becoming michelle obama essay

Michelle Obama

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Michelle Obama (born Michelle Robinson) grows up on the South Side of Chicago, in a neighborhood slowly being deserted by white and wealthy families. Michelle’s family (which includes her mother , her father , and her older brother Craig ) is a very tight-knit, middle-class family living together in a small apartment upstairs from her great-aunt Robbie and her great-uncle Terry . Despite the fact that Michelle’s family is not very affluent, she has a happy childhood—largely due to the sacrifices and investment of her family and the adults around her. She learns piano from Robbie, her mother teaches her to read early, and she works hard to get a good education.

Michelle’s childhood is not without its hiccups and challenges, however. When she attends a piano recital, she realizes that she has only ever played on one with broken keys. Her father has multiple sclerosis and his body is slowly deteriorating, despite the fact that he insists he feels fine. And once, when Michelle and her family visit some family friends in a predominantly white neighborhood, they return to their car and find that someone has keyed a deep gash into it.

Still, Michelle doesn’t let these challenges get her down. She works hard in school, and despite a guidance counselor’s doubts, she gets into Princeton (following her brother). At the Third World Center at Princeton (a student center for minority students), she finds friends and mentors that make her feel more at home in a place she describes as “extremely white and very male.” One such friend is Suzanne Alele , who is very different from Michelle in that she prioritizes fun over more pragmatic choices.

Michelle graduates magma cum laude with a degree in sociology, but she doesn’t stop to truly consider what makes her passionate. Instead, she dives right into Harvard Law School, knowing that it will give her a degree of validation and certainty about what her future might look like. After law school, she moves back to Chicago to join a firm called Sidley & Austin. A year into working at Sidley, Michelle agrees to mentor an incoming summer associate. She is assigned Barack Obama , an African American man who is three years older than she is and has already gained a reputation as an exceptional law student (after finishing only his first year at Harvard). She and Barack quickly strike up a friendship, and she notes his intense optimism, his diligence, and also his humility. She is also intrigued by the fact that he seems more concerned with a broader “potential for mobility” than his own wealth. They begin to date just before Barack returns to Harvard.

Over the next two years, as Barack finishes up law school, Michelle starts to feel dissatisfied in her job, knowing she’s not passionate about it. Michelle also experiences two losses: the loss of her friend Suzanne to cancer, and the loss of her father. Her father dies of a heart attack just after finally agreeing to make a doctor’s appointment. Michelle is heartbroken; these losses prompt her to understand that life is precious and she cannot waste any more time in a job that she doesn’t enjoy.

Michelle leaves Sidley & Austin to begin what will become a series of jobs. First, she takes a job at city hall. Though she is skeptical of politics, she is excited by the opportunity to actually improve people’s lives. Meanwhile, Barack graduates from law school and moves back to Chicago. On the day he takes the bar exam, he proposes to Michelle, and she says yes. Michelle and Barack marry in the summer of 1992, then take a honeymoon in Northern California. When they return, Bill Clinton wins the presidency and Carol Mosely Braun (the first African American woman to hold a U.S. Senate seat) wins her race as well. Barack has missed a deadline to turn in a book manuscript, and so he decides to hole up in a cabin in Indonesia for six months to work on it while Michelle remains in Chicago.

Michelle and Barack go through a series of changes: she takes a job at a company called Public Allies, which recruits young people and places them in non-for-profit companies in the hopes that they will stay in that line of work. Barack wins a seat in the Illinois Senate; his mother Ann passes away. Michelle then moves on to a job at the University of Chicago, as an associate dean focusing on community relations. This job’s health benefits are particularly important to Michelle, as she and Barack are trying (unsuccessfully) to get pregnant. After months of failed attempts and a miscarriage, Michelle and Barack decide to try in vitro fertilization, and their daughter Malia is born via this method in 1998. Michelle has a difficult time adjusting to the schedule of being a mom and also having a part-time job. Barack, too, experiences some of the sacrifices of parenting: when they are on vacation in Hawaii, Malia falls ill and Barack is forced to miss a crime bill vote because they cannot fly home while she is sick. He loses a Congressional race as a result of missing the vote.

In 2001, Barack and Michelle have another girl, Sasha . Michelle debates whether to go back to work, but she interviews for a job with the University of Chicago Medical Center (again working on community outreach) and brings Sasha along, making her need for a competitive salary as well as a flexible schedule clear. She is hired. Still, even with the ability to afford childcare, Michelle grows frustrated with Barack’s absence—he is away every Monday through Thursday. The two go to couple’s counseling together and identify ways to make their schedules more compatible.

Michelle is happy at her new job, finding ways to improve how the hospital interacts with the local community and how community members seek treatment and get health care. Barack, meanwhile, decides to run for the U.S. Senate. He gets a few lucky breaks along the way: both the Democratic frontrunner and the Republican nominee are embroiled in scandals, and Barack is also selected by presidential nominee John Kerry as the keynote speaker for the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He gives a rousing seventeen-minute speech demonstrating how he is the embodiment of the American dream, calling for hope, progress, and unity among the American people. He becomes an instant sensation and wins his Senate race with 70 percent of the vote.

After two years in the Senate, Barack thinks about running for President. Michelle, who can already see her own identity slipping away in support of Barack’s, is hesitant, but she agrees, knowing that he could help millions of people. Along the campaign trail, Michelle and Barack face extra scrutiny because of their race. People often make racist comments about Barack and Michelle, and Michelle also faces a great deal of sexism when people speak about her “emasculating” Barack by being such a strong woman.

