18-1-2019 

Becoming - A minha história

de Michele Obama

N.º 2404, de 24-11-2018

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Michelle Obama escreveu um livro de memórias afirmativo, em que revela toda a sua maturidade e inteligência

TEXTO: LUIS M. FARIA

Quando Barack Obama começou a tornar-se notado como candidato a candidato à Presidência dos EUA, a primeira coisa em que reparámos logo, além da cor da pele (que muitos consideravam um obstáculo inultrapassável), foi a qualidade intelectual (graças à qual começámos a suspeitar que afinal talvez houvesse uma hipótese). Aquela inteligência calma, informada e perceptiva, que não se exibia mas se notava em cada entrevista, era extremamente bem-vinda após oito anos da mediocridade trágica de George W. Bush. Como diz Michelle Obama neste livro, o “Barack era a pessoa certa para este momento na história, para um cargo que nunca seria fácil, mas que, devido à crise financeira, se tomara exponencialmente mais difícil. Eu andava a anunciar isso aos quatro ventos havia mais de ano e meio, por toda a América: o meu marido era calmo e preparado. A complexidade não o assustava. Tinha um cérebro capaz de analisar todas as complicações (...). Neste ponto, seríamos insensatos se não o elegêssemos.”

Após a eleição de Barack houve gente preconceituosa que ficou menos chocada com a ideia dele na Casa Branca do que com a imagem da sua mulher. Ainda Michelle: “Eu tinha plena consciência de que seria medida por uma bitola diferente. Como era a única primeira-dama afroamericana de sempre a entrar na Casa Branca, era à partida ‘outra’ (...). Não me poderia dar ao luxo de me adaptar ao meu novo papel sem pressa, antes de ser julgada”. Equiparando-se ao marido em inteligência e equilíbrio, Michelle viu—se obrigada a uma vida que, sugere, ia contra o que ela teria preferido, mas que se justificou por permitir introduzir diversidade onde ela não existia. Parte desse legado, escusado será dizer, perdeu-se desde então, mas a perda deve ser temporária. 

Não vamos aqui lembrar o catálogo de infâmias e rasquices que tombaram sobre o casal e se prolongaram durante oito anos inteiros. Digamos apenas que eles conseguiram atravessar esse período sem a mais pequena mancha na sua reputação. Barack pode ter mais apetência pela vida politica, mas Becoming - - A Minha História devolve-nos uma voz que é claramente a de outra pessoa. Longe da autoanulação de outras primeiras-damas ou dos clichés enjoativos de Hillary Clinton (incapaz de contar uma história que não desemboque num sermão), Michelle descreve o seu percurso com realismo e uma atenção algo literária nos pormenores. Conta os começos modestos, a família que a estimulava, a doença do pai, a sua própria motivação incessante, a metódica ascensão académica e profissional. Mas também assume limitações temperamentais — que, aliás, estima, por a terem ajudado a progredir. E evoca desejos de vários tipos: consumistas, sexuais e de ambição.

A certa altura entra em cena outro jovem jurista, um pouco mais velho e muito mais abstracto, que Michelle encontrou no escritório de advogados onde trabalhava. O contraste entre os dois parecia condenar a relação ao fracasso, mas depressa viram que se complementavam. Michelle jamais assume a intimação de um destino. À parte o esforço constante de dar sempre o seu melhor, nada a predispunha ao que quer que fosse, muito menos a um lugar na História. Ela fala da vida como uma coisa que se vai fazendo, sem omitir a importância do acaso ou os acidentes que vão pontuando a vida: as dificuldades em conceber, com um aborto pelo meio, e a opção pela fertilização artificial; as ausências de Barack por causa da politica, que afectaram gravemente o relacionamento entre os dois e os levaram a procurar terapia; a percepção crescente, e angustiante, de que as duas filhas jamais poderiam ter uma adolescência normal...

No meio de tudo isso, o imperativo de ser exemplar, num papel que lhe coube redefinir quase de raiz. “Não existe um livro de instruções para as novas primeiras-damas dos Estados Unidos”, escreve Michelle. “Teoricamente não é um trabalho, e também não é um título governamental oficial. Não é remunerado e não tem um conjunto especifico de obrigações. E uma estranha espécie de sidecar da Presidência”.

Mesmo sabendo que este tipo de livro costuma ter a ajuda de ghostwriters, é plausível que sejam de Michelle não apenas as histórias como muitas das expressões felizes que lá encontramos. Quanto às opiniões, são tipicamente maduras e moderadas. Só uma vez a autora admite um animus: quando diz não perdoar a Trump que a sua retórica incendiária contra Barack Obama tenha posto em risco as filhas do casal. Quem a poderá criticar?

"Dalla passione ai problemi di coppia": Michelle Obama confessa che se lei e Barack sono felici è merito della terapia

Mentre arriva in libreria la sua tanto attesa autobiografia, "Becoming", l'avvocatessa ed ex first lady spalanca le porte del suo privato raccontando molto di sé e del suo rapporto con Barack. Ecco come gli ex-inquilini della Casa Bianca hanno saputo trasformare le difficoltà in un momento di svolta e come questo può essere di aiuto ed esempio per ogni altra coppia

Stefania Medetti

13 Novembre 2018

Michelle Obama ha raccontato tutta la verità. Nel suo libro “Becoming”, in uscita il 13 novembre, l’ex-first lady ha confessato le difficoltà del suo matrimonio e il ricorso alla terapia di coppia. “Conosco molti giovani che hanno problemi e vorrei che sapessero che Michelle e Barack Obama, che hanno un matrimonio fantastico e si amano, lavorano alla loro relazione”, ha dichiarato in un’intervista alla ABC e la rivelazione ha fatto il giro del mondo.
“Continuiamo a pensare che il ricorso al terapeuta sia l’ultima spiaggia di una coppia che non funziona oppure che sia un modo per affrontare sottaciuti problemi sessuali”, osserva la dottoressa Adelia Lucattini, psichiatra e psicoanalista, cui abbiamo chiesto di commentare le rivelazioni dell'ex first lady. “La verità, come ha spiegato Michelle Obama, è che per stare bene in coppia bisogna lavorarci”.

Le tre “aree” della coppia

Il terapeuta, infatti, insegna ai partner come inquadrare e 'leggere' i problemi. “Una relazione è data dall’alchimia di tre aree: l’area della condivisione, l’area di compromesso e le aree non condivisibili”, elenca Lucattini. La prima comprende gli ideali, gli obiettivi e i significati. “Ne fanno parte elementi come l’idea di coppia, lo stile di vita o, come nel caso degli Obama, l’impegno sociale”. Nell’area di compromesso, invece, entrano tutte quelle variabili che, in varie gradazioni, possono accendere la miccia degli scontri: dal banalissimo controllo del telecomando fino all’educazione dei figli. Infine, le aree non condivisibili sono quelle che originano dagli interessi personali sviluppati prima di incontrarsi e di stringere un legame. “Anche queste componenti sono spesso oggetto di litigi, ma non sono conciliabili e devono essere preservate, perché sono gli elementi di identità di ognuno da cui i partner prendono l’energia per nutrire la coppia”. Insieme al terapeuta, dunque, la coppia esplicita e alimenta gli elementi trainanti, individua le aree di frizione e la loro gestione. Come ha detto Michelle Obama: “Abbiamo imparato a esprimere le nostre differenze e a chiedere aiuto quando serve”.

 

L’importanza del micro-managing

Gli Obama, inoltre, hanno capito che il lavoro sulla coppia non si esaurisce mai. “Sono ancora poche, però, le persone che hanno questa consapevolezza”, fa notare la psichiatra che invita a cogliere i segnali per tempo. L’insofferenza è il primo campanello d’allarme. “Quando la presenza dell’altro o alcuni suoi modi di fare cominciano a darci fastidio è il momento in cui i dissapori diventano rancori”. Se questi malesseri non vengono intercettati e portati alla luce nel day-by-day, alla lunga logorano il rapporto dall’interno. “Di solito, le crisi più grandi si hanno dopo dieci anni dal matrimonio e nascono dalle micro-crisi non gestite che, generalmente, si manifestano quando uno dei due compie un ciclo”. Per esempio, uno dei partner si afferma nel lavoro e il sacrificio dell’altro, che magari si è dedicato maggiormente alla famiglia, non è stato gestito e riconosciuto e, dunque, viene vissuto come una perdita. Classico esempio: gli Obama.

Un percorso di crescita personale

Quando un’agenda fitta di impegni ha fatto emergere le tensioni, il ricorso al terapeuta, confessa Michelle Obama, aveva per lei una funzione di validazione: “Vai da un consulente perché vuoi sentirti dare ragione delle critiche al tuo partner e poi ti accorgi che la terapia non è assolutamente focalizzata su questo, ma sul tuo senso di felicità”. È così che l’ex-first lady ha ripensato la propria scala di priorità: “Ho capito che la mia felicità dipendeva da me: ho iniziato a fare più sport, a chiedere aiuto, a esprime le mie vulnerabilità”. Il supporto psicoterapeutico, infatti, fornisce anche gli strumenti per la gestione dei problemi personali. Michelle, infatti, ha smesso di sentirsi colpevole.“Il senso di colpa paralizza la mente, non permette di pensare ed stato grazie a questa nuova consapevolezza che l’ex first lady ha imparato a prendersi cura di se stessa e della sua relazione”, precisa Lucattini.

Michelle Obama fa cadere altri tabù

Per gli Obama, rivolgersi alla terapia di coppia non è stato solo un modo per rimette in sesto se stessi e la loro relazione, ma è stato un momento di svolta. E, infatti, Michelle Obama rompe il silenzio anche su altri temi sottaciuti, come l’aborto e la fecondazione assistita a cui la coppia ha fatto ricorso per la nascita delle figlie Malia e Sasha. “Quando mi è successo, mi sono sentita persa, sola e un fallimento, perché non sapevo quanto gli aborti siano frequenti visto che non ne parliamo”, ha dichiarato.

Ed è partendo da questa “ferita psicologica intima e profonda”, dalla sua solitudine mentre il marito comincia la corsa verso il Senato che iniziano un percorso che li porterà a quello che sono diventati, come spiegano le tre sezioni del libro: dal becoming meal becoming us e becoming more, portavoce di un impegno sociale che non si è esaurito con la fine della presidenza.

19 Ottobre 2018

"Dalla passione ai problemi di coppia": Michelle Obama confessa che se lei e Barack sono felici è merito della terapia

Michelle Obama atto secondo

Il 13 novembre esce Becoming, attesissima autobiografia che l’ex first lady presenterà in un tour già sold out. intanto i sondaggi danno la sua popolarità alle stelle perfino fra i repubblicani. È la politica il suo destino?

