[lbo-talk] The Hillary-ization of Michelle Obama

shag shag at cleandraws.com
Mon May 12 09:33:13 PDT 2008


let the sheroization begin! our hearts go out to her. she is so brave! what can we do (that won't take much effort or require us to get out of our 'jammies) to help combat the hillaryization of michelle! put her on limbaugh once a month, not only is she brave, she's from mean streets. she'll probably scare the pants of rush.

(the last line, i stole from work. there is a theme running through all this about how michelle is from the 'hood and she'd put it to anyone who tried to keep her down, feisty one that she is! being from the 'hood 'n' all!)

At 02:34 AM 5/12/2008, Michael Pollak wrote:


>http://thegspot.typepad.com/blog/2008/05/by-kathy-g.html

My heart goes out to her. The road she will be traveling on will be a difficult one, in particular because there is no one in the history of America who has trod that particular path before. She is an exceedingly courageous person to have chosen such a public role. Just by sheer virtue of being black and female, and daring to live a public life, she will be highly controversial. She will attract a hell of a lot of ugly hatred. Even for a person as strong as I am sure she is, there are sure to be times when that will be very, very hard to take.

What I'm wondering right now is, what can we - as Democrats, as feminists, as people who are deeply committed to racial equality -- do to help and support her? Here's the thing: we have, to an extent, the benefit of hindsight here. We know what the right did to Hillary, and we can expect them to do a lot of the same things to Michelle. How do we combat this?

I realize the Republicans and the right are going to do the same disgusting things they always do. But one thing we need to be hyper-vigilant about is not letting the media get away with repeating right-wing memes and narratives about Michelle (or Barack, or any Democrat, for that matter). Close scrutiny of the media coverage of Michelle Obama, as well as some energetic media-centered activism, will of course be crucial. Do readers of this blog have any more specific ideas? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)



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