As Barack and Michelle campaign heavily in Iowa, Malia’s pediatrician tells Michelle that Malia’s body mass index is creeping up. Michelle hires a young man named Sam Kass to cook healthy meals for the family, and Michelle starts to become passionate about children’s health and nutrition. She and Sam discuss the possibility of planting a garden at the White House and starting a children’s health initiative if Barack wins.

After months of hard campaigning, Barack wins the Democratic nomination (beating Hillary Clinton ), and ultimately wins the presidency against Republican John McCain . This sets off a whirlwind of changes in the Obamas’ lives. They move to Washington and into the White House; they all receive dedicated Secret Service agents and a heavy security detail; they experience the luxury of a full-time staff catering to their needs.

Barack and Michelle waste no time: Barack is focused on rescuing a failing economy, while Michelle begins a series of initiatives in the White House. The first is planting a garden alongside Sam Kass, which helps spark her children’s health initiative, called Let’s Move! She gets large chain companies to promise to cut the salt, fat, and sugar in the meals they market to children, works with schools to provide healthier lunches, and gets networks like Disney and NBC to run PSAs during kids’ programs about the importance of physical activity.

Michelle knows that all of her decisions will face some kind of backlash: from women who believe she is giving up her education and career to become a domestic housewife; to those who believe she is too involved in policy; to those who simply focus on her fashion. Michelle knows, too, that as the first black First Lady, she is not perceived to have the “presumed grace” of other First Ladies.

Over the course of Barack’s two terms as President, both Michelle and Barack accomplish a lot. Barack is able to pass the Affordable Care Act, his signature domestic achievement. He starts to pull America out of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and American forces are able to kill Osama bin Laden. Barack rescues the economy. Michelle accomplishes a lot of her goals with Let’s Move! and also works on other initiatives like Joining Forces (which focuses on supporting military families), Reach Higher (which helps kids get to and stay in college) and Let Girls Learn (which supports girls’ education worldwide).

Still, there are many instances in which Barack and Michelle aren’t able to achieve all of their goals, and they feel the weight and responsibility of caring for a grieving nation. When a gunman kills twenty first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Connecticut, Barack knows there is no solace to be had, but resolves to fight for common sense gun control laws. Yet despite more and more instances of gun violence and school shootings, Congress does not budge.

As Barack’s presidency draws to a close, the next election kicks up. Michelle helps campaign for Hillary Clinton, particularly because she is disgusted by the racist and misogynistic comments that Donald Trump , the Republican nominee, makes. When Donald Trump eventually wins, Michelle is disheartened, worrying that so much of the progress that has been made in the last eight years might be undone. Still, as her family transitions out of the White House, she retains her optimism. No one person, she says, can reverse all progress.

Michelle concludes by affirming that she is “an ordinary person who found herself on an extraordinary journey.” She reflects on all of the ways that she and the country have changed over her lifetime. Neither she nor the country is perfect, but continuing to grow, and owning one’s own unique story, is what “becoming” ultimately means to her.

Story of a Woman: “Becoming” by Michelle Obama Report (Assessment)

The book Becoming is a memoir written by Michelle Obama in 2018. As a former US First Lady, the author decided to share her personal experience and talk about her roots and the time in the White House. This book is not only a political source of information with several complex terms and ideas, but a story of a woman and a mother in her attempts to find out the voice.

When people are asked about Obama’s policies and impact on American history, people usually choose one of the two sides: like or hate. In other words, it is hard to stay indifferent to the decisions and contributions made by the former President and his wife. Michelle Obama does not overestimate her role in society or compare her contributions with other people. Her goal is to introduce the story of her growth and the tasks she had or wanted to complete. In the “Becoming Me” chapter, Obama focuses on her personal qualities, intentions, and life before meeting Barack Obama, saying about “the sound of people trying” and “the soundtrack to our life” (4). The second chapter, “Becoming Us”, covers the events before the elections in 2008. “Becoming More” is the final chapter about the life of a presidential family and the obligation to meet social expectations and personal demands. Racial and gender issues are properly described in the book.

Becoming may become a source of inspiration and motivation for many young ladies of different races. This story helps to realize that even an ordinary girl who lives in a block, has friends, and respects parents can become a good leader and an example to be followed. This book is a political and personal story with several social, psychological, and economic issues being discovered in a simple and clear language.

Obama, Michelle. Becoming. Penguin Random House, 2018.

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Michelle Obama makes decency great again in her memoir Becoming : EW review

Allow Michelle Obama to clear the air. She doesn't intend to ever run for office. She believes our current president is a "misogynist" whose racist rhetoric put her "family's safety at risk." She fears the impact of the president's recklessness on the country she loves. "I've lain awake at night, fuming over what's come to pass," Obama writes in her memoir, Becoming . "It's been distressing to see how the behavior and the political agenda of the current president have caused many Americans to doubt themselves and to doubt and fear one another."

Becoming arrives like a glass bottle of decency, preserved from a nationwide garbage fire. This is a straightforward, at times rather dry autobiography from a major public figure that stands in remarkably sharp contrast to the state of our discourse — starting with the man in the White House. Yet that contrast isn't derived from Obama's scathing commentary on Donald Trump, which is both brief and somewhat expected, but rather, from the rest — as in, the vast majority — of Becoming , which describes one woman's growth from the South Side of Chicago to First Lady of the United States, through tales of empowerment and overcoming adversity.

What sets Becoming apart is context: Michelle Obama is a black woman, unlike her predecessors, and her book is publishing at a time of unprecedented social division. Thus this latest entrant in the canon of First Lady memoirs — a subgenre themed largely by appeals to unity — can hardly be called apolitical. Every sentence Obama writes makes a statement. This turns out to be especially true because of how little the author deviates from the formula.

