--and her sense that minorities and women still get short shrift in today's America. Maybe it's not a woman crazy making society like Mary Todd Lincoln and Martha Mitchell's were, but there is still a lot of change to be made.
SPEAKING OF SLAVERY: GEORGE W. BUSH IS WHOLEHEARTEDLY GLAD THAT SLAVERY OCCURRED; BUSH HATES BLACK PEOPLE.
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SCANDALS! SCANDALS! SCANDALS!
DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!
GEORGE W. BUSH IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CRIMINAL STALKER!
“In her suit, Margie Schoedinger states that George W. Bush committed sexual crimes against her, organized harassment and moral pressure on her, her family members and close relatives and friends. As Schoedinger said, she was strongly recommended to keep her mouth shut. . . . Furthermore, she alleges that George Bush ordered to show pressure on her to the point, when she commits suicide” (go to Google, type “blog of drizzten Margie Schoedinger,” and hit “Enter”).
“George [Bush is personally complicit] in the death (murder to be precise) of my friend Margie Schoedinger in September of 2003. Determining the exact whereabouts and contacts of . . . George Bush on September 21 thru 22, 2003, should be entirely lacking in difficulty” (Leola McConnell—Nevada Progressive Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010).
McConnell is correct: Bush applying pressure (continuously criminally stalking Margie Schoedinger) purposefully to force Schoedinger to commit suicide does in fact constitute murder where it culminated in her death.
Bush’s method of murdering Schoedinger cannot exist in a vacuum: he must have murdered other people in the same way.
During Bush’s presidency, of course Bush would have desired to kill people whom he hated or get them out of his way. Insofar as Bush was clearly capable of murdering Schoedinger—even in “broad daylight”—and is clearly capable of getting away with it, in consideration of common sense and the laws of human nature, Bush of course murdered numerous people in the disgusting way he murdered Schoedinger. One can examine public information; in various situations where people who sought to oppose or disadvantage Bush ever so frighteningly ended up “committing suicide”—specifically—Bush murdered them just like he murdered Schoedinger. For example, Bush continuously criminally stalked James Howard Hatfield to the point that he could not get away from it, and he committed suicide in desperation to escape: Bush murdered Hatfield. However, the vast majority of such scandalous information will never come out (the grisly details are typically hard to substantiate). A prosecutor really can lawfully charge a former president with murdering one or more people in the disgusting way Bush murdered Schoedinger. The American people unfortunately live in a world where evil presidents can murder any number of people—figuratively—with a wave of a magic wand and get away with it.
(There are thousands of copies of the information above on the Internet. Please feel free to go to any major search engine, type “GEORGE W. BUSH IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CRIMINAL STALKER” or “George W. Bush continuously criminally stalked Margie Schoedinger to the point that she could not get away from it, and she committed suicide in desperation to escape: he murdered her” or “George W. Bush applying pressure (continuously criminally stalking Margie Schoedinger) purposefully to force Schoedinger to commit suicide does in fact constitute murder where it culminated in her death” or “George W. Bush continuously criminally stalked numerous people to the point that they could not get away from it, and they committed suicide in desperation to escape: he murdered them” or “George W. Bush continuously criminally stalked James Howard Hatfield to the point that he could not get away from it, and he committed suicide in desperation to escape: Bush murdered Hatfield,” hit “Enter,” and readily find hundreds of copies.)
(Please feel free to see my “GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE WORST PRESIDENT IN U.S. HISTORY” blog.)
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Andrew Wang
(a.k.a. “THE DISSEMINATING MACHINE”)
B.S., Summa Cum Laude, 1996
Messiah College, Grantham, PA
Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, PA, 1993
Posted by: Devoirs | Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 07:50 PM
Thanks for the correction. I thought it was sweet and even more so, if Queen Elizabeth initiated the gesture. My point is that she is so capable and brillant---it would be a mistake and a sign of persistent sexism to dismiss her while she is currently identified by her dominant roles as mother and wife and then First Lady. I look forward to seeing her blossom and let her power out!
Posted by: Virginia | Friday, April 17, 2009 at 11:59 AM
I would not characterize Michele's "hugging the Queen" as a faux pas - she did not initiate the gesture, the Queen did. It seems to me that not returning the gesture would have been rude. Way too much has been made of this.
Posted by: Rita@Goldivas | Friday, April 17, 2009 at 06:49 AM