http://www.nytimes.com/...
It might seem an obvious statement, to say Michelle Obama has grace, but let's say it anyway...and celebrate it, as we get to know our First Lady better.
Far from living in the shadow of her Nobel-winning husband, Michelle Obama has a fire burning bright in her...at least as bright as that burning inside our president.
I found this article this morning, and wanted to share. I did not see it diaried elsewhere...
I always noticed Michelle Obama has a look on her face,similar to President Obama. At first, it seems she is scowling, but no. It is a sort of intellectual ferocity, an offshoot of her brilliance. It could also be a sensitivity to light, but beneath the eyes of both these people there burns the fire of their roots.
WASHINGTON — In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. Among the spinning wheels, scythes, tablecloths and cattle that he bequeathed to his far-flung heirs was a 6-year-old slave girl valued soon afterward at $475.
It occurs to me, that as horrible as any sort of slavery is, from this insane institution, we now have a First Lady of the United States. And not just any First Lady...but this one. A wildly smart, beautiful, strong African American woman. She stands, not just behind her husband, but beside him, with him. Her strength inspires him, feeds his own strength.
In his will, she is described simply as the “negro girl Melvinia.” After his death, she was torn away from the people and places she knew and shipped to Georgia. While she was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of time.
I'm white. My roots are Irish, English, and Dutch, I think. But I read this story, and I believe I can see, albeit dimly, where Michelle's fire comes from. What does it feel like, I wonder. How many different emotions and thoughts would go through anyone's mind, let alone the First Lady of the United States?
One's heritage to those of us on the outside looking in, that heritage might seem to be filled with ghosts, their shadows dancing like reflected flames upon the walls of a memory too old to grasp, too mysterious to do anything but honor as part of oneself.
Maybe we are not so dissimilar...