I couldn’t stop staring at this tweet I read on Saturday night.
When I read this tweet I had to sit and digest it for a few moments. As a black girl who’d grown up in the 60’s and 70’s, everything “racist” back then was quite overt. You didn’t have to guess what it was. It was blatant and in your face, and no one would argue with you for saying, “hey, that’s racist.” But through the years, as race relations changed, there was a lot of masking as everyone maneuvered around the more subtle, covert racism. Not the use of slurs or the KKK chased me home kind, but the other kind. The kind that no one is going to come out and say “yeah I’m a racist” over. It’s the ignoring you at the sales counter, being passed over for the promotion to someone clearly less qualified, the double-standard for what’s acceptable behavior and appearance in society. Many struggle with being vocal about it because surely, with a Black man holding the highest office in the land, the least of things we are is racist. And as a Black person seeing these “subtleties” with such regularity, you don’t ever want to hear the statement, “oh you make everything about race.” And so there’s this tweet…. Not only does it smack in the face of Michelle Obama, who has been the center of many twisted, racial memes regarding her looks since she emerged on the campaign trail with her husband, but it’s an insult to all previous first ladies! So, THIS first lady is more beautiful than any other first lady that ever was. If it just stated that , I think I’d be fine with it. It’s his preference, and he obviously feels some kind of attractive way about her. But to go on to say that she brings a Sophia Loren (overlook his spelling error) look to the White House, suggests that the less European look of Michelle Obama is unacceptable or in some way not beautiful. This tweet was a completely unnecessary, racial dig at the outgoing First Lady. Why even compare at all? With everything else going on, especially in his camp, why even take the time to put something like that out into the universe? It’s extremely racist and quite shameful. What do I tell my little brown girls? That there’s only one standard of beauty? That the masses will never consider them to be beautiful because they don’t look like Sophia Loren? Sophia Loren is beautiful, and was stunning in her hay day. But so is Diahnn Carroll, Aishwarya Rai and Zhang Ziyi. Beauty is most definitely in the eye of the beholder, but some will only see beauty in their own culture; a “mainstream” or “traditional” beauty, namely European, with keen features, fair skin and “good” hair, never recognizing the look of a woman of color as beautiful. One of the replies to Mr. Gingrich’s tweet was what was most disturbing and I can’t really get into that without having dialogue with the writer.
I would need to know what she deems as “class.” Because what I’ve seen exhibited by our 44th First Lady resembles nothing but the “class” I know as outlined in Webster’s Dictionary; the same amount of class as any other First Lady I’ve witnessed. I would need to know what behavior has Mrs. Obama exhibited that would classify as classless. Now I’m sure this woman does not consider herself a racist, and yet she has made a very covert racist comment. The underlying meaning behind it is, the new First Lady automatically has class because she is white, and the departing First Lady does not because she is Black. I am so glad my mother taught me what class really is.
Again, what do I tell my precious, little brown girls? I’m extremely grateful that I had a mother that told me I was beautiful every single day, so I would never require that affirmation from anyone else. I am fortunate to have had a mother that told me that some people will not like me and will automatically call me ugly because of the color of my skin, but not to believe them. But my heart bleeds for the scores of little girls who don’t have that reinforcing validation in their life that they are also beautiful. Thank goodness they had the example of Michelle Obama on display for the last 8 years, an intelligent, beautiful Black woman, full of class and grace, a resplendent role model for what real beauty is, despite the tweeted ignorance.