The book's first third, "Becoming Me," is dedicated to Obama's upbringing in '60s Chicago and her educational development. It can drag, progressing like so many memoirs of its type. But Obama also constructs episodes from her childhood which vividly, subtly capture the experience of growing up black in America: learning of racism's legacy as she hears her grandfather's stories, being challenged by a peer for "talking like a white girl," occupying spaces like piano recitals and, later, Princeton University, where her blackness — "that everyday drain of being in a deep minority" — clarifies itself.

Obama grew up working-class. Her parents — a stay-at-home mom, and a father whose body she watched decline from multiple-sclerosis until his death at 55 — fully encouraged her ambitions and intellectual curiosity. She recounts memories with an eye toward her political-adjacent future. In remembering how she'd watch her father talk to his neighbors with keen interest and warmth, Obama writes intently to the image of observing a good-hearted politician making the rounds, listening to his constituents' troubles, like he has nowhere else to be. (Remind you of anyone?) She also depicts moments of personal transformation, like when she, still young, physically attacked a moody girl named DeeDee to gain her respect.

But these are the scenes you'd get in the biopic version: meaty, telegraphed, devoid of subtext. The mechanics can outweigh the story here. Obama's strength in Becoming lies in hindsight, her ability to take a step back from a specific anecdote, and not only contextualize but ruminate on it, really consider its power. In these asides, that introspection Obama claims to have had as a kid comes into thrilling evidence — as prose. On one difficult teen experience, she writes, "I look back on the discomfort of that moment and recognize the more universal challenge of squaring who you are with where you come from and where you want to go." One of Becoming 's best passages comes even earlier, in the preface, as Obama details the day of Trump's inauguration: "A hand goes on a Bible; an oath gets repeated. One president's furniture gets carried out while another's comes in. Closets are emptied and refilled in the span of a few hours. Just like that, there are new heads on new pillows — new temperaments, new dreams. And when it ends, when you walk out the door that last time from the world's most famous address, you're left in many ways to find yourself again."

I focus particularly on the book's opening section because it's most reflective of how Obama frames Becoming : as a story of where she came from, where she went, and how she carried herself along the way. The author invests in a sort of quintessentially American narrative, but subverts it by not shying away from the realities of race and gender, and finding opportunities for complex, candid reflection.

The bulk of these opportunities, surely, arrive in "Becoming Us" — the book's second and best section, devoted to her romance with Barack Obama. Again, from a distance, it looks roughly like what we've seen from many a First Lady's public account: the bumps in the road, the difficulty of the spotlight, the durability of their love. But Obama seems determined in Becoming to fully live in the pain, the disappointment, the regret, and the loss she's felt at various times during their relationship. She interrogates it, picks at it, and reveals to readers what's underneath.

Just listen to the words she uses. Obama felt "resentment" toward her husband and his commitment to politics after she suffered a miscarriage and, on a doctor's recommendation, proceeded with IVF treatments to start a family. "Or maybe I was just feeling the acute burden of being female," she continues. "Either way, he was gone and I was here, carrying the responsibility." (Earlier, she draws a hauntingly clear picture: "Now here I was in the bathroom of our apartment, trying, in the name of all that want, to screw up the courage to plunge a syringe into my thigh.") Then there's when she fell for Barack; she describes the feeling as "a toppling blast of lust, gratitude, fulfillment, wonder." Obama embraces passionate language periodically, lending Becoming bursts of authenticity.

Overall, Obama plays to the space she and her husband have occupied in the culture — an idyllic, supportive marital unit — brilliantly. She affirms the public perception, that their relationship is happy, healthy, and loving. But she deconstructs what it took — takes — to get there: couples counseling, flickers of doubt, confusion, sacrifice, even loneliness. In laying that aspect of her life most bare — more than her childhood, more than her own legal career and ambitions — Obama persuasively communicates the primacy of her marriage in her life.

Becoming takes a peculiar turn in its final act, as Obama discusses her time in the White House. She ably conveys the confinement she felt — literalized, perhaps, in the saga that was trying to just sit out on the Truman Balcony — and the toll it took on her family. ("This isn't how families work or how ice cream runs work," she recalls saying after Secret Service intervened in Malia trying to get ice cream with her friends.) But this extends to her writing. It's choppy and guarded and, strangely, a bit defensive as she espouses the value of the causes she took up as First Lady. One senses there are layers yet to be peeled here — that the presidency remains relatively raw for Becoming 's author.

But then Becoming is a rather peculiar read throughout. We're at the end of 2018, a year when the paradigm for Washington memoirs has shifted so dramatically — when a fired FBI Director , a reality TV star , and an award-winning journalist could each top the New York Times best-seller list for the exact same reason: digging up Trump dirt. No one has been able to escape the stench, or if they have, they certainly haven't sold Fire and Fury -level copies . Leave it to Michelle "When they go low, we go high" Obama to meet the challenge.

She is direct, forceful, and condemnatory when speaking about Trump, but in a fashion that doesn't sour or alter her own life story. Her honesty translates. More importantly, her intention translates, to remind her country of what's being lost — what she witnessed during the Obama years, what guided their presidency: "a sense of progress, the comfort of compassion…. A glimmer of the world as it could be." May decency reign again. B

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‘Becoming,’ by Michelle Obama: A pioneering and important work by Allyson Hobbs

Reading Michelle Obama’s memoir, “Becoming,” feels like catching up with an old friend over a lazy afternoon. Parts of her story are familiar, but still, you lean in, eager to hear them again. Other parts are new and come as a surprise. Sometimes her story makes you laugh out loud and shake your head with a gentle knowingness. Some parts are painful to hear. You wince and wish that you could have protected her from an unkind world.

