• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
Milwaukee Times Weekly Newspaper

Milwaukee Times Weekly Newspaper

Journalistic Excellence, Service, Integrity and Objectivity Always

July 16th, 2025
  • Home
  • Services
    • Advertising
  • News
    • Whats Happening?
    • Featured
    • Christian Times
      • Ministries List
    • Health
    • Education
    • Finance & Business
    • Lifestyles
      • Our History
    • Arts and Entertainment
    • Obituaries
  • Editorials
  • Contact Us
  • Digital Editions
  • Tweet
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email

The undeniable aura of the black First Lady…and black women in general

September 20, 2012

First Lady Michelle Obama
First Lady Michelle Obama

The recent speech delivered by First Lady Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention was a true testament to the tenacity and perseverance of black women.

After being dissected by the media and critics for the last four years as being an angry black woman, a militant black woman, and most recently reduced to a modern day slave, the minute Michelle Obama sashayed onto the stage the night of September 10. I automatically thought of the opening stanza to Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise”:

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Michelle Obama did what black women do best. She rose to the occasion.

Even if your TV was on mute during Michelle Obama’s speech, her aura spoke volumes.

Confident, graceful, genuine, and the ultimate defining symbol of a black woman’s aura.

An aura that has historically been mistaken (or manipulated) to be sultry, seductive, promiscuous, aggressive, head-twirling, finger-snapping, loud-mouthed, less-of-a-woman.

Luckily these are nothing more than stereotypes. Yet the negative generalizations that surround black women seem to create a feeding frenzy for modern day reality TV and opens the wound of black women’s beauty being perceived as secondary or non-existent.

You know the same wound that prevents you from the mere thought of showing your natural hair (because it’s “nappy”), the same wound that caused little dark-skin girls (and grown women) to secretly wish they were a tone or two lighter, the same wound that identifies Beyonce as the black standard of beauty.

That wound. That ugly little wound, that can now seek refuge in the era of Michelle Obama.

Aside from her passionate words breathing life into the Democratic Convention and her pink heels to sidestep the “hata’s,” Michelle Obama managed to connect with every woman and conveyed that beyond skin-deep she’s every woman- a mom, a wife, a sister, a champion for health & fitness, and undeniably a “sista.”

Michelle Obama’s aura supersedes the recycled images of black women as hopeless, sex symbols, and desperados.

Positive images create positive perceptions… and perception shapes society’s view. Michelle Obama’s epic speech and well-perceived appearance goes further than political gander, it has forced light into a society cluttered by grim generalizations and unfavorable images of black women.

Long gone are the days where black women were perceived as Aunt Jemimas. Gone are the days where black women don’t fit the standard of beauty. In the age of Michelle Obama black women exemplify beauty.

  • Tweet
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email

Related Articles:

  • Michelle Obama at virtual DNC: Vote 'like our lives depend on it'
    Michelle Obama at virtual DNC: Vote 'like our lives depend on it'
  • obama-black-leaders
    President Obama meets with black leaders
  • woman-waving-smiling-squinting
    October Awareness Month (Week 5)
  • maya-angelou-first-black-woman-united-states-quarter
    Maya Angelou becomes first Black woman to appear on US quarter as US Treasury begins distribution
  • We prefer Black
    We prefer Black
  • hqdefault
    Thank You Notes with First Lady Michelle Obama

Filed Under: Whats Happening? Tagged With: Black Women, Democratic National Convention, First Lady Michelle Obama, Krystal Glass

Primary Sidebar

Latest Issue PDF

Secondary Sidebar

Privacy Policy | Copyright © 2025 · HT Group, LLC. All Rights Reserved.