DI VITTORIO ZUCCONI

Fu in una notte di agosto in Colorado, sotto il cielo spalancato su uno stadio di football all’aperto, che l’America incontrò per la prima volta una sconosciuta chiamata Michelle Robinson Obama. Eravamo in 64mila quella sera allo stadio e neppure noi giornalisti, che avevamo, scetticamente, seguito qualche tratto di quello che lei avrebbe chiamato «l’improbabile viaggio» verso la Casa Bianca, l’avevamo mai davvero vista o ascoltata al fianco del marito Barack, nei comizi parla e fuggi. Salì sul podio del Congresso Democratico che avrebbe incoronato il marito candidato alla presidenza degli Stati Uniti poco dopo le otto di sera, stagliando una figura imperiosa, nel suo metro e 80 di statura più i tacchi, e insieme nervosa, tradita dal continuo umettarsi delle labbra e dalla voce esitante nelle prime parole. Parlò per 20 minuti e alla fine del suo discorso i 64mila nello stadio di Denver sarebbero cresciuti, minuto dopo minuto, fino a diventare i 38 milioni di americani sintonizzati per ascoltarla, per vederla e per chiedersi come potesse essere concepibile, addirittura possibile, che una bambina nata e cresciuta nel ghetto nero di Chicago, figlia di un operaio dell’acquedotto municipale, pensasse davvero di diventare la First Lady, la signora di una casa costruita due secoli prima da schiavi. E nessuno meglio di lei, un po’ rigida nel semplice abito verde acqua scollato a V e segnato da una grande spilla di bigiotteria sul petto, sapeva che dalle sue parole, da come lei si sarebbe presentata all’America, sarebbe in tanta parte dipeso il futuro del marito, e che non avrebbe potuto sbagliare, perché non si ha mai una seconda occasione per fare una prima impressione.

Michelle non sbagliò. Dieci anni esatti dopo quel primo incontro con la nazione che avrebbe eletto Barack Obama, la sua popolarità sfiora, fra i Democratici, il livello del culto pagano, superando il 90 per cento, e oltrepassa, miracolosamente in questo tempo del “noi” contro “voi”, il 60 per cento fra i Repubblicani. Il tour di presentazione della sua biografia chiamata Becoming (in uscita in Italia per Garzanti il 13 novembre, ndr), il percorso del suo “diventare” e cambiare, previsto non in librerie o teatri, ma nei principali palazzetti dello sport delle 12 maggiori città americane - da New York a Los Angeles - fra novembre e dicembre, è già sold out.
Attraverso i collegi elettorali, si fa frenetica la pressione di concorrenti alle politiche del 6 novembre perché lei faccia apparizioni per sostenerli e, soprattutto, per appoggiare le candidate di colore. Qualcosa che lei ha vagamente promesso, ma in modo sporadico e non troppo di partito, scelta confermata dalla decisione di far uscire il libro dopo le elezioni, per non bruciarlo nel crogiuolo della battaglia elettorale. Un atteggiamento di distacco, un po’ snobistico, che le è stato rimproverato dai molti che, dal giorno dell’uscita dalla Casa Bianca e dall’avvento di Donald Trump e della sua imperscrutabile Melania, sognano un secondo avvento di Obama in versione femminile. Ma chi vagheggia di una presidenza Michelle forse ignora la storia, la personalità, l’intelligenza di una donna che ha sempre saputo calibrare, nella sua vita, il drive, la motivazione che la spinse lontana dalla Chicago più amara, con la decisione di vivere la propria vita, senza subirla. C’è, in lei, una prudenza che traspare dal suo sguardo sempre leggermente ironico, una diffidenza per le lusinghe come per le offese che sembrano renderla scettica, senza mai diventare cinica. E che si manifestò da giovane donna, quando un giovanotto ancora fresco di laurea in Legge, affidato alle sue cure nello studio per il quale lavorava, cominciò a farle la corte.

C’è un episodio, da lei stessa raccontato più volte, che apre una piccola finestra nella personalità di Michelle Obama e dimostra quanto attenta, quanto razionale sappia essere, anche nel momento più irrazionale della nostra vita, l’innamoramento. Quando «quel tipo dallo strano nome», come lei stessa dice, insistette per uscire e l’andò a prendere con un vecchio catorcio, dove Michelle doveva sedere tenendo i piedi larghi per non finire nel buco aperto dalla ruggine sul fondo dell’auto, per misurarlo non si affidò alla mamma, Marion, che pure l’aveva sempre accudita come una chioccia, o alle amiche e colleghe. Si rivolse al fratello Craig, un giocatore e allenatore di pallacanestro professionista alto due metri, chiedendogli di sfidare Barack in un incontro sui campi pubblici di cemento dei ghetti e attese il responso del “Big Brother”. Soltanto quando lui, dopo avere sudato, sgomitato, spintonato il molto più basso ed esile avversario, le consegnò il responso, si decise a cedere. «È ok», le disse Craig, «come giocatore vale poco, ma come uomo mi piace. Il campo da basket non mente». Un anno dopo la partita della vita, Michelle e Barack si sposarono. E Craig sarebbe stata la prima persona che lei, nella notte del Colorado, avrebbe nominato e ringraziato nel discorso del 2006. Il segno di quell’episodio, come del discorso e della sua esperienza di Prima Signora degli Stati Uniti, di Flotus (First Lady of the United States, nell’acronimo ufficiale), era l’anticipazione di quello che Michelle avrebbe fatto e che sarebbe diventata nei panni del più difficile lavoro della nazione, quello di essere primadonna, in attesa di un primo uomo, senza ruolo, senza definizioni, senza compiti precisi, ma sotto lo sguardo di tutti. La sua scelta è stata definita come “Nuovo Tradizionalismo”, l’essere una moglie, una madre per le due figlie Sasha e Malia, una figlia lei stessa con la mamma alloggiata alla Casa Bianca per riempire il vuoto di normalità che quel luogo raggelante può creare nei bambini, ma non un soprammobile da esibire per i visitatori, né un’attivista politica com’era stata pubblicamente la signora Eleanor Roosevelt o, privatamente, com’erano state Nancy Reagan e Hillary Clinton.

Se attivismo doveva essere, doveva essere limitato alla vita civile e quotidiana della nazione, alla scuola, alla salute, all’alimentazione, ai bambini, mai alla politica politicante e mai rendendosi ingombrante, al costo di rinunciare ai tacchi 12 del suo adorato Jimmy Choo che le avrebbero fatto sovrastare il Mister President e avrebbero riattizzato in lei il complesso adolescenziale della “stangona”: «Non è che fossi la più bella, è che tutti mi guardavano perché ero la più alta». Con la sua eclettica scelta di abiti e di designer per le apparizione pubbliche (in casa, sempre jeans), da Gucci a Jason Wu, da Narciso Rodriguez (scelse un suo abito per la prima cerimonia inaugurale) a Tom Ford (per esempio, quando ricevette la regina Elisabetta), fino ai clamorosi vestiti a grandi fiori che sfoggiava nelle occasioni più casual, Michelle avrebbe fatto presto dimenticare l’enormità storica della presenza di una donna con la sua carnagione in quella casa. «Avevano cercato di farmi sentire a disagio quando fui accettata all’Università di Princeton, dicendomi che non ero materiale per quel college, e mi resi conto in fretta che non ero più stupida di nessuno dei miei compagni».

Alla Casa Bianca, si sarebbe resa conto in fretta di non dovere niente a nessuno, se non contare i giorni verso la liberazione.«Ieri sera una persona ha cercato di scavalcare il recinto, ma l’hanno fermata subito e riportata a letto. Era Michelle», avrebbe detto, forse scherzando, Barack poche settimane prima della fine mandato. Il Servizio Segreto, il corpo di polizia incaricato di proteggere la vita del Presidente e della sua famiglia, le aveva assegnato il nome in codice di “Renaissance”, Rinascimento (il marito era “Renegade”, il Rinnegato) e, se mai la sua Casa Bianca avesse raggiunto la mitologia creata attorno al castello incantato dei Kennedy, la Camelot, la magia della normalità imposta da una donna fuori dalla storia ordinaria di una nazione sarebbe fiorita come i suoi abiti o come l’orto che lei volle coltivare fra le rose e i cespugli ornamentali dell’enorme giardino. Un orto che Michelle, sempre pratica e diffidente, ha fatto finanziare con due milioni e mezzo di donazioni private all’anno: perché il successore, e la nuova First Lady, fossero costretti a coltivarlo. La sua Casa Bianca, così straordinariamente normale in lei, nella famiglia, nel marito, sarebbe stata, ironicamente, soprannominata “Obamalot”.

Anche ora che è una ricchissima signora, dopo avere diviso con il marito 60 milioni di dollari di anticipi per le memorie, una somma che rende i 207 mila dollari annui di vitalizio pagati agli ex Presidenti irrilevanti, anche adesso che la sua principale preoccupazione è seguire Sasha, la figlia ancora all’ultimo anno del liceo a Washington prima che anche lei come la sorella Malia prenda il volo per l’università, Michelle Obama mantiene quell’aura di eccezionale banalità, di tradizionalismo rivoluzionato e rinnovato, che era riuscita a proiettare sul crudele palcoscenico della più importante villa d’America. Sarebbe sorprendente se si lasciasse tentare dalla vanità della politica elettorale. Ma è ancora tanto giovane, a 54 anni. Ha ancora tanta strada da percorrere verso quel Rinascimento americano che verrà, dopo il torvo Medioevo di odio e di rancore che oggi l’America attraversa.

7 décembre 2018

CRITIQUE

UNE PREMIÈRE DAME CASH

Par Alexandra Schwartzbrod 

Confidences planétaires de Michelle Obama

Les éditions Penguin Random House étaient si convaincues que les mémoires des époux Obama feraient un carton qu’elles ont lâché quelque 65 millions de dollars pour en obtenir l’exclusivité. En France, c’est Fayard qui a tiré le gros lot, à un coût qui n’a pas été rendu public mais que l’on dit très élevé. L’idée était de profiter d’un lancement mondial orchestré à l’américaine, dans ses moindres détails et sur tous les supports numériques (Instagram, Facebook, etc.). Michelle Obama a été la première à dégainer ses mémoires, Becoming, publiées dans plus de trente langues le 13 novembre. Devenir (le titre français) s’est vite positionné en France dans les premières places des ventes de documents. Fayard pensait en inonder le marché (et rentrer dans ses frais) grâce à la venue de Michelle Obama à Paris le 5 décembre. Venue reportée pour cause d’obsèques de George Bush.

1-  Est-ce si tarte qu’annoncé ?

Raillé dès le premier jour par certains médias, Devenir est en réalité un témoignage de première main sur le parcours d’une jeune Afro-Américaine des quartiers pauvres de Chicago que rien ne prédestinait à devenir première dame des Etats-Unis («je suis une personne ordinaire qui s’est retrouvée embarquée dans une aventure extraordinaire», écrit-elle). Et surtout sur le quotidien d’une campagne électorale, avec ses doutes et ses chausse-trappes. Même le récit de la vie à la Maison Blanche est captivant pour qui sort tout juste de la série House of Cards, et aussi pour les autres. Certes, ce livre fait partie d’une vaste opération de communication destinée à entretenir le mythe Obama, mais soyons honnête, il est bien plus que cela. C’est d’abord le récit, de l’intérieur, d’une accession à la tête du pays le plus puissant de la planète, ce n’est pas rien.

2-  Michelle Obama se livre-t-elle vraiment ?

Elle dit beaucoup de choses. Sur le plan personnel d’abord : premières règles, premier baiser, premier amour, difficultés pour avoir un enfant, Barack contraint de donner sa semence pour faire une FIV tandis qu’elle subit un traitement hormonal… on n’est pas totalement dans «Oui-oui à la Maison Blanche». Elle ne cache rien non plus des difficultés à maintenir une vie de couple quand l’un est davantage dans la lumière que l’autre. Ou juste quand le temps et le quotidien font leur œuvre. «Même un mariage heureux peut-être lassant», écrit-elle. Côté public, on en apprend beaucoup sur son rôle. «Il n’y a pas de mode d’emploi pour devenir première dame des Etats-Unis. Ce n’est pas à proprement parler un métier […]. Ce n’est pas payé et il n’y a aucune obligation explicite. C’est un étrange strapontin de la présidence, une fonction qu’avaient occupée avant moi plus de quarante femmes, chacune s’en acquittant à sa façon.»