Obama has sworn to tell her readers everything, and she delivers on that promise. From the silly to the surreal, from the momentous to the mundane, from the tragic to the transformative, she tells it all. As she shares her story, you are struck that every word is honest, brave and real.

“Becoming” explains how Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, “girl of the South Side,” came to be. It is a story that is as much about becoming as it is about belonging.

Obama invites us into the upstairs apartment of the red brick bungalow to experience the camaraderie and closeness that she shared with her parents, Marian and Fraser, and her older brother, Craig. She details her drive, her pursuit of achievement, her desire to check the right boxes and to prove that she was, in fact, “Princeton material,” despite the wrongheaded assessment of her high school college counselor. She would wrestle with the stubborn question — Am I good enough? — that lodged itself in her mind for years to come.

As first lady, Obama shattered the mold. Americans had never seen a life like Obama’s. She did not fit the dominant cultural frame that has been mounted around African American women.

“Becoming” shatters the mold, too. Not only because Obama writes in her signature tell-it-like-it-is style, but because she steeps her story in the richness and complexity of African American history that seldom reaches national audiences.

She is the descendant of enslaved people, a grandchild of the Great Migration, and the product of the storied black community on Chicago’s South Side. She is an observer of segregated housing, restrictive covenants and the exodus of white families to Chicago’s northern and western suburbs. She bears witness to the dashed dreams of her great uncle and grandfather who wished for greater educational and employment opportunities at a time when few if any existed for black men.

Through humor and poignant storytelling, Obama captures the joys of growing up in the neighborhood that writers have called “the capital of black America”: the sound of jazz blasting from her grandfather’s house around the corner, the barbecues where countless cousins gathered, and the feeling that, as Obama writes, “everyone was kin.”

There is a universality in the themes that “Becoming” addresses that many readers will recognize and appreciate, but at its heart, this is a story about the complexity of black women’s lives told firsthand by a black woman. This is a pioneering and important work that helps fill a gap in the literature on African American women’s lives.

“Becoming,” by Michelle Obama.

91 pages • 3 hours read

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Michelle makes several references to how growing up in the South Side of Chicago impacted her life. What influence did this upbringing have on Michelle?

At various points in her life, Michelle worries about not being good enough. Why is this such a common feeling, even for smart, successful people like Michelle, and how does she overcome it?

Many people view Barack Obama as an important American figure, and sometimes it’s hard to see him as a typical person. How does Michelle’s account of Barack help to humanize him? Why does she make such an effort to show his normalcy?

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Reading Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” as a Motherhood Memoir

By Emily Lordi

“I don’t want to make somebody else,” Toni Morrison’s character Sula declares, when urged to get married and have kids, “I want to make myself.” Morrison herself might have understood this to be a false dichotomy—she was a single mother of two by the time she published “ Sula ,” her second novel, in 1973—but, in her fiction, she split the individualist impulse to make an artful life and the domestic drive to make a home between two characters: Sula and her best friend, Nel. The tensions between these two desires animate the body of fiction and nonfiction about the private lives of women and mothers. It’s a canon that has been dominated by the accounts of white, straight writers, but it now includes Michelle Obama’s blockbuster memoir, “ Becoming .”

What Obama brings to this genre is, first, a powerful sense of self, which precedes and exceeds her domestic relationships—the book’s three sections are titled “Becoming Me,” “Becoming Us,” “Becoming More”—and, second, a conviction that the roles of wife and mother are themselves undefined. She makes and remakes her relationship to both throughout her adult life. In this, she draws on the literature of black women’s self-making that “Sula” represents. The modern matron saint of that tradition is Zora Neale Hurston, who, in a 1928 essay, describes “ How It Feels to Be Colored Me ”: a prismatic, mutable experience of being a loner, a spectacle, an ordinary woman, a goddess (“the eternal feminine with its string of beads”). Lucille Clifton shares Hurston’s sense of the need to invent oneself in a world without reliable mirrors or maps; as she writes in a poem, from 1992, “i had no model. / born in babylon / both nonwhite and woman / what did I see to be except myself? / i made it up…” Like these writers, Obama exposes the particular pressures and thrills of black women’s self-creation. But she also details the rather more modest creation of a stable domestic life. By bringing motherhood, marriage, and self-making together in “Becoming,” she combines the possibilities that Sula and Nel represent.

In some ways, Obama’s desires for a stable home and family are quite conventional, and she uses the conventionally feminine, domestic metaphor of knitting to describe them. “We were learning to adapt, to knit ourselves into a solid and forever form of us,” she writes of the first months of her marriage to Barack. It isn’t easy: in the Robinson-Obama union, the South Side power-walker meets the Hawaii-born ambler; the meticulous planner and striver with an “instinctive love of a crowd” and a desire for family must adapt to the messy, cerebral dreamer who loves solitude and books at least as much as he loves people. Later, the woman who loathes politics must throw her life into her husband’s pursuit of the Presidency.

Things are complicated long before the campaign, as children both complete and unsettle the Obamas’ carefully cultivated “us.” Once Obama gets pregnant, through I.V.F., her resentment at Barack’s distance from the pain of miscarriage and needles gives way to feelings of maternal pride. Upon Malia’s arrival, she writes, “motherhood became my motivator”—yet, three years (and almost twenty pages) later, she is most galvanized by her new full-time job, at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Although she considers staying home when Sasha is born, she instead takes the job, which “[gets her] out of bed in the morning,” though Barack’s comparative absence, as a commuting state and U.S. senator, gets her home in time for dinner. Then, just as Sasha is about to start elementary school and Obama is “on the brink of . . . [firing] up my ambition again and [considering] a new set of goals,” it is decided that Barack should run for President.

