SNOWFLAKES WIN AGAIN. https://t.co/KEf6ODep4Z
— Jim Swift (@JSwiftTWS) March 21, 2018
Due to inclement weather conditions in Washington, DC, tonight's @benshapiro lecture at @Georgetown has been canceled. More information about rescheduling the event will be shared when available. pic.twitter.com/A5rtYTemYq
— YAF (@yaf) March 21, 2018
Yeah, after last night’s post, I pretty much hadda. Murphy the Trickster God is mighty and manifold, but ‘subtle’ is not among His primary characteristics.
But to keep it positive, here’s Robin Givhan, in the Washington Post, “Michelle Obama wanted to gain the public’s trust. So she started with a garden”:
… The occasion was the opening evening of Leading Women Defined, a private gathering of supremely accomplished black women organized by Debra Lee and BET aimed at networking and uplift. The former first lady has made a number of appearances since last spring — mostly to audiences on the lucrative convention speaking circuit, with attendees numbering in the thousands. This was a far more intimate crowd, perhaps a hundred women. And as Obama spoke, they responded with knowing nods and understanding smiles and the occasional exhortation of support…
During the wide-ranging conversation, Mrs. Obama, wearing the Gucci map-print dress that was such a hit when she wore it on “Ellen” in 2016, looked back on her 2008 campaign learning curve and how she came to realize that her enthusiasm and passion could easily be turned into angry, scolding sound bites. “I couldn’t count on my husband’s campaign to protect me; I had to protect myself,” she said. “They were using me like I was a candidate and supporting me like I was a spouse.”
“I had to learn how to deliver a message,” she added, noting that often meant not being so passionate and speaking with an ever-present smile. And here the audience murmured understandingly, because they all knew what it means to be called angry when really you’re just emphatic…
Once in the East Wing, she spent a year sussing out the lay of the land, strategizing and readying herself to roll out her “Let’s Move” healthy living initiative. She also grappled with the public’s expectations and with her new role as “the spouse.” With two Ivy League degrees and a résumé that included executive positions in hospital and city management, she was dismayed that people seemed to question whether she could handle being first lady. “You’re shocked that I could do this job?” she said with a wry chuckle…
“The garden was a subversive act,” she said. “It was the carrot. You can’t go in with guns blazing until people trust you.” And there could be no reprimanding. No finger-wagging. Because she knew that her finger-wagging, a black woman’s finger-wagging, would be both amplified and resented.
So she gave herself a bit of advice: Put down your finger and pick up the garden hoe. “What’s more innocent than a garden?” Mrs. Obama said.
She spent a lot of time visiting D.C. public schools during her White House tenure, then followed up by inviting the students she had met to the White House. “The second touch or third touch is when they start believing it’s real,” she said. It’s when kids start to believe that what you’ve said matters and that they, in fact, matter.
Recently, her days have been taken up with her memoir, which will be published in the fall. “Becoming” aims to explore how her ordinary childhood prepared her to do extraordinary things — the power of the ordinary. It’s about her parents, Fraser and Marian Robinson, about growing into her role as first lady and continuing to evolve — and about refusing to place herself last, which is not just an act of self-love but is also a public, civic, political obligation…
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