3       - Donald Trump apparaît-il ? 

Très peu, mais le passage qui le concerne est dévastateur. «Depuis l’enfance, j’ai toujours été convaincue qu’il fallait dénoncer les petites brutes, mais sans s’abaisser à leur niveau. Or, pour être claire, nous avions maintenant affaire à une petite brute, à un homme qui, entre autres choses, dénigrait les minorités, exprimait ouvertement son mépris pour les prisonniers de guerre, bafouait la dignité de notre pays pratiquement à chacune de ses déclarations.» 

LE TEMPS

Publié mardi 27 novembre 2018 à 17:43, modifié mardi 27 novembre 2018 à 22:28.

«Devenir», de Michelle Obama: des batailles à l’ennui

Dans son autobiographie, Michelle Robinson a une jeunesse palpitante, Michelle Obama est moins captivante. Critique

Eléonore Suiser

A la fin de Devenir, les pages consacrées aux remerciements l’indiquent: de nombreuses fées – très spécialisées – se sont penchées sur ce livre. Avec une telle mobilisation, avec de tels investissements, il eût été bien triste de lire un récit insipide. De fait, il ne l’est pas, du moins jusqu’à ce que son héroïne ne s’installe à la Maison-Blanche.

Être née femme et noire, avoir un père handicapé, être l’arrière-petite-fille d’un esclave, avoir vu les hommes de sa famille se voir refuser des emplois qualifiés parce qu’ils n’étaient pas de la bonne couleur, tout cela marque Michelle Robinson, petite fille de Chicago.

Changer tout

D’emblée, elle sent qu’un combat est à mener, dont le champ de bataille est l’école. Elle ne lâchera rien jusqu’à devenir une brillante avocate. Puis, et c’est peut-être le passage le plus intéressant, Michelle Robinson réalise, devenue jeune adulte, qu’elle a exécuté parfaitement le programme attendu, sans se poser de questions. Et ça ne lui plaît pas. Elle va alors tout remettre en jeu et changer d’orientation. C’est à ce moment-là qu’elle rencontre un certain Barack Obama…

Une touche burlesque

Dès lors sa vie ne lui appartient plus entièrement. Si l’histoire d’amour, la maternité et le chemin vers Washington lui permettent encore d’exprimer son caractère et son humour, la période présidentielle est moins palpitante. Elle, si attachée à la liberté des femmes, se retrouve, comme tout son entourage, au service du président, ce «joyau précieux», ironise-t-elle. On finit par s’ennuyer un peu, avec elle, à la Maison-Blanche, quand on a visité les recoins, même si la présence étonnante de sa mère, la très pragmatique Marian, ajoute un grain de bon sens et de burlesque à la vie ouatée, minutée et sous haute surveillance des locataires de la Maison-Blanche.

«Devenir» a déjà été réimprimé

Mesures exceptionnelles, traduction au cordeau, embargo, médias triés sur le volet: publier un livre comme Devenir ne s’improvise pas. Dès le début de la mise en vente, Hachette, qui opère notamment aux Etats-Unis, était sur les rangs pour décrocher les droits mondiaux des mémoires de Barack Obama et de ceux de son épouse, Michelle.

«Hachette n’a malheureusement pas eu les droits mondiaux, mais ça nous a donné un coup d’avance pour décrocher les droits en langue française», a expliqué sur Europe 1 le 13 novembre, date de la sortie mondiale du livre, Sophie de Closets, PDG de Fayard, maison d’édition propriété de Hachette, qui a traduit et commercialise le livre de Michelle Obama dans l’espace francophone.

Après Michelle, Barack

A Libération, Sophie de Closets a raconté sa brève rencontre avec le président américain en compagnie du PDG de Hachette: «J’ai demandé à Arnaud Nourry d’accompagner l’équipe le jour où il présentait le groupe à Barack Obama […] Elle, Michelle Obama, je ne l’ai pas encore rencontrée.» Au Monde, Sophie de Closets a confié: «J’ai parlé de la légitimité de Fayard, éditeur de Hillary Clinton, Kissinger et Mandela. Et le président a parlé de son futur livre…» On l’aura compris, après le livre de Michelle Obama, celui de Barack, dont la date de parution n’est pas encore annoncée, promet d’être un nouveau phénomène.

La maison Fayard a pris grand soin de Devenir. Deux traductrices, Odile Demange et Isabelle Taudière, ont travaillé durant l’été et au début de l’automne, dans un luxe de précautions inhabituel, note-t-on chez Fayard. A charge aussi pour la maison d’édition d’organiser la venue le 5 décembre au soir à Paris de Michelle Obama en personne. Une très rare apparition européenne, après Londres le 3 décembre. La seule dans l’espace francophone. Les billets se sont écoulés en moins de vingt-quatre heures. Pour Fayard, qui ne communique ni sur le montant des droits, ni sur les tirages – mais qui a déjà réimprimé Devenir –, le pari semble réussi: le livre est au sommet des ventes depuis sa sortie.

“Becoming”

Michelle Obama

Crown: 429 pp.,

Michelle Obama's ‘Becoming’ is a clear, frank telling of her life as a black woman in America

By REBECCA CARROLL

NOV 14, 2018 | 9:30 AM

James Baldwin wrote, “No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.” This went doubly for Michelle Obama, who decided against reading books by other first ladies when her husband was president. “I almost didn't want to know what was the same and what was different about any of us,” she writes in “Becoming,” her ardently anticipated, Oprah Book Club-selected, 400-page memoir. But of course something was different for Michelle and Barack Obama. Real different.

“Optics would always rule our lives,” writes Michelle, some ways through Obama’s first presidency term. She meant it in reference to their positioning and movement and choices in the White House as a black First Family, but there isn’t a black person on the planet who doesn’t have an acute awareness of this reality — of being followed and monitored and assessed. The Obamas endured this publicly sanctioned scrutiny for eight years, at the end of which, a whole lot of us wished they’d take us with them, wherever they may be headed.

When the Obama family left the White House in early 2017, I was a guest on a culture and politics podcast and was asked if I thought a book might be in Michelle Obama’s future. I responded with casual confidence, perhaps unconsciously protective of the genre, or, more likely, deluded into thinking by her appeal and accessibility that she is my BFF and I just know her like that: “No, Michelle is not a writer. And I think she knows that about herself.”

Obviously, I was wrong about her writing a book, but I don’t think I was wrong about her not being a writer, at least not in the lofty, traditional sense. In “Becoming,” Obama doesn’t write so much as talks to her readers as she always has to a nation that fell in love with her — in clear, frank and forthcoming terms, as a black woman in America with a bridge called her back and a wisdom to lay bare.

“My job, I realized, was to be myself, to speak as myself.” It was her first solo campaign speech, given in 2007 in Des Moines to support then-Sen. Barack Obama’s bid for president. “And so I did.” That speech was particularly memorable not just because she spoke from the heart, but because she had found her agency in that particular role as more than just a politician’s wife, and you could feel it. “The more I told my story, the more my voice settled into itself.” It’s a pivotal moment both then, in real time, but also in the book. “I liked my story. I was comfortable telling it.”

It took some doing to get there, though. Split up into three parts — “Becoming Me,” “Becoming Us,” and “Becoming More” — the book is a fairly linear account that spans from her well-documented roots on the black working-class South Side of Chicago, to meeting Barack, and then moving to the White House as the country’s first black First Family.

 “I spent much of my childhood listening to the sound of striving,” her story begins. “The sound of people trying … became the soundtrack of our life. Michelle Robinson grew up with her close-knit family in a one-bedroom, second-floor apartment in a brick bungalow owned by her great aunt, Robbie, who lived on the first floor with her husband, Terry, and taught piano lessons to neighborhood children with an audibly exacting tenor. The sound of Robbie’s sharp instruction and the piano keys plinking on the floor below formed a constant aural backdrop, one that resonated with young Michelle as a guiding principle. For black folks, striving is in the memory bones — an emotional elegy that withers and wanes, but that is always there, passed down from one generation to the next. And as loved as she felt by her sensible and hardworking parents, as well as her adoring older brother, for Michelle, to strive was to breathe, to be validated.

Even after she arrived at Princeton University — despite her high school guidance counselor’s suggestion that she might not be “Princeton material” — Michelle’s hustle was all-consuming. “Beneath my laid-back college-kid demeanor, I lived like a half-closeted CEO, quietly but unswervingly focused on achievement, bent on checking every box. My to-do list lived in my head and went with me everywhere. I assessed my goals, analyzed my outcomes, counted my wins. If there was a challenge to vault, I’d vault it. One proving ground only opened onto the next. Such is the life of a girl who can’t stop wondering, Am I good enough?”

Today it’s perhaps hard to imagine Michelle Obama, our “Turn up for what?” fearless FLOTUS, as wondering whether or not she is good enough, but it’s also undisguised evidence that she was once a black girl in America. And that is why black girls and women all over the world were immediately drawn to her — because she never forgot that little black girl she once was, both in playful and serious terms, and we saw ourselves reflected in her. Not just in an aspirational way, in a lived way.

That said, we probably could have seen ourselves reflected in about 100 fewer pages. A few parts of “Becoming” read as overly detail-oriented and impersonal (“having been dispatched to help prepare a case … my life was wholly dedicated to sitting in that room … opening file boxes that had been shipped from the company headquarters, and reviewing the thousands of pages inside”) — maybe a practiced instinct from her days of writing legal memos.

But she more than makes up for any moments of remove as soon as Barack comes onto the scene, because she clearly was not ready for this freewheeling guy from Hawaii with a funny name, who immediately brings out the best in her. Michelle’s sense of humor blooms (of Barack’s self-certainty, she writes: “All this inborn confidence was admirable, of course, but honestly, try living with it.”), and her love for Barack is palpable: “As soon as I allowed myself to feel anything for Barack, the feelings came rushing — a toppling blast of lust, gratitude, fulfillment, wonder.” Well OK then, girl.

Much has been made of the passage in the book where Michelle shares her struggles to get pregnant, the suffering of a miscarriage, and the in vitro fertilization treatment that brought her Malia and Sasha, which is absolutely remarkable and important in terms of a broader conversation about black women’s bodies and reproductive health. But I was actually more struck by the smaller moments in which Michelle shows an equal, if not obvious, kind of vulnerability. A friend calls to say she has just come from visiting with their cancer-stricken mutual friend, and tells Michelle she combed out their friend’s hair. “That Suzanne needed to have her hair combed should have told me everything, but I’d walled myself off from the truth.” When an adult black woman needs to have her hair combed through in the same ritualistic manner as when she was a child between the knees of her mother, something is amiss. But even more, it signals a kind of intimacy known only to family and close friends.

After their engagement, Michelle and Barack travel to Kenya to meet Barack’s extended family on his father’s side. When Michelle is first introduced to Barack’s grandmother, Granny Sarah asks Michelle, “Which one of your parents is white?” Michelle, in Africa, a place that gave her “a hard-to-explain feeling of sadness,” writes, “I laughed and explained … that I was black through and through, basically as black as we come in America.” There’s so much in that statement, when she is standing alone in her pride, her heritage, her appeal, her earned sense of self, her unequivocal blackness.