Michelle is still driven, but now by a desire not to fail Barack’s growing base of supporters. In an effort to “earn” public approval, she talks a lot about her kids while campaigning—a safe subject for a black woman who was framed in negative contemporary press accounts as an unpatriotic shrew. As the Obamas near the Iowa primaries, Michelle’s growing commitment to Barack’s cause is reflected in her language. Her pronouns shift from “him” to “we”—“Our hopes were pinned on Iowa. We had to win it or otherwise stand down”—and she adopts Barack’s own sermonic listing mode, describing meetings with voters “in Davenport, Cedar Rapids, Council Bluffs . . . in bookstores, union halls, a home for aging military veterans, and, as the weather warmed up, on front porches and in public parks.” Her rhetoric itself knits her and Barack into a “we.”

The book as a whole, however, represents a different moment, and announces her ambition to tell her story in her own way. A long memoir by any measure, “Becoming” not only matches the length of Barack’s first book, “ Dreams from My Father ,” but it also shows Michelle to be a better storyteller than her husband—funnier, and able to generate a surprising degree of suspense about events whose outcomes are a given (the results of Barack’s first run for President, for instance). Having devoted herself to strategically remaking the office of First Lady, through such initiatives as the White House garden and Let Girls Learn, she now reflects on what she has done and who else she might want to become.

Of course, the choices she makes throughout—to focus more and less on work, more and less on family—are a function of privilege. It is a privilege to decide how much or whether to work, and a privilege to have children, whether through I.V.F. or otherwise. The ability to steer one’s own ship also relies on the sheer luck of evading any number of American disasters: layoffs, mass shootings, prison, domestic violence, lack of health care. Then there are the disasters perpetrated by the U.S. surveillance state, which can undo black women, such as Sandra Bland, or their children, such as Kalief Browder. Under these conditions of hypervisibility, no amount of strategic maneuvering can guarantee one’s safety. And, in light of this, the Obamas’ faith in the American system, and in electoral politics, can seem woefully insufficient.

It comes as something of a relief, then, that, even as Michelle seeks to bind her own story to that of her husband and, through him, to that of the nation, the story of her mother, Marian Robinson, hints at an exit. Robinson is a willfully marginal figure in the text, as she was in the White House—famously reluctant to move in, and evasive of its basic security protocols. She gave everything to her kids (“We were their investment,” Michelle writes of her parents’ devotion to their two children) and stood by her husband, Fraser Robinson III, while multiple sclerosis drained him of strength. And yet, it turns out, she harbored fantasies of leaving. It is here that Obama’s portrait of her mother grows most vivid: “Much later, my mother would tell me that every year when spring came and the air warmed up in Chicago, she entertained thoughts about leaving my father. I don’t know if these thoughts were actually serious or not. . . . But for her it was an active fantasy, something that felt healthy and maybe even energizing to ponder, almost as ritual.” Obama sees this ritual as an internal renewal of vows for Marian, akin to how doubts about God might be said to bolster one’s faith. But the fantasy also represents a wholly other possibility: not a knitting-together but an unfurling, a quiet dream of escape.

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Michelle Obama’s Becoming is an insight into inequality, feminism and a FLOTUS who broke the mould

Associate Professor of American Politics, De Montfort University

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Time magazine described it as a tour “fit for a rock star” . This is not how book promotional outings are usually billed – but then this is no ordinary tome. The memoirs of Michelle Obama comprise one half of a US$65m joint publishing deal for the former first couple’s autobiographies.

One measure of predicted global interest is that Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming , will be translated into 28 languages. The month-long tour plan is bold, taking in ten major arenas, with an all-star line-up of moderators including Oprah Winfrey, author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, businesswoman Valerie Jarrett, actress Sarah Jessica Parker and more. One is left in absolutely no doubt that the legacy of this First Lady stands robustly alongside that of her husband. Very few of her predecessors can make this claim.

Before Barack Obama entered public life, Michelle was his mentor. When he was elected to the Senate, she earned more than him . Many said that she was smarter than him, and he was very smart indeed.

The American Dream

Michelle Obama is a potent symbol of what is good about America. She reminds us that an African American girl from the poorer end of town has the potential to do and be anything. And not to simply become First Lady, which was a role forced upon her. By determination and hard work, she got to Harvard and Princeton and carved out a highly successful career in her own right.

When obliged to embrace the role of presidential wife, her reluctance was palpable in those early days. Such caution was well founded. Her dynamism and ability were on display throughout the 2008 election, and she campaigned energetically for her husband. But even prior to his victory, she got a taste of the vitriol that would come later. In one unguarded moment, for example, she said during the presidential primaries in 2008 :

For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.

Her comments were made in relation to high voter turnout in the primaries but her opponents were not concerned with the context. Immediately, she was chastised and the criticism from some quarters continued unabated.

The ‘Angry Black Woman’

Traditionally, the First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS) has been presented as an appendage of the president, whose priority was spousal loyalty, whatever the challenges involved. She spent her time entertaining, engaging in charitable endeavours, and attempting to provide some sort of normality to children being raised in a profoundly abnormal environment.

Adichie talked of Michelle Obama having to “flatten herself” to better fit the mould of First Lady. She reminds us that because Michelle Obama did not smile constantly and vacuously, but only when she felt like it, she was given that cheapest of derogatory labels – the Angry Black Woman. Adichie added :

Women, in general, are not permitted anger – but from black American women, there is an added expectation of interminable gratitude, the closer to groveling the better, as though their citizenship is a phenomenon that they cannot take for granted.

