Michelle Obama’s Right to Get Angry

Does Michelle Obama have the right to get irritated? Frustrated? Angry? A new book about the American presidential couple claims that, when pressed, the first lady occasionally shows her temper, sparking a debate on modern stereotypes about women, particularly black women.

New York Times journalist Jodi Kantor’s book “The Obamas” came out in January, despite Mr. and Mrs. Obama’s refusal to collaborate. The book depicts Michelle as a woman who has tried to resist the typical role and functions of the first lady. According to Kantor, Michelle toyed with the idea of staying in Chicago during the first months of her husband’s presidency, while her children finished out their school year. Once at the White House, she tried to find her place, knowing — or believing — that the whole world was watching her.

Mrs. Obama has consistently pursued her ideas and projects. She rebelled against those who advised her to remain on the sidelines and let her husband be the star. She butted heads with Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff who said her health reform ideas were too difficult to impose. Kantor says she inspires a certain respectful fear with her wit and spirit. Once the president, “feeling guilty about all she has give up for his career,” tried to appease his wife with a fancy dinner and a show in New York City, claims Kantor.

“ANGRY BLACK WOMAN”

With all the stress of her position, this portrait of the first lady could almost be considered flattering. But Michelle Obama instead put herself on the defensive, reproaching the press for focusing on conflict and putting her in the role of the dragon lady. “That’s been an image people have tried to paint of me since the day Barack announced [his candidacy],” she confided to the television station CBS, “that I’m some angry black woman.”

“Angry black woman”; there it is. The well-known caricature of temperamental black women. “Yet again, the first lady is being characterized as the thing women can never be: angry,” concluded editorialist Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post. This time, Michelle Obama anticipated the critique, which shows how pervasive the cliché has become. During the electoral campaign, she had to face conservative critiques, which called her patriotic pride into question.

The term “angry black woman” sparked a discussion about the situation of black women while the Obamas have been in the White House. They are hopeful and transformed, but most are still single (about 70 percent). Melissa Harris-Perry, professor of political science at Tulane University in New Orleans, La., is the author of “Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America” (Yale University Press, 2011), in which she claims that representations of black women are still very stilted: A black woman is strong, and either lustful or angry. Society does not take them seriously, and as a result, they often do not take themselves seriously. A majority of black women claim that their career is their priority (68 percent compared to 48 percent of white women), evidence of the weighty past endured by working black women throughout history.

Michelle Obama is a new incarnation of the first lady. Nine out of 10 black women believe that she understands their struggles and shares their values, compared five out of 10 white women. “Every time she flawlessly performs her role as first lady just by being who she is, she shows how extraordinary and exceptional we are. She has black skin and a black build. She has a typical black girl’s hair. She’s there, like a sister,” explains Melissa Harris-Perry. “She helps us imagine a United States that embraces us and who we are.” Anger included.