brace yourselves

i know its been a while. what can i say, i get lazy from time to time.

so after much internal debate, i'll give in and write my first (most likely of many) post about michelle obama. lets start it out on the right foot: the woman is fly as hell. did you SEE that purple dress the other day? damn. she clearly puts the right kind of effort into her wardrobe. i find that although you should never "judge a book by its cover," its always a good thing when someone takes the time to look good. if michelle obama were unshowered, for example, i'd be concerned. but no troubles on that front.

moving on: i can't even (don't even want to) IMAGINE the kinds of racist and sexist shit we are in for between now and november. if i were michelle obama, i would have put my foot down the first time barack mentioned the whole "running for president" idea and said "frankly, i don't feel like it." because god knows she is going to have to go through a world of pain for this. its already started, with the accusations that there's a video out there somewhere that shows her using the word "whitey," and with the heightened media hubbub surrounding the idea of michelle obama in general. i've read about a thousand "who IS michelle obama" articles in the last week. a thousand. and the level to which they invade her privacy is sort of unreal. the kicker for me was the recent piece of news everyone's seemed to grab on to: they've somehow forced the release of michelle's college senior thesis on being black at an ivy league school in the '80s, and everyone is dying to dissect it, to the point where i even read an article today that quotes the "dedications" page of her thesis. think for a moment about how humiliated you would be as a grown-ass successful woman to have the media close-reading something you wrote when you were barely 21. ouch.

but the big thing with michelle obama, the thing i predict will continue to be the biggest issue she'll have to deal with, is obvious even now: white people all across america are trying to decide whether or not she is, in fact, an Angry Black Woman. and they are looking for any reason they can to label her as such. the whole "first time i've been proud of my country" thing was a nice firm start, and paved the way for people to go crazy over the "whitey" video that does not even exist. i can only imagine what's in store for the future. its clear at this point that michelle obama is an intelligent woman who thinks a lot about race, and frankly, thats probably not going to win her any popularity contests. unfortunately for the obamas, america doesn't love it when you're smart enough to understand how fucked up she is. soooo moral of the story: i'll probably be posting soon in outrage about some new shit the media did to michelle obama. brace yourselves, people.

on the plus side, maureen dowd has, for the first time possibly ever, earned my respect by writing this piece. the 12-step program is working, M.D. i'm proud of you. you may turn out to be aiight after all.