In Michelle Obama, the nation suddenly was faced with this stunning, independent entity – and not everyone was pleased. Others, however, were thrilled as they watched her blow the doors off what was previously the suffocating confines of the First Lady’s office.

FLOTUS and Feminism

Prior to Michelle Obama, the First Lady story was too often one of wonderful, capable, intelligent women being shoe-horned into a claustrophobic position with no formal office, portfolio, title or, of course, salary. They simply had to button their lips and smile. But Michelle Obama revolutionised the role of the First Lady and, as a result, it’s as though feminism has finally been recognised as a part of what the FLOTUS could be.

We must also now recognise the meaningful impact that a First Lady can have in getting legislation passed, and implementing significant policy change. However humble Michelle Obama’s family origins on the South Side of Chicago were, she has a platform like few others, and she uses her voice to promote a positive message on a range of key issues, including her FLOTUS project on child health and nutrition. Indeed, she reveals in the book how she offered her successor, Melania Trump, help or advice – a gesture so far ignored by Mrs Trump .

In her final year as First Lady, one Gallup poll reported a 64% approval rating for her (noticeably higher than that of her husband). In her post-White House role, Michelle Obama’s approval ratings have remained strong and even increased since she left the White House . When compared to her deeply uncontroversial predecessors, such as Laura or Barbara Bush, however, her poll numbers were relatively low. It’s clear that anyone who pushes boundaries and breaks down barriers isn’t not going to please everyone. Hillary Clinton learned this lesson the hardest of ways, when she lost the presidency to Donald Trump.

But Michelle Obama is extraordinarily relatable, down to earth, too. It’s refreshing to see in her memoir, for example, an acknowledgement that when their marriage needed it, the Obamas sought professional help.

Michelle has continuously demonstrated the capacity to lead by example, to balance conflicting roles, to raise two strong and capable daughters, and to clearly still be in a loving marriage, despite the strain that comes with eight years of scrutiny and criticism. In the words of her husband :

The way in which she blended purpose and policy with fun so that she was able to reach beyond Washington on her health care initiatives, on her military family work was masterful.

She remains an inspiration for future First Ladies, and women and girls everywhere.

• Barack Obama
• Michelle Obama

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Michelle Obama’s College Experience Is All Too Familiar for Minority Students

“Princeton was extremely white and very male. There was no avoiding the facts.”

Michelle Robinson didn’t shy away from her background in her application essay for Princeton University. The Chicago native wrote about the lack of college degrees in her family, and her father’s struggle with multiple sclerosis. While she was in the top 10 percent of her high-school class, a member of the National Honor Society, and the class treasurer—not to mention that her older brother was already enrolled there—she was far from a shoo-in at the Ivy League university. Less than 8 percent of the undergraduate students at Princeton were black, and it wasn’t exactly known as a mecca for low-income students. But her essay worked, and in the fall of 1981, she left Chicago for Princeton, New Jersey.

Of course, Robinson would go on to marry Barack Obama and serve as the first lady for eight years. In Becoming , her newly released memoir, she reflects on her experiences in high school and college. Just as her college essay embraced her background, so too does Becoming. And beyond revealing her own story, Michelle Obama’s tales of applying to and enrolling in Princeton are emblematic of an all-too-common narrative for low-income and minority students, particularly those at elite institutions.

Read: The uncommon, requisite resolve of Michelle Obama

Obama arrived on campus earlier than most other students. She had been identified as a good candidate for a three-week orientation program “meant to close a ‘preparation gap’” for certain incoming freshmen—specifically, low-income and minority students. But there are some things even a head start can’t prepare students for. “Princeton was extremely white and very male. There was no avoiding the facts,” she writes. “If during the orientation program we’d begun to feel some ownership of the space, we were now a glaring anomaly—poppy seeds in a bowl of rice.”

That is a shared sentiment among students of color on selective college campuses today. In 2015, Tavaris Sanders, a black student at Connecticut College, put the sentiment bluntly: “I’m always segregated in classes. I’m like the only black male in there, always, usually, most of the time,” he wrote. “I don’t belong here at all.”

Read: The missing black students at elite American universities

But there are often places of refuge for minority students, and Obama found hers at Princeton’s so-called Third World Center. As she writes, it “quickly became a kind of home base for me. It hosted parties and co-op meals. There were volunteer tutors to help with homework and spaces just to hang out.”

There she found students like herself, who had arrived on campus unaware of their disadvantages relative to their classmates. They weren’t afforded the privilege of SAT prep or AP classes in high school. They hadn’t attended boarding school, and so often weren’t as comfortable with being away from home. “It was like stepping onstage at your first piano recital and realizing that you’d never played anything but an instrument with broken keys,” she writes. So, to adapt and overcome, she leaned on a community that was experiencing the same struggles she was.

The administrators, though, probably weren’t too fond of this setup, she says—with the majority of the minority students hanging out with one another. The university was after campus diversity—the compelling governmental interest that had been outlined in a Supreme Court decision just a few years earlier. As Obama puts it, “The ideal would be to achieve something resembling what’s often shown on college brochures—smiling students working and socializing in neat, ethnically blended groups.”

But the dynamics on campus never quite resembled the glossy brochure images. “Even today,” Obama writes, “with white students continuing to outnumber students of color on college campuses, the burden of assimilation is put largely on the shoulders of minority students.” And in her experience, she writes, “it’s a lot to ask.”

For black students such as Obama, affirmative action was a constant elephant in the room, she writes. Though they knew they were qualified, “you could almost read the scrutiny in the gaze of certain students and even professors,” she writes. And the practice of affirmative action recently received a renewed wave of scrutiny as Harvard University, where Obama’s daughter Malia is now a sophomore, is being sued for allegedly discriminating against Asian American applicants.

More than three decades later, with her own undergraduate years firmly in the past, Michelle Obama’s struggles as a black student at Princeton are eerily similar to the experiences of students today. Nestled within Becoming is a long-held truth about American higher education: Supporting students—particularly low-income and minority students—once they’re on campus matters at least as much as getting them there in the first place.

Becoming Summary and Review | Book by Michelle Obama

Life gets busy. Has Becoming been gathering dust on your bookshelf? Instead, pick up the key ideas now.

We’re scratching the surface here. If you don’t already have the book, order it here or get the audiobook for free on Amazon to learn the juicy details.

Here are the key insights and the book review of Becoming:

About Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama is an American lawyer and author. Raised in Chicago, Michelle is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. After working for multiple law firms and non-profits, Michelle’s most influential role was as the US’s First Lady from 2009 to 2017. During her time in the White House, she served as an advocate for poverty awareness, education, nutrition, physical activity, and healthy eating.

Introduction

Becoming is the memoir of Michelle Obama, former US First Lady. The book was published in 2018. It delves deep into her upbringing and its impact on her future life. The book explains how Michelle found her voice. Becoming gives its readers an insight into The White House and what it was like running a highly impactful public health campaign while being a mother. Covering a diversity of Michelle Obama’s experiences, Michelle described authoring this book as a “deeply personal experience.”

A highly influential book, Becoming sold more copies than any other book in the US in 2018. More remarkably, Becoming was only released 15 days before the end of 2018. It sold more books in that short space of time than any other 2018 book had in the entirety of that year. The book is broken down into 24 chapters but is ultimately separated into three sections. The first section is titled Becoming Me and focuses on Michelle’s early life. Becoming Us delves into her education, meeting Barack Obama, and the beginning of Barack’s political career. Finally, Becoming More concludes with thoughts on Barack’s presidency, Michelle’s Let’s Move campaign, and her role as “head mom in chief.” So, this book summary will also be broken down into these three sections. Each section will be filled with the most impactful experiences, thoughts, and conclusions formed by Michelle Obama. 

StoryShot #1: Michelle’s Early Years in Chicago

Michelle Robinson was born in 1968 in Chicago’s South Side. She was brought up in a brick bungalow belonging to her mother’s aunt. Michelle recalls the national riots in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. She barely understood what was going on in her neighborhood at the time. She was so young. 

Her family was hugely important to Michelle Obama when she was growing up in Chicago. Her mother taught her how to read from a very young age. She would accompany Michelle to the public library while her father worked as a city laborer. Her father made sure that she and her brother were exposed to art and jazz. This exposure to music encouraged Michelle to learn the piano at the age of four. 

Music ran in the family for Michelle, so she had always found it easy to play the piano. Her great aunt, Robbie, taught her. This period was one of the earliest examples of Michelle’s strong-minded nature. Her and Robbie often clashed during lessons. She even thought about becoming a musician one day, but eventually decided to pursue lawyerly opportunities. In the book, Michelle describes a memory of how accustomed she had grown to her great aunt’s piano. She had perfectly practiced a song she was set to perform at Roosevelt University. But her great aunt’s piano’s unique aspect is its middle C having a chip in it. When on stage, a young Michelle froze as she could not find middle C on this new piano. Her great aunt then came on stage and pointed it out. Michelle then performed her song as she had initially hoped. This is just one snapshot of how close Michelle was with her family.

StoryShot #2: Chicago’s Racial Transition

One of the remarkable features of Michelle’s upbringing is her area was 96% white in 1950 and then 96% black by 1981. She grew up in the middle of this transition. So, she was surrounded by a mixture of black and white families. But more and more families decided to move away to the suburbs. This movement meant less funding, and the area was deemed a “ghetto.” Michelle and her family still regarded this area as their home. 

StoryShot #3: Michelle’s Schooling

Michelle’s mother was a highly influential woman in the local community. She was also highly influential in Michelle’s education as she grew up. In the second grade, Michelle told her mother that she hated her class as it was full of chaotic children. The teachers could not get the class under control, and Michelle was missing opportunities to learn. Michelle’s mother also made sure the school tested her abilities. Michelle was moved up to a class with other high-performing children who wanted to learn. This decision is potentially the most crucial in how her life turned out. She had been put on the right track to excel in school.

Her top performances in school led her to attend Whitney M. Young High School in Chicago. A Magnet School, the teachers were progressive, and her fellow students were all high performing children. Michelle showed a significant commitment to attend this school. It took her two buses and 90 minutes to get to school each day. Some of her fellow students lived in high-rise apartments right by the school and would wear designer purses. Michelle explains in the book how everything appeared so effortless to them. Despite doubting whether she fitted in, she put her head down and received excellent grades. 

StoryShot #4: Princeton University and Finding a Great Mentor

During her time at school, Michelle excelled academically but also involved herself in the school’s societies. She was the elected class treasurer. Michelle was also in the National Honor Society, and she was on track to finish in the top 10% of her class. Despite this, her college counselor told her that she might not be “Princeton material.” Beforehand, she had been excited by the prospect of Princeton. Her brother, Craig, had attended Princeton, and she thought she might join him there. This counselor could have crushed her confidence. Instead, they irritated her and made her want to apply for Princeton even more. She did, and she got in.

Upon arriving at Princeton, Michelle recalls the experience of being one of the few non-white people. This was uncomfortable. For example, less than 9% of students in her freshman class were black. Despite this, she enjoyed her time at Princeton. She found a welcoming community and a fantastic mentor.

While at Princeton, Michelle’s mentor was one of the Third World Centre leaders. This center has since been renamed the Carl A. Fields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding. Her name was Czerny Brasuell, an energetic New Yorker who was a strong black woman and a working mom. During her time at Princeton, Michelle became both Czerny’s assistant and her protégé. Czerny even encouraged Michelle to start running an after school program for the children of black faculty and staff members. Her future was influenced by Czerny, who inspired her to become a working mom in the future. 

After majoring in sociology, Michelle started to consider Harvard Law School. 

StoryShot #5: Getting Into Harvard Law School and Meeting Barack Obama

Michelle did decide to pursue Harvard Law School and subsequently took her LSAT test. She admits she never stopped and thought about what she would like to be doing. Michelle went straight from Princeton to Harvard Law School. She enjoyed her time at Harvard Law School, but it is the period after this that shaped her life. 

After graduating from Harvard in 1988, Michelle moved back to Chicago to work for a law firm called Sidley & Austin. Here she met a young law student named Barack Obama. He immediately exuded confidence and self-reliance. Unlike Michelle, he had taken a couple of years between Columbia and Harvard Law School to decide what he wanted to be. 

Michelle had heard of Barack before having even met him. He made a fantastic impression on everybody he talked to. Also, the professors at Harvard had been calling him the most gifted student they had ever seen. At the time, Michelle remained skeptical about this man, Barack. From her experience, professors seemed to “go bonkers” over any half-smart black man in a nice suit. 

Michelle finally met Barack. Her role at Sidley & Austin was to meet promising law students and encourage them to join the firm when they graduated. When meeting Barack, she realized she didn’t have much advice to give him. Having taken time out, Barack was more experienced and mature than students Michelle usually advised. She recalls people at the firm asking Barack for advice on matters. 

Her friends were hugely impressed when they met him. They encouraged her to overlook Barack’s smoking and go on a date with him. After their first kiss, any doubts about her future husband vanished. 

StoryShot #6: Michelle and Barack’s Marriage and the Development of Their Careers

Michelle and Barack’s relationship developed rapidly. Michelle’s brother was highly complimentary of Barack, especially as Barack was a decent basketball player. Michelle’s brother was a college basketball player and subsequently a basketball coach. Craig, Michelle’s brother, was a massive influence on her. His affirmation helped the relationship continue to flourish. 

Barack became the first black editor for the Harvard Law Review, which meant they had to live apart for a while. Barack was then able to move to Chicago to live with Michelle. Throughout their early years in Chicago, Barack was offered many jobs. But he remained thoughtful and considerate, instead choosing community workshops over high-paid law firms. During this time, Michelle was thinking about moving away from her work at Sidley & Austin towards something that was face-to-face. She didn’t want to work on behalf of corporations anymore; she wanted to help people. 

In 1991, Michelle met Valerie Jarrett, somebody who helped her transition her career. Valerie would ultimately become a lifelong friend of Michelle. Valerie had also been an unsatisfied lawyer and wanted to work with and help people. She had been working for the mayor’s office. Valerie used this opportunity to help Michelle get a job as assistant to the then-current mayor, Richard Daley, Jr. 

In October 1992, Michelle and Barack were married. The following year, Michelle worked on an initiative called Public Allies and used this experience to obtain a role working at City Hall. Then, a few years later, the job of Executive Director for a non-profit organization emerged. This organization connected promising young people with mentors who worked in the public sector. This was a fitting job for Michelle, as she felt civic-minded mentors had heavily influenced her. 

StoryShot #7: Michelle Wasn’t Initially Keen on Barack’s Political Pursuits

Michelle understood that Barack could win people over. She recalls him speaking in a church basement to a small audience of women concerned about their community. Barack encourages them to use political engagement through voting or reaching out to local representatives. By the end, the women were shouting, “Amen!” Michelle wasn’t the only one to notice his political potential, though. The Chicago Magazine noted Barack’s fantastic work on the Project VOTE! Campaign and suggested he should run for office. Not fussed by this at the time, Barack instead wanted to write a book entitled Dreams From My Father. This book was published in 1995 to decent reviews but insignificant sales. It was based on Barack’s unusual life story of being brought up between Indonesia and Hawaii. 

In 1995, Barack was teaching a class on racism and law at the University of Chicago. This year he was also approached about starting a career in politics. A new seat was about to open up in Michelle and Barack’s local area. Michelle was not excited by this prospect. She believed Barack could have more of an impact working for a non-profit than in the state Senate. Barack listened to these ideas but decided to run with it. Barack believed he could have a positive impact on politics. 

Related Free Book Summaries

The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama

The Audacity of Hope  by Barack Obama

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King  by Martin Luther King Jr.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Born a Crime  by Trevor Noah

What I Know for Sure  by Oprah Winfrey

Can’t Hurt Me  by David Goggins

Gandhi by Mahatma Gandhi

White Fragility

How to Be An Antiracist

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Becoming Essay Questions

By michelle obama, essay questions.

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by people who wish to remain anonymous

What did Obama mean when she wrote “Kids know at a very young age when they’re being devalued”, and what was the significance in the book?

Michelle Obama began going to a school where neither the students were taken seriously, and the teachers weren't serious. Obama noticed this as she was a young girl, and she wanted things to be different. Therefore, her mother made her change school, just to make sure her academics were on top. This might have been one of the most important choices Obama's mother had made, as Obama really was able to develop herself and create a good basis for her future because of this. Had she not, she would have noticed herself being devalued, and might not have thought she had the power to become anything she wished.

Obama changes from being a "box checker" to "swerving" to fit into her lifestyle. What does this mean?

When Michelle Obama was young, she wanted perfection and to do everything as good as possible, trying her best to banish all mistakes. However, as