In the last part of the book, it’s easy to get effectively as swept up as Michelle does in the whirlwind of the presidential campaign, their uprooting from Chicago and move to the White House, settling their girls in schools and worrying about their safety, wrestling with the fact that “[e]verything was big and everything was relevant.”

And everything, surely, was evolving. Becoming. What is revelatory is that by the end of “Becoming,” who Michelle Obama was before she was FLOTUS is a woman you feel glad and grateful to have back in our midst — the striver, an astonishing mix of resilience, joy, pragmatism and grace.

Carroll, one of the Times’ Critics at Large, is editor of special projects at WNYC. Her memoir “Surviving the White Gaze” is coming from Simon & Schuster in 2020.

Dec. 6, 2018

Isabel Wilkerson on Michelle Obama’s ‘Becoming’ and the Great Migration

The former first lady’s long-awaited new memoir recounts with insight, candor and wit her family’s trajectory from the Jim Crow South to Chicago’s South Side and her own improbable journey from there to the White House.

By Isabel Wilkerson

  ·  BECOMING
By Michelle Obama
Illustrated. 426 pp. Crown. $32.50.

Back in the ancestral homeland of Michelle Obama, the architects of Jim Crow took great pains to set down the boundaries and define the roles of anyone living in the pre-modern South. Signs directed people to where they could sit, stand, get a sip of water. They reinforced the social order of an American hierarchy — how people were seen, what they were called, what they had been before the Republic was founded and what was presumed they could never be.

The signs reminded every inhabitant of the very different place of black women and white women in the hierarchy. There were restrooms for “white ladies” and often, conversely, restrooms for “colored women.” Black women were rarely granted the honorific Miss or Mrs., but were addressed by their first name, or simply as “gal” or “auntie” or worse. This so openly demeaned them that many black women, long after they had left the South, refused to answer if called by their first name.

A mother and father in 1970s Texas named their newborn “Miss” so that white people would have no choice but to address their daughter by that title. To the founding fathers and the enforcers of Jim Crow, and to their silent partners in the North, black women were meant for the field or the kitchen, or for use as they saw fit. They were, by definition, not ladies. The very idea of a black woman as first lady of the land, well, that would have been unthinkable. 

It was with the weight of this history in her bones that Michelle Obama walked onto the world stage as the first black woman to become first lady when her husband, Barack Obama, was sworn in as president in January 2009. Her memoir, “Becoming,” is a long-awaited account by a woman others have tried to decode for the last decade. The book was almost as closely guarded as the nuclear codes, and, as soon as the embargo was lifted, journalists tore into it for newsworthy bombshells of score-settling palace intrigue.

There were few, aside from her blunt words for her husband’s successor, Donald Trump, whose birther attacks — “his loud and reckless innuendos,” she calls them — had put her family at risk. “And for this, I’d never forgive him,” she writes. But those focused on sound bites will be missing the larger meaning of a serious work of candid reflection by a singular figure of early-21st-century America.

While many of the 45 first ladies who preceded her were the daughters of wealthy merchants (Edith Roosevelt), bankers (Ida McKinley), judges (Helen Taft) and slaveholders (Martha Washington and Julia Grant), Michelle Obama was a descendant of the very caste of people that some of the previous first ladies had owned. She knew, as she held the Lincoln Bible at her husband’s swearing-in that frigid day in Washington, that she would be held to a different standard from that moment forward, her every gesture scrutinized. “If there was a presumed grace assigned to my white predecessors,” she writes, “I knew it was not likely to be the same for me. … My grace would need to be earned.” She adds, “I stood at the foot of the mountain, knowing I’d need to climb my way into favor.”

In finally telling her story, Obama is doing several things with this book. She is taking the country by the hand on an intimate tour of everyday African-American life and ambition, while recounting her rise from modest origins to the closest this country has to nobility. She’s meditating on the tensions women face in a world that speaks of gender equality but in which women still bear the greater burdens of balancing career and family, even with a forward-thinking husband like Barack Obama. And she is reminding readers that African-Americans, like any other group, experience the heartbreak of infertility, as she describes the challenges she and her husband confronted in order to become parents. The book is a Chicago coming-of-age story; a love story of a pair of opposites; and a political saga by a woman who was skeptical, if not outright disdainful, of politics, who tried to apply the brakes where she could, and who ultimately transcended her worries to become one of the most popular first ladies in history. As a measure of the public’s adoration, her memoir sold more than 1.4 million copies in its first week and quickly became the best-selling book of the year.

 “Becoming” is refined and forthright, gracefully written and at times laugh-out-loud funny, with a humbler tone and less name-dropping than might be expected of one who is on chatting terms with the queen of England. One of Obama’s strengths is her ability to look back not from the high perch of celebrity or with the inevitability of hindsight but with the anxieties of the uncertain. She writes in the moment, as she saw and felt and discovered — as events were occurring. Even though we all know that she and Barack Obama end up getting married and having two kids, that he wins the 2008 Iowa caucuses and that they make it to the White House, she never takes any of it for granted. On the contrary, her tone is one of wonderment as to how this all happened. This gives the book’s first half, in particular, covering the part of her life we know least about, an unexpected suspense. She writes in the confident cadence we have come to recognize from her campaign speeches, looking back at her youth from within the aspiring heart of a daughter of South Side Chicago. Over and over, from high school to the White House, she asks, “Am I good enough?”

She was born Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, in January 1964, during the term of Lady Bird Johnson. Her family lived on the second floor of a brick bungalow owned by a prim great-aunt and her fastidious husband. Her father, Fraser Robinson III, worked for the city tending boilers for a water filtration plant, and her mother, Marian Shields Robinson, stayed at home looking after Michelle and her older brother, Craig. The Shields and Robinson families had fled the Jim Crow South for Chicago decades before, during the Great Migration of African-Americans out of the South to the North and West. Her ancestors on the Shields side came from Alabama, the Robinsons from South Carolina. Both her grandfathers ran into obstacles in the North. They tried to enter the trades but found that many unions excluded African-Americans, and thus many well-paying jobs were closed to them. They carried a heaviness about them that Michelle didn’t fully understand at the time but which impressed upon her the need to make the most of whatever opportunities came her way.

This was a neighborhood, South Shore, where “people tended to their lawns and kept track of their children,” she writes. Grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles lived within blocks of one another, and her own family doubled up in their one-bedroom apartment with low ceilings and faded carpet. She and her brother had adjoining space in what was intended to be a living room, now divided into two makeshift bedrooms separated by a paneled partition and plastic accordion doors that their grandfather built for them.

Afternoons, piano keys plinked in her great-aunt Robbie’s rear room below — her young students practicing their scales. Aunt Robbie bore the unspoken disappointments of her generation and was an exacting elder in Michelle’s life. Perhaps everyone has had an Aunt Robbie, the one with the porcelain figurines that children were not to touch and the plastic-covered furniture that stuck to bare legs. Michelle would eventually take lessons from Aunt Robbie, too, on the older woman’s old upright with the chipped keys, and find it hard to please her. Yet the aunt’s tenderness broke through in an especially lovely moment at a piano recital, and Michelle would go on to admire Aunt Robbie’s “devotion to rigor.”

One of the great gifts of Obama’s book is her loving and frank bearing-witness to the lived experiences of the black working class, the invisible people who don’t make the evening news and whom not enough of us choose to see. She recreates the dailiness of African-American life — the grass-mowing, bid-whist-playing, double-Dutch-jumping, choir-practicing, waiting-on-the-bus and clock-punching of the ordinary black people who surrounded her growing up. They are the bedrock of a political party that has all too often appeared to take their votes for granted in the party’s seeming wistfulness for their white equivalents (for whom the term “working class” has come to stand in public discourse).

Like many Americans, Obama’s parents made do with what they had and poured their energy into their children, who they hoped would fulfill the families’ as yet unrealized aspirations. The parents bought them a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica and insisted on proper diction. They went on Sunday drives to a richer neighborhood known as Pill Hill (after the number of black doctors living there) in her father’s Buick Electra, looking at houses they could only dream of. Michelle’s father suffered from multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease, and his beloved Buick gave him mobility that his legs alone could not. He never complained and rarely spoke of his condition, she says, but it was a daily consideration. “Our family was not just punctual,” she writes. “We arrived early to everything.” This was in part to allow time for any contingency, given her father’s declining strength, a habit that instilled in her the value of planning and vigilance in one’s life. Her mother kept their cramped apartment in such good order that years later Obama would remember how it smelled: “It’s because of my mother that still to this day I catch the scent of Pine-Sol and automatically feel better about life.”

Upstanding though the Robinsons may have been, they watched as moving vans showed up at the houses of one neighbor after another, and soon the remaining white residents along with the better-off black ones peeled off for the suburbs. Michelle’s family stayed on, Craig attending Catholic school and Michelle qualifying for an elite magnet high school. We follow her as she logs three hours round trip to the school, switching buses at Michigan Avenue in the thick of rush hour, noticing the “men and women in smart outfits — in suits and skirts and clicking heels — carrying their coffee to work with a bustle of self-importance,” and admiring “how determined they looked.”

We see her father’s diminishing health and his uncompromising work ethic. At one point, he used a motorized scooter to get from boiler to boiler. “In 26 years, he hadn’t missed a single shift,” she writes. We feel her heartbreak as she loses her father to the disease he refused to let define him. By then, Obama was a grown woman, grieving and even more appreciative of her parents’ sacrifices for her sake. Her parents had never taken trips to the beach or gone out to dinner. They didn’t own a house until Aunt Robbie bequeathed them hers when Michelle was halfway through college. “We were their investment, me and Craig,” she writes. “Everything went into us.”

Their investment paid off when she got into Princeton, following her big brother there, despite a high school counselor’s dismissive assessment of her chances. She majored in sociology and discovered things she had never heard of back home: Lacrosse. Squash. “‘You row crew?’ What does that even mean?” At Princeton, for the first time in her life as a black student, she was in the minority and she picked up what she calls “the quiet, cruel nuances of not belonging.”

One of the better-known stories from her time in college involves the mother of one of her roommates having her daughter moved to another dorm room after discovering that she had been assigned a black roommate. News reports in 2008 quoted the mother and the daughter describing the incident, but Obama says she was thankfully oblivious. “All I knew at the time is that midway through our freshman year, Cathy moved out of our triple and into a single room,” she writes. “I’m happy to say I had no idea why.”

She grew accustomed to being the only person of color — as well as a young woman surrounded by confident men: “I tried not to feel intimidated when classroom conversation was dominated by male students, which it often was. Hearing them, I realized that they weren’t at all smarter than the rest of us. They were simply emboldened, floating on an ancient tide of superiority, buoyed by the fact that history had never told them anything different.” In college, she writes, “I lived like a half-closeted C.E.O., quietly but unswervingly focused on achievement, bent on checking every box.” She took the LSAT and applied to the best law schools in the country — ultimately landing at Harvard — “driven not just by logic but by some reflexive wish for other people’s approval.”

In time, she would see the problem with caring about what other people think. “Maybe you spend three years in Massachusetts, studying constitutional law and discussing the relative merits of exclusionary vertical agreement in antitrust cases.” Maybe, she writes, you meet “people who seem genuinely called to the bloodless intricacies of the law, but you yourself are not called. Your passion stays low, yet under no circumstances will you underperform.” For now, she was following the path she had assigned herself and, by 25, was a lawyer at Sidley & Austin in Chicago, with an office on the 47th floor, an assistant, a wine subscription service, Armani suits. And, “because you can, you buy yourself a Saab.”

One day, a senior partner asked her to mentor an incoming summer associate who, like her, was black and from Harvard but had an unusual name. Their first meeting did not get off to a promising start. He was late, for one thing. “Any sign of this guy?” she asked her assistant. “Girl, no,” the assistant called back, amused. There had been a lot of advance hype at the firm about Barack Obama, which only made her skeptical. She had seen his picture in the summer staff directory. “I checked out his photo,” she writes. “A less-than-flattering, poorly lit head shot of a guy with a big smile and a whiff of geekiness — and remained unmoved.” As was expected of mentors, she took him to lunch, at which he did something that seemed to foreclose any romantic possibilities. “Appallingly, at the end of lunch, Barack lit a cigarette,” she writes, “which would have been enough to snuff any interest, if I’d had any to begin with.” She had constructed her well-ordered life into a “tight and airless piece of origami” and actually tried to fix him up with several of her friends during happy hour at a downtown bar.

How their office relationship turned into a quick-moving romance that summer, how the box-checking pragmatist warmed to the loose-limbed free spirit, is a delight to read, even though, or perhaps because, we know the outcome. His cerebral intensity was clear from the start. One night, soon after they had become a couple, she woke to find him staring at the ceiling, apparently troubled. She wondered if their new relationship was on his mind, or perhaps the death of his father. “‘Hey, what are you thinking about over there?’ I whispered. He turned to look at me, his smile a little sheepish. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking about income inequality.’”

He struck her as a visionary with no material interests. The first time she visited him in Cambridge during the long-distance phase of their young relationship, he picked her up in a “snub-nosed, banana-yellow Datsun” with a “four-inch hole in the floor” and a tendency to spasm “violently before settling into a loud, sustained juddering.” She knew then that “life with Barack would never be dull,” she writes. “It would be some version of banana yellow and slightly hair-raising.”

After some theoretical disquisitions on the subject of marriage, in which she was the traditionalist and he was, well, not, he surprised her in a sweetly clever scene that could be out of a Hollywood rom-com. They were married by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose sermons would cause them trouble down the line. At the time, she was in a new job working with Valerie Jarrett at City Hall, and he had found what she considered “a noble balance” — practicing law at a public-interest firm and teaching part time at the University of Chicago. (She would soon become executive director at a nonprofit focused on training and mentoring young people for public service.) Then, in 1996, a seat opened up in the Illinois State Senate, and Barack wanted to run for it. Michelle stood her ground as best she could. “But you can see that it stopped absolutely nothing,” she tells us.

Years before, she had trailed along with her father, a Democratic precinct captain, as he made his weekend visits to his South Side constituents. She knew from her high school friendship with a daughter of the Rev. Jesse Jackson that politicians were frequently away from home. And “having grown up black and on the South Side, I had little faith in politics,” she writes. Nor did she have much faith in politicians and “therefore didn’t relish the idea of my husband becoming one,” she continues. “In my heart, I just believed there were better ways for a good person to have an impact.” Yet she relented, not wanting to interfere with his optimism.

Once he was elected to the State Senate and she had taken a position as an associate dean at the University of Chicago, they settled into what she called “a golden time for us,” happy in their marriage and inspired by their work. But they were having trouble getting pregnant, and his spending much of the week in Springfield was not improving their chances, despite his “flooring it up the interstate after a late vote so that he could hit my ovulation window.” They experienced the brief joy of a positive pregnancy test, only to miscarry shortly after. “Seeing women and their children walking happily along a street, I’d feel a pang of longing followed by a bruising wallop of inadequacy,” she says. They turned to in vitro fertilization. It was then, in the midst of a regimen of intrusive examinations and hormonal injections she had to administer to herself in his absence, that she began to resent politics, and to feel “the acute burden of being female.”

They would go on to conceive two daughters, Malia and Sasha, and the resentment was supplanted by joy. But by the time Barack set his sights on the United States Senate, “my distaste for politics was only intensifying,” Michelle writes. As it was, his commutes to and from Springfield had disrupted her vision of family life now that they had the two little girls. She agreed to support his Senate bid on the condition that, if he didn’t win, “really and for real, this would be the end.”

After a series of unlikely events, among them scandals forcing one opponent after another to drop out of the race, Barack won. Michelle, against the advice of a veteran Senate wife, chose not to move their family to Washington. “None of this had been my choice in the first place,” she writes of the stress of being a politician’s wife and managing a household while her husband commuted from the capital when he could. “I didn’t care about the politics per se, but I didn’t want to screw it up.” When Barack began mulling a run for the White House and consulting trusted advisers, “there was one conversation he avoided having,” she writes, “and that was with me. He knew, of course, how I felt.”

This was where their temperaments and upbringing were at odds. She wanted the kind of family stability she had grown up with. “Barack had always had his eyes on some far-off horizon, on his notion of the world as it should be,” she writes. “Just for once, I wanted him to be content with life as it was.” By then, they had been through five campaigns in 11 years. “Each one had put a little dent in my soul and also in our marriage,” she writes. Bottom line: She didn’t want him to run for president, especially not then. They talked about it over and over. She agreed to support him, she writes, because “I loved him and had faith in what he could do.” Speaking in London in early December, she was more candid, saying “deep down” she believed “there’s no way he’s going to win. And we can just sort of get this out of the way. ... That was my whole plan.”

The plan backfired spectacularly, and the pressures would be immense. “We knew that as a black candidate he couldn’t afford any sort of stumble,” she writes. When she began stumping for her husband in Iowa, campaign advisers told her that her mission was to energize volunteers and win over local leaders in talks across the state. But she says she was given “no script, no talking points, no advice.” She had to figure out on her own what her message would be, and decided to be herself in what would be the public introduction of the frank and down-to-earth persona that would land her the nickname “the Closer.” “I didn’t sugarcoat my feelings about politics,” she writes. “The political world was no place for good people,” she told audiences, explaining how she’d been “conflicted about whether Barack should run at all, worried about what the spotlight might do to our family.”

True to her fears, the bigger the two of them got, the greater the scrutiny and criticism. Just before the Wisconsin primary, a 10-second clip from a 40-minute speech in Milwaukee began to circulate online. In it, Michelle opened up about how the outpouring of support for her husband’s campaign had made her feel hopeful, given the country’s divisive history. “For the first time in my adult lifetime,” she said, “I’m really proud of my country.” The condemnation was immediate. People fell over themselves to declare how much they loved their country. “In trying to speak casually,” she writes, “I’d forgotten how weighted each little phrase could be.” She worried that she had sunk her husband’s chances on the eve of a tight race. She called him while he was en route to Texas, and apologized. He shrugged it off. “I know this stuff is rough,” he said. “But it’ll blow over. It always does.”

When he finally won the Democratic nomination, she joined him on stage in Minnesota and greeted him with what she considered “a playful fist bump,” only to see it interpreted on Fox News as “a terrorist fist jab.” A news chyron on the same network called her “Obama’s Baby Mama,” playing to an ugly stereotype about urban black women, “implying an otherness that put me outside even my own marriage.” Over time, people would critique the width of her hips and the color of her nail polish. “I am telling you this stuff hurt,” she writes. As it was, the government had assigned her husband Secret Service protection earlier than any presidential candidate, a full year and a half before he could even become president-elect, owing to the seriousness of the threats against him. She didn’t want to think about the dangers they faced, much less talk about them, though privately she was grateful for the people of all backgrounds who clasped her hands at campaign events and told her, “We’re praying nobody hurts you.”

On Election Day, her husband glanced over at her at the voting booth. “You still trying to make up your mind?” he asked playfully. “Need a little more time?” That night, awaiting the returns, she was more than ready for either outcome. “I still would’ve been content to lose the election and reclaim some version of our old lives,” she writes. But she also felt the country needed his win in order “to stop thinking about something as arbitrary as skin color.”

As a young girl, she had modest aspirations: a family, a dog and “a house that had stairs in it — two floors for one family.” She had grown up in a 900-square-foot attic apartment. Now, at the end of Inauguration Day, she was the first lady, moving into a home with “132 rooms, 35 bathrooms and 28 fireplaces spread out over six floors,” and a staff of ushers, florists, housekeepers, butlers and attendants for her every need. Three military valets oversaw the president’s closet. “You see how neat I am now?” he said to her one day. She had seen, she said, smiling back, “and you get no credit for any of it.”

She consulted with nearly all her living predecessors — Hillary Clinton, Nancy Reagan, Rosalynn Carter and Laura Bush — and she enlisted Craig, by then the men’s basketball coach at Oregon State University, to persuade their mother to come live in the White House with them and help with the girls. Her mother, initially reluctant to move into what felt to her like a museum, agreed to come but declined Secret Service protection, insisted on doing her own laundry and would slip in and out of the White House to go to Filene’s Basement or to lunch with a friend whenever she pleased. Michelle fretted about how her daughters would fare with a Secret Service detail in their classrooms and on play dates (for which the hosts would need to get White House clearance), not to mention their learning to drive or going to the prom. She could no longer move about like a civilian, but she got the one thing she’d wanted all along and hadn’t managed to achieve before they moved into the White House: The family could finally spend more time together because they lived above the office.

Soon she began to recognize that the luxuries accorded her and her daughters were in truth designed to keep the president on task: “Our happiness was tied to his. If our safety was compromised, so too would his ability to think clearly and lead the nation. The White House, one learns, operates for the purpose of the well-being, efficiency and overall power of one person.” Through Michelle Obama, we can imagine what it would be like for someone of ordinary origins, like most Americans of any color, to live in the White House. She responds to the strictures and expectations as we might imagine anyone would. Life was a kind of gilded incarceration. It was beautiful but also a sealed “fortress disguised as a home,” she called it, with walls so thick you couldn’t hear helicopters landing or birds singing and with attendants in nearly every hall. It took ingenuity for her and Malia to make a break for it one rare, heady evening to see the celebrations of the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality, stunned aides and guards trailing nervously behind them.

She had at first felt “overwhelmed by the pace, unworthy of the glamour, anxious about our children and uncertain about my purpose,” she writes. She sought apolitical endeavors, such as cultivating the White House vegetable garden (which originally met resistance from those who manage the White House grounds), and promoting healthy nutrition and exercise for children. She tried to steer clear of West Wing matters, which she saw as her husband’s domain, though it often held sway over hers. The president’s advisers could be so “overly fretful” about her appearance that her staff felt the need to consult with the West Wing when she decided she wanted bangs in her hair.

In the second term, her daughters were passing into adolescence and she was feeling the generational dissonance awaiting all parents, no matter their station. “Don’t you want to come downstairs tonight and hear Paul McCartney?” she asked them. “Mom, please. No,” was the response. When Malia did in fact go with a date to the prom, her parents were unusually calm. After all, they knew that a Secret Service detail “would basically ride the boy’s bumper” there and back and “remain on quiet duty throughout.”

As the book turned to the Obamas’ final years at the White House, I looked forward to Michelle’s insights on one of the biggest running stories of her husband’s second term — that of the high-profile killings of African-American men, women and boys at the hands of the police, often caught on video, and which ignited the Black Lives Matter movement. But it became clear that, while she makes mention of these things, she has chosen to focus on events that touched her personally, such as the 2013 shooting of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old high school student from Michelle’s hometown.

Throughout their time in the White House, she writes, as the opposition party seemed “devoted to Barack’s failure above all else,” she often felt crushed and infuriated: “I felt emotions that perhaps Barack couldn’t afford to feel.” Then, in June 2015, after a white supremacist killed nine black parishioners at a historic church in Charleston, she watched her husband lead mourners in a poignant rendition of “Amazing Grace.” Voices swelling around her in response to yet another tragedy, she thought about the paradox of their ascension: “For more than six years now, Barack and I had lived with the awareness that we ourselves were a provocation.”

It was during the presidential campaign of 2016 that she famously said, “When they go low, we go high.” But for the first time in years, neither she nor her husband had a role to play on election night: “The moment ahead wasn’t ours. It was merely ours to witness.” The numbers rolling in were looking “kind of strange,” her husband told her. She turned in early, not ready to face what that meant. That January, sitting on the inaugural stage at the swearing-in of her husband’s successor, she looked out into the crowd whose composition was so different from those who had gathered for her husband. She looked at the incoming president and registered the chasm in ideals. “I stopped even trying to smile,” she writes. Afterward, the helicopter that would take them from the White House lifted off, and the toll of living so long in fear of any misstep finally hit her.

“When I got on the plane, I think I sobbed for 30 minutes,” she said in a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey. “I think it was just the release of eight years of trying to do everything perfectly. I said to Barack, ‘That was so hard, what we just did, that was so hard.’” There can be few African-Americans, or other marginalized people, who would not nod in recognition at some aspect of her story, including her response to the extreme scrutiny she has faced. But just as important, her family’s devotion and work ethic, the steadfastness and sacrifice, are evidence of how much we all have in common if we could but see it. To this day, when people speak to her mother, Marian Robinson, about the success of her children, coming out of the South Side of Chicago as they did, she is quick to correct them. “They’re not special at all,” Robinson says. “The South Side is filled with kids like that.” And, one might add, so is America.

Isabel Wilkerson, who as the Chicago bureau chief of The Times won a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, is the author of “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.”

Becoming by Michelle Obama review – race, marriage and the ugly side of politics

This revealing memoir offers new insights into her upbringing on the south side of Chicago and the highs and lows of life with Barack Obama

Afua Hirsch

Wed 14 Nov 2018 

Before I tell you how much I love Michelle Obama, let me tell you what I have against her. The former first lady is a woman capable of muddying your stance on things you stood firmly against. First on the list is the very concept of a first lady. Just think about this. For feminists, or anyone frankly with a 21st-century grasp of gender equality, it is a highly troublesome concept. It is a position that involves a woman – no matter the glorious complexity, glittering accomplishment or human drama of her prior life – being shoehorned into a role that is, by definition, about the man to whom she is married.

Her role has never been defined, because, I suspect, to do so would involve the awkward truth – that it’s essentially to make her husband look good. First ladies both feed into, and reflect, our patriarchal values, and so, in this world still so intolerant of female domination, making their husbands look good inevitably involves diminishing themselves, and a decoupling from their own achievements, so as not to outshine the president.

Obama is both the ultimate first lady and has also, which is the second issue, been folded into a narrative of the American dream. This is problematic from a black perspective because, as Malcolm X so pithily expressed it, “I don’t see any American dream. I see an American nightmare.” Obama’s role has been in the American dream of both the future, and the past. It’s often remarked that African Americans are the only Americans who do not have any “good ole days”. Because which period of American history could they be nostalgic for? The state sponsored terror of slavery, and segregation? The long, painful battle for civil rights? Or the enduring economic disadvantage and racism that all three left behind?

But it is precisely amid the dark chaos of these conundrums that we find the irresistible light of Michelle Obama. In Becoming – the first book that tells her story from her own perspective – she reveals that her life is a form of alchemy. Her childhood, growing up on the South Side of Chicago, is recalled with an essentially American kind of wholesomeness: a strong nuclear family of four, sharing a one-bed apartment upstairs while the one below was occupied by her piano teacher great aunt Robbie. Her family worked hard and kept things moving upwards.

If Obama were British, this would be a class tale. She describes herself in her early years as “the striver”. Later, campaigning for the first time with her husband, she recounts the moment she realised that her task is mainly to share this story with “people who despite the difference in skin colour reminded me of my family – postal workers who had bigger dreams just as [her grandfather] Dandy once had; civic-minded piano teachers like Robbie; stay-at-home moms who were active in the PTA like my mother; blue-collar workers who’d do anything for their families, just like my dad. I didn’t need to practice or use notes. I said only what I sincerely felt.”

The writer Ta-Nahesi Coates, present at one of these events, was so taken aback by her account of an “idyllic youth” that he “almost mistook her for white”, comparing her, he writes in his book We Were Eight Years in Power, to “an old stevedore hungering for the long-lost neighbourhood of yore”. “In all my years of watching black public figures,” he said, “I’d never heard one recall such an idyllic youth.”

But this protective love of Obama’s childhood did not shut out the communal sense of suffering and injustice that is, for any observer of America, impossible to avoid. The neighbourhood she grew up in was transformed by white flight, and later “deteriorated under the grind of poverty and gang violence”. An early experience with the police via her beloved brother Craig taught her that “the colour of our skin made us vulnerable.” Persistent experiences of discrimination bred in her family “a basic level of resentment and mistrust”.

Most of Obama’s narrative on race, however, comes courtesy not of her own perspective, but that of the many commentators who weaponised her blackness against her. “The rumours and slanted commentary always carried less than subtle messaging about race, meant to stir up the deepest and ugliest kind of fear within the voting public. Don’t let the black folks take over,” she writes. Obama recalls the “angry black woman” messaging, and the time “a sitting US congressman … made fun of my butt.”

But in its dignified tone, Becoming leaves out far more of this sordid history than it chooses to recall. The New Yorker magazine cover depicting her as an armed Black Panther, for example, the time Fox News ran an onscreen graphic describing her as Barack Obama’s “Baby Mama” – like the earlier “welfare queen” trope, a dog whistle appeal to the idea that, if the black family is at the root of America’s problems, how could one of them possibly be part of its solution? Or the time Fox host Bill O’Reilly said: “I don’t want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there is evidence.”

Incidentally it is O’Reilly’s book that Obama will undoubtedly knock off the top of the bestseller list with Becoming – prompting him to tweet something vaguely gracious about the time she, in spite of his bile towards her, made the effort to seek out and be kind to his daughter at a party. It’s a gesture fully grounded in that most Michelle Obama-esque of doctrines. “When they go low, we go high.”

Becoming is a 400-page expansion of this essential doctrine, without compromising a refreshing level of honestly about what politics really did to her. I have read Barack Obama’s two books so far, and this is like inserting a missing piece of reality into the narrative of his dizzying journey. There are brilliant details from their love story, like the time she tried to set him up with other single women, only to discover he was just “too cerebral” for Happy Hour nights where single people would mingle. There are compelling insights into the sorrow of miscarriage, the loneliness of living with a man whose sense of purpose often left little room for anything else, prompting her to seek couples counselling lest their marriage fall apart.

“Coexisting with Barack’s strong sense of purpose – sleeping in the same bed with it, sitting at the breakfast table with it – was something to which I had to adjust,” she writes. Her candour about home life – the pressure of childcare, bills, debts, work and parenting – are interesting because they are so normal, and because normal is something she has never been allowed to be.

As the academic Ula Y Taylor has written, “the idea that a woman would have a ‘radical’ disposition simply by being a thoughtful working black mother says a lot about Americans perceptions of political spouses, and it helps us to better understand why Michelle Obama is perceived as too strong to be first lady.”

It’s hard to be cynical about either Obama’s strength of character or her authenticity. Her book confirms what was observable about her time in the White House, that while she may have had to shape herself into the mould of what politics requires of a first lady, it was still a first lady-shaped version of something real. Her genuine dislike for politics is hard to avoid, in a book rooted in a high moral ground above insults and mudslinging, the political process itself seems the only thing she allows herself to freely insult.

“The appeal of standing in an open gym or high school auditorium to hear lofty promises and platitudes never made much sense to me,” she writes. “The political world was no place for good people”, nothing but “the ugly red versus blue dynamic”, whose “nastiness” has affected her so personally. In this vein, she attempts to end the stubborn speculation about her own future candidacy. “Because people often ask, I’ll say it here, directly: I have no intention of running for office, ever.”

It’s the one time you feel like you maybe know more about her than she knows herself. A few slights against politics and a one-sentence declaration that she will never run for office doesn’t quite cut it after so many pages of what is, unquestionably, a political book. It’s hard not to recall the time when, asked about the challenges of her husband’s political marathon, she once replied, “this is nothing compared to the history we come from”.

During Barack Obama’s tenure, it was Michelle Obama’s roots in the African American experience, in the history of the south that she understood innately as “knit into me”, that lent him crucial legitimacy among black voters. It resurfaces here, adding the profound warnings of past suffering to the observation that, as she sees the Trumps take over the White House, “the vibrant diversity … was gone, replaced by what felt like a dispiriting uniformity, the kind of overwhelmingly white and male tableau I’d encountered so many times”.

Becoming reads as Obama’s first intervention into this distressing new reality. It definitely does not read like it will be the last.

Michelle Obama book review: Former first lady claims her story in 'Becoming'

By Wendy C. Thomas

November, 12, 2018

Black feminist writer Audre Lorde wrote: “If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” Michelle Obama, the nation’s first black first lady, is too aware of the “angry black woman” trope to use such jarring, if appropriate, verbs of destruction in her new, highly anticipated memoir, “Becoming.” Her version: “If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately described by others.” But the same unrelenting pursuit — exercising her agency to maintain her identity — surfaces again and again.

History will judge Michelle Obama’s success. But as in all things, she trusts in the power of hard work and optimism to rise above, to go high when others go low.

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama’s origins are thoroughly South Side — South Shore, to be specific. In contrast to her future husband’s slightly nomadic, international upbringing, her world was defined by Chicago. Her father, Fraser Robinson, held a steady job at the city’s water treatment plant. Her mother, Marian, stayed at home until Michelle reached high school. The Robinsons were solidly working-class, but they gave her and her brother, Craig, unfailing support, teaching Michelle to read before she attended school and even finding money to send her on a high school trip to Paris.

The Robinsons lived on the second floor of her great-aunt Robbie’s home. Hers was an integrated neighborhood: A black jazz musician lived across the street, a Mexican family next door and white families nearby. Eventually the white families — and then anyone else who could — would move away and the neighborhood would sink into decline.

She attended at Bryn Mawr Elementary and then the city’s first magnet high school, Whitney Young. “My first months at Whitney Young gave me a glimpse of something that had previously been invisible — the apparatus of privilege and connection, what seemed like a network of half-hidden ladders and guide ropes that lay suspended overhead, ready to connect some but not all of us to the sky.”

It was in high school that she met Santita Jackson, the eldest daughter of Jesse Jackson, who would later seek the Democratic nomination for president, and got swept up into rallies and parades. It was an introduction to the seductive possibility that politics could bring change.

The courtship and subsequent marriage of Michelle Robinson and the future President Barack Obama was distilled long ago for political consumption. If their story was woven into a fairy tale, in “Becoming” Michelle Obama turns the fabric over to reveal the rough side. Her account of their path to parenthood is particularly gripping. Hard work and persistence was no match for infertility. Barack Obama was then an Illinois state senator, and initial attempts to procreate were coordinated with the Illinois legislature’s schedule, not ovulation. Michelle was left mostly alone to navigate the process, including giving herself daily injections.

“It was maybe then that I felt a first flicker of resentment involving politics and Barack’s unshakeable commitment to the work,” she writes. “I sensed already that the sacrifices would be more mine than his.”

She was right. It was a pattern that continued throughout their marriage. After Malia and Sasha were born, Michelle forced Barack, who sometimes comes off as selfish, into couples’ counseling. “I feared that the path he’d chosen for himself … would end up steamrolling over our every need.”

Many black women can imagine Michelle Obama as a good girlfriend; her struggles are relatable. It’s comforting to read that she, too, battles insecurity, wondering if she’s good enough.

Obama gets frustrated by her husband’s messiness. She watches HGTV to relax. She ate fast food in her car. She leans on close relationships with her parents, older brother and a squad of strong women mentors and friends. She tries to ignore what others think of her — both a high school counselor’s assessment that she wasn’t Princeton material and political adversaries’ racist and sexist barbs — but she admits it all stings.

And she answers, indirectly, women’s perennial question: Can I have it all — a family, marriage, career? No. Obama’s ambition and career were subsumed by her husband’s. But she made the best of it. What she could control, she would.

Defying tradition, she stayed in Chicago with her daughters instead of following then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama to Washington, D.C. She noticed when descriptions of her erased her career, mentioning only her Ivy League education, and bristled when her life dissolved into her marital status. “At least in some spheres, I was now Mrs. Obama in a way that could feel diminishing, a missus defined by her mister.”

Her reluctance regarding her husband’s political ambitions faded in the bright light of his passion. And while previous first ladies were generous with advice, they could not tell her what she’d need to know: How to be the first black woman in this “strange kind of sidecar to the presidency. ... If there was a presumed grace assigned to my white predecessors, I knew it wasn’t likely to be the same for me.”

Michelle Obama manages to be inspirational, direct and naive about race and gender politics. She wonders after the 2016 election “about what led so many women, in particular, to reject an exceptionally qualified female candidate and instead choose a misogynist as their president.” The misclassification is glaring: More than 90 percent of black women voted for Hillary Clinton, but more than half of white women voted for Trump.

But now, her life in politics is over. No, Michelle Obama will not run for office. The attendant “nastiness” and “tribal segregation” of the political climate soured her to the prospect.

Obama names her husband’s successor fewer than a dozen times over 426 pages, but her loathing is clear. His lies about President Obama’s birthplace were “deliberately meant to stir up the wingnuts and kooks,” she writes. “What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? ... Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos, was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this, I’d never forgive him.”

Again, she saw what was coming. In November 2011, a man who had said Obama “needed to be shot” fired a semi-automatic rifle at the White House. Bullets hit a window, a window frame and the roof.

“Becoming” was finished before a white nationalist killed 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue in October — and before a registered Republican and fan of Hitler allegedly sent pipe bombs to CNN, 12 high-profile Democrats and Trump critics this fall. Yet one can sense Obama’s disappointment, as the pendulum of progressiveness and inclusivity swung to a nation pocked with white nationalists, neo-Nazis, alt-righters who welcomed a bullier-in-chief into the White House.

Working twice as hard, only to receive a double portion of disrespect, Obama chooses to focus on the victories: passage of the Affordable Care Act; nearly five years of job growth; the right of same-sex couples to marry; and the soft power she seized as FLOTUS to launch initiatives to fight childhood obesity, encourage students to get to and stay in college, and support job training and employment for veterans and their spouses.

Obama recounts personal triumphs, particularly raising Malia and Sasha to be independent, to give them as normal a childhood as possible, even as cellphones and social media exposed them to never-before-seen scrutiny.

Perhaps Obama’s most remembered accomplishment may be the White House garden, which by the end was producing 2,000 pounds of food each year and had grown to twice its original size.The garden serves as a metaphor for the Obama administration, for that hopeful moment in time, for optimism as a “form of faith, an antidote to fear,” despite years of brutal political attacks. And it calls to mind the poem attributed to Greek poet Dinos Christianopoulos:

“What didn’t you do to bury me/ but you forgot that I was a seed.”

Wendi C. Thomas is the editor and publisher of MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic magazine, CityLab and The Undefeated.

Michelle Obama, un viaje trepidante

Amelia Castilla

21 NOV 2018

De un humilde barrio de Chicago a la Casa Blanca. Michelle Obama hace repaso a su trepidante biografía en unas esperadas memorias en las que conviven la combativa estudiante de Derecho, la madre primeriza estresada y la primera dama

MICHELLE OBAMA HA EMPEZADO a procesar lo sucedido desde que su marido, Barack Obama, planteó la posibilidad de aspirar a la presidencia hasta la fría mañana de invierno ( 20 de enero de 2017) en que se subió a una limusina con Melania Trump y la acompañó a la investidura del nuevo presidente de Estados Unidos. “He comparado esos años con la experiencia de ser disparados por un cañón. Con todo lo que pasaba volando a nuestro lado a mil kilómetros por hora, mientras nos limitábamos a agarrarnos como si nos fuera la vida en ello”, cuenta días antes de ponerse a la venta sus esperadas memorias. A los 54 años, siente que su vida sigue progresando. No piensa detenerse. En su nueva casa, en un barrio tranquilo y lujoso de Washington, el tiempo empieza a parecer diferente. Descalza y en pantalón corto, uno de sus atuendos favoritos para moverse cómoda, disfruta de las cosas sencillas. Todavía no puede salir a la calle sin servicio de seguridad, pero gestos cotidianos como prepararse un sándwich de queso y degustarlo sola en el jardín le recuerdan que su nueva vida ya es un hecho. “Por fortuna, en estos dos últimos años he podido respirar más tranquila”, añade. Fue precisamente en su nuevo hogar donde sintió que tenía muchas cosas que contar y decidió ponerse a escribir. En Mi historia (Plaza & Janes), una biografía de más de 500 páginas, ajusta cuentas con el pasado, desde que era una estudiante negra en una elegante universidad cuyo alumnado era mayoritariamente blanco hasta su vida como madre primeriza estresada y sus ocho años como primera dama de Estados Unidos.

Mi historia se puso a la venta el martes pasado en 34 países. La biografía de Michelle Obama, por la que Penguin Random House ha pagado una cifra superior a los 60 millones de dólares, tendrá una segunda parte, firmada por su marido, y se publicará el próximo año. Markus Dohle, CEO del grupo editorial, que negoció personalmente la compra de derechos, bromeaba con los empleados días antes del anuncio asegurando que se habían quedado con los bolsillos vacíos. Y es que la ex pareja presidencial se ha convertido en un icono que genera mucho dinero. Perciben cantidades de seis dígitos por participar en conferencias y debates, y hace unos meses firmaron en exclusiva un contrato con Netflix para producir documentales y películas. Todas las miradas se centran ahora en Michelle. Sus campañas en defensa de una dieta sana para mejorar la salud infantil han contribuido a que 45 millones de niños almuercen de manera saludable en los colegios y 11 millones realicen alguna actividad física; son solo una muestra de lo que sería capaz de gestionar si tuviera poder. Las encuestas en su país la sitúan como uno de los personajes públicos más valorados, pero la señora Obama despeja dudas en su biografía. No, no piensa dedicarse a la política: “No tengo la menor intención de presentarme a un cargo público. Nunca”. Claro que, en ocasiones, negativas tan rotundas tienden a significar lo contrario. Como ciudadana y miembro del Partido Demócrata, le preocupa la deriva que vive Estados Unidos. No soporta la crispación política que conduce a una “división tribal entre rojos y azules”, ni la idea de que debemos elegir un bando y apoyarlo hasta el final.

Enfrascada en la promoción del libro, de la que se ha excluido su presencia en España, la autora contestó a varias preguntas vía correo electrónico, eludiendo cualquier asunto mínimamente político o temas que quedan fuera del contenido del libro. De antemano se especificó que no hablaría de Donald Trump, aunque en las memorías lo describe como el típico “abusón” o “la materialización más fea del poder”. Acostumbrada desde niña a enfrentarse a esa máxima ancestral de la comunidad negra que sostiene que debes ser el doble de bueno para llegar la mitad de lejos, Michelle mantiene la esperanza frente a la adversidad política. Personalmente confía en la fuerza de las instituciones y anima a votar masivamente como elemento imprescindible para apoyar el cambio.

Michelle Robinson (Chicago, 1964) creció en el ­South Side, un barrio humilde de mayoría negra. Se define como ambiciosa, testaruda, alguien que puede llegar a levantar la voz cuando se enfada o incluso, como reconoce que hacía de niña con su hermano, usar los puños si hace falta. Claro que el tiempo y la experiencia han aplacado su carácter, aunque ante los problemas sigue buscando respuestas concretas. Creció y se educó en lo que denomina el “sonido del esfuerzo” que le inculcó su tía Robbie, su exigente profesora de piano con la que compartían la vivienda, cada familia en una planta. “Robbie fue un ejemplo importante para mí. En mis memorias cuento que a veces discutíamos. Cuando empecé con las clases de piano, yo tenía cuatro o cinco años, pero, aunque era pequeña, no me acababa de gustar su método de enseñanza. Tenía mis propias ideas sobre cómo aprender las escalas y los acordes, saltaba de una parte del libro a otra y aprendía canciones de oído. Pero Robbie estaba empeñada en que yo debía seguir su camino, así que, cada pocos días, la tozuda preescolar y su igualmente obstinada maestra dirimían sus diferencias ante el piano de la segunda”. Con el paso del tiempo, descubrió que aquella experiencia fue el periodo en el que empezó a desarrollar su propia voz, una fase que formaba parte de un proceso que considera absolutamente decisivo para la persona que ha llegado a ser: “En las décadas que siguieron tuve que aprender a utilizar mi voz en multitud de escenarios, desde el barrio con sus matones hasta las aulas universitarias, pasando por las salas de reuniones de los bufetes de abogados y las plazas y estadios del mundo. Y me he dado cuenta de lo afortunada que he sido de tener unos padres y unos profesores, personas como Robbie, que no me hicieron callar. Por el contrario, me permitieron desarrollar y utilizar mi voz. Espero que los padres fomenten esos valores en sus propios hijos. Y espero que nadie, especialmente las jóvenes, tenga jamás miedo de hacer oír su voz”.

Pertenecer a la minoría afroamericana marcó su vida, pero aprendió a vivir con ello. Desde niña sintió que siempre necesitaba ganar batallas: “Os vais a enterar” se convirtió en algo así como su lema frente a la adversidad. Fue una alumna de sobresalientes. En los colegios por los que pasó formó parte de los grupos de niños que eran separados del resto para conseguir un mayor rendimiento, una idea que reconoce como “controvertida”. Y se endeudó como muchos jóvenes americanos para poder pagarse la carrera de abogada en Harvard. “Con el tiempo he llegado a valorar que mi educación no tuvo nada de mágico. Yo no estaba dotada de ningún genio o tesoro particular. No era un prodigio de ninguna clase. Sencillamente, me esforcé mucho por dar lo mejor de mí misma. Como le gusta decir a mi madre, en mi ciudad hay miles de Michelles por todas partes, niñas y niños con talento, diligentes, honestos y genuinos que se preocupan por las cosas. También ellos podrían haber sido presidentes, presidentas, primeras damas o primeros caballeros. Mi madre no lo dice como una gracia ni por gentileza. Mi vida ha dado muchas vueltas. Terminé siendo la primera dama de EE UU, de modo que mi historia se hizo pública, pero en mi barrio hay más de un niño cuya historia nos haría sentirnos orgullosos a todos”, aclara.

Su biografía, narrada de manera cronológica, no escatima detalles íntimos. Cuando su sueño parecía haberse realizado, tras graduarse en Harvard y fichar por un flamante bufete de abogados en la planta 47 de un edificio de Chicago, donde ejerció un tiempo como jefa de su futuro esposo y percibía un buen salario, decidió dejar el empleo movida por su vocación de servicio público. Para entonces ya se había enamorado del brillante abogado con quien compartía despacho. Marian, su madre y consejera, solía advertirle ante sus dudas: “Primero gana dinero y después preocúpate por tu felicidad”. Y siguió el consejo al pie de la letra. Empezó a trabajar como directora de una organización sin ánimo de lucro que ayuda a gente joven a labrarse una carrera profesional y como subdirectora de un hospital mejorando el acceso a la sanidad de las clases más desfavorecidas. Tras contraer matrimonio, vestida de blanco bajo los acordes de Tú y yo (que podemos conquistar el mundo), de Stevie Wonder, empezó a consolidar “un nosotros” tan sólido como eterno.

Sincera y en ocasiones políticamente incorrecta, relata sin complejos, muy al estilo de la narrativa americana, la relación con su marido, desde el primer beso hasta las discusiones cotidianas motivadas por esperas infructuosas a la hora de la cena. “He intentado ser lo más sincera posible. Sé que mucha gente considera que Barack y yo somos un ejemplo de relación por la que vale la pena luchar. Ambos valoramos que lo crean así, pero también quiero asegurarme de que la gente sabe que el matrimonio puede ser extremadamente difícil y extremadamente gratificante, y que en la mayoría de los casos no puedes tener una cosa sin la otra. No quiero que la gente vea fotos de nosotros dos abrazándonos detrás de los atriles o sonriendo juntos bajo el brillo de los focos y piense que lo hemos conseguido con solo chasquear los dedos. Yo lo comparo con las redes sociales. Lo que vemos en las noticias que publicamos son los momentos especiales de la vida de otras personas, las fiestas, las vacaciones y los besos desde la cesta de un globo aerostático, pero no vemos las dificultades, las largas conversaciones, ni el esfuerzo que cuesta avanzar para entenderse mutuamente. Y ahí, precisamente, toma forma cualquier vínculo verdadero entre dos personas. Pensé que era mi deber, sobre todo ante las parejas jóvenes, contar nuestra historia con más detalle”.

Desde que se conocieron, Barack Obama destacaba por su brillantez. Las empresas se lo rifaban, pero él parecía más interesado por los derechos civiles y la organización comunitaria. Fue profesor de Derecho en la Universidad de Chicago y director de la revista Harvard Law Review antes de salir elegido como senador del Partido Demócrata en el Estado de Illinois. La vida de la pareja se ha regido por el mantra de que la igualdad es importante, pero todo el peso de la maternidad cayó sobre ella, una situación que se agravó cuando su marido entró de lleno en política, lo que le obligó a retroceder en sus ambiciones y convertirse en la mujer de un político con toda la carga de soledad que conlleva. A finales de 2006, cuando llegó el momento cumbre y surgió la posibilidad de optar a la presidencia, hubo escenas de crispación y lágrimas por la repercusión que tendría la decisión sobre su familia. Él quería presentarse y ella no quería que lo hiciera, pero la decisión final quedaba en manos de ella. Ganó la política. La familia tuvo que mudarse de Chicago a Washington y se convirtió en primera dama, un trabajo que oficialmente no lo es, pero que acabó brindándole una plataforma de conocimiento y contactos que nunca había imaginado. “He conocido a personas que considero superficiales e hipócritas, y a otras (profesores, cónyuges de militares…) cuyo espíritu es tan profundo y fuerte que resulta asombroso”.

Durante dos mandatos presidenciales fue aupada como la mujer más poderosa del mundo o apeada a la categoría de mujer negra malhumorada. Ha posado sonriente con personas que insultan a su marido pero que aun así deseaban un recuerdo para la chimenea. Durante ocho años vivió en la Casa Blanca y su vida fue sometida a una exposición permanente. Dormía en una cama con sábanas italianas; disponía de maquilladora, peluquera y asesora personal sobre cómo vestirse. Viajaba en una caravana de vehículos que ni siquiera paraba en los semáforos, se olvidó de lo que significaba hacer la compra, las comidas las preparaba un equipo de chefs de fama internacional, pero en todo ese delirio trató de no perder la perspectiva. A modo de terapia, optó por mantener a su eterno grupo de amigas, madres de Chicago a las que se refiere como un puerto seguro de sabiduría femenina. “Cuando nos mudamos a la Casa Blanca, sabía que seguiría necesitando apoyarme en ellas. Fueron mi ancla. Solía invitarlas, en especial si necesitaba un soplo de aire fresco, y por eso acudían a actos públicos como las carreras de huevos de Pascua o las fiestas de Navidad. Venían cuando yo necesitaba hablar. A veces me sentaba y conversaba con un amigo durante horas, desde la comida hasta la cena. No pasábamos el tiempo hablando de política ni de lo que pasaba en el mundo, sino que solíamos charlar sobre nuestras familias, nuestros altibajos y esperanzas para el futuro, que eran los temas que siempre nos habían conectado. A veces me comentaban lo extraño que les resultaba estar en aquella casa tan bonita y con tanta historia y conversar como si estuviésemos en nuestra cocina de Chicago un sábado por la tarde”.

Gracias a las 500 páginas de libro sabemos, entre otras cosas, que es una fanática del orden, que odia el tabaco, que sus niñas nacieron por fecundación in vitro o cómo era la cama que compartía con Barack cuando eran novios. “No creo que a nadie le beneficie retocar su historia; ni a mí, ni a él, ni a ninguna de las personas a las que me gustaría llegar con mi autobiografía. No creo que nadie deba avergonzarse de su vida, en particular quienes han tenido que luchar. Todos pasamos por crisis de confianza. Los problemas de fertilidad son de lo más corriente. Fracasar, dudar de uno mismo, sentirse vulnerable son experiencias que nos hacen humanos. Al reflexionar, descubrí que la esencia de mi historia, el centro de mi proceso de llegar a ser, estaba definida por mis momentos de lucha. Esa fue la razón por la que decidí contar mi vida”.

A lo largo de su biografía deja muy clara la separación familiar de poderes que se instaló durante los ocho años que vivió en la Casa Blanca, tanto que casi parece que se enteró de la muerte de Bin Laden al mismo tiempo que el resto del mundo. Obama encerrado en su despacho, reunido, repasando informes…, y ella ocupada con su huerto en los jardines de la Casa Blanca, uno de sus proyectos estrella, y, como siempre, vigilando la educación de sus hijas, Malia y Sasha, tratando de evitar que el hecho de que su padre fuera el presidente de EE UU no interfiriera demasiado en su relación con los jóvenes de su edad.

A lo largo de su vida, Marian, su madre, a la que se llevó a vivir con ellos a la Casa Blanca, ha sido el puntal en el que se ha apoyado cada vez que necesitaba ausentarse para acompañar al presidente en viajes oficiales, o visitar a familias que acababan de perder todo lo que tenían arrasadas por un huracán, o acompañar en un funeral a los padres de los niños asesinados tras un tiroteo en un instituto. Solo su madre parecía librarse de los rigores que imponía el servicio de seguridad. Le gustaba sentarse a charlar con los empleados de la residencia presidencial y salir a pasear sin la presión de la popularidad. Los Obama fueron la familia presidencial número 44. En esa época, cuando miraba las fotos de las personas que habían consagrado su vida a la política (los Clinton, los Gore, los Bush), se preguntaba si vivían felices y eran auténticas sus sonrisas. Ahora que su foto ocupa ese mismo lugar de sus predecesores, ha aprendido a relativizar las cosas. Ya no analiza minuciosamente sus conjuntos ni se siente juzgada a todas horas. Ella y su marido han dejado de llamarse Potus y Flotus (nombre en clave para los agentes de seguridad). “Crecí como una niña de clase trabajadora, criada por unos buenos padres. Esperaba que mi familia y su comunidad se sintiesen orgullosas de mí. Muchas veces llegué a ser la única mujer negra de la reunión, y me convertí en una persona que se esforzaba por definirse a sí misma al tiempo que compaginaba su matrimonio con su carrera profesional y sus dos niñas. Me encontré en situaciones que jamás había imaginado, abriéndome camino por el mundo a través de muchísimas pruebas y errores”, añade. “Mientras estuve en la Casa Blanca, nunca olvidé nada de esto, y creo que fue lo que me ayudó a aguantar muchos de los carros y carretas que se cruzaron en mi camino. Cuando toda tu vida es un escaparate, tu manera de hablar y tu aspecto, tu forma de criar a tus hijos y de comportarte, tienes que tener algo en donde refugiarte. Mi pasado me sirvió como refugio”.

Anécdotas y personajes se suceden a lo largo de las páginas, como el momento en que conoció a su admirado Nelson Mandela, o un apunte sobre su viaje a Europa y su encuentro con la reina Isabel II, a la que abrazó cariñosamente, rompiendo años de protocolo, mientras charlaban sobre las ganas que tenían ambas de quitarse los zapatos. Es difícil acotar toda una vida en un volumen. Cada cual echará de menos detalles nuevos. En sus memorias no aborda muchas de las decisiones políticas de su marido, pero tampoco dice nada al respecto, por ejemplo, del viaje a Johannesburgo para el entierro del presidente del país en el que coincidieron con presidentes de otros Gobiernos. Viendo la serie de fotografías de ese día, parece que no le gustó mucho el selfie que su marido se hizo con el primer ministro británico David Cameron y la primera ministra danesa Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

Michelle Obama siempre ha pensado que tenía un plan. ¿Cuál es el suyo ahora?

“Me estoy tomando un tiempo para pensarlo. Sabía que, cuando abandonásemos la Casa Blanca, iba a necesitar relajarme y procesar lo que acabábamos de vivir. En cuanto a lo que vendrá a continuación, todavía no he hecho muchos planes concretos. Por supuesto, Barack y yo estamos ligados al servicio público. Forma parte de nuestro ADN. En consecuencia, dedicaremos mucho tiempo a trabajar para mejorar la vida de las personas dentro y fuera de Estados Unidos. A través de nuestra labor con la Fundación Obama procuramos motivar a una nueva generación de líderes de todo el mundo, y en octubre presenté una iniciativa llamada Global Girls Alliance [Alianza Mundial de Chicas] dirigida a empoderar a las adolescentes a través de la educación. En este momento hay en el mundo 98 millones de chicas adolescentes sin escolarizar. Son jóvenes brillantes y trabajadoras con un potencial infinito. Solo necesitan la oportunidad de recibir educación, de manera que la promesa que encierran pueda hacerse realidad. Es un tema que me apasiona y me ilusiona dedicarme a él”. De momento, se siente feliz con su biografía