What Michelle Can Teach Us

Throughout this long, tense election, everyone has focused on the presidential candidates and how they'll change America. Rightly so. But selfishly, I'm more fascinated by Michelle Obama and what she might be able to do, not just for this country, but for me as an African-American woman. As the potential First Lady, she would have the world's attention. And that means that for the first time people will have a chance to get up close and personal with the type of African-American woman they so rarely see.

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Usually, the lives of black women go largely unexamined. The prevailing theory seems to be that we're all hot-tempered single mothers who can't keep a man and, according to CNN's "Black in America," documentary, those of us who aren't street-walking crack addicts are on the verge of dying from AIDS. As writer Rebecca Walker put it on her Facebook page: "CNN should call me next time they really want to show diversity and meet real black women that nobody seems to talk about.''

Like Walker, I too know more than my share of black women who have little in common with the black female images I see in the media. My "sistafriends" are mostly college educated, in healthy, productive relationships and have a major aversion to sassy one-liners. They are teachers, doctors and business owners. Of course, there are those of us who never get the chance to pull it together. And we accept and embrace them—but their stories can't and shouldn't be the only ones told.

Yet pop culture continues to hold a very unevolved view of African-American women. Take HBO's new vampire saga "True Blood." Even in the world of make-believe, black women still can't escape the stereotype of being neck-swirling, eye-rolling, oversexed females raised by our never-married, alcoholic mothers. Where is Claire Huxtable when you need her?

These images have helped define the way all black women are viewed, including Michelle Obama. Before she ever gets the chance to commit to a cause, charity or foundation as First Lady, her most urgent and perhaps most complicated duty may be simply to be herself.

It won't be easy. Since her emergence on the national scene, Obama has been deemed radical, divisive and the adjective that no modern-day black woman can live without: angry. Thankfully, so far, she's endured these demeaning accusations with a smile and shrug—at least in public. But if she does end up in the White House, continuing to dial back her straightforward, vibrant personality isn't the answer. In the same way that Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy and Hillary Clinton each redefined what it meant to be First Lady, Michelle will forge her own path. Not only will she draw the usual criticisms, but she'll be open to some new ones too. I eagerly await the public reaction if Sasha and Malia ever sport cornrows or afro puffs on the South Lawn. And if Michelle decides to champion a program that benefits black youth, will her critics slam her for being too parochial?