Black Women in Politics
Michelle Obama Explains What She Wants People To Take From Her Upcoming Book Becoming
By Veronica Wells via https://madamenoire.com
As we’ve reported before, our forever First Lady Michelle Obama is releasing her memoir Becoming this fall.
In promotion of the title, Mrs. Obama spoke at the American Library Association, where she said it’s a “re-humanization effort.”
“For me, a Black woman from a working-class background to have the opportunity to tell her story is interestingly rare. I think that’s why some people ask the question, ‘How did you go from here to there?’ It’s like people think that I’m a unicorn, like I don’t exist, like people like me don’t exist. And I know that there are so many people in this country, in this world who feel like they don’t exist because their stories aren’t told or they think their stories aren’t worthy of being told.
In this country, we’ve gotten to the point where we kind of think that there’s only a handful of legitimate stories that make you a true American. So if you don’t fall into that narrow line, it’s like you don’t belong. But we all belong. And I think my book is just the ordinariness of a very extraordinary story.
And I hope that by telling it, it makes others—not just Black women, not just Black people—but other people, other women people who feel faceless and invisible and voiceless to feel the pride in their story in the way that I feel about mine. The ordinariness of growing up as a working-class kid with two parents who had values. They didn’t have a lot of money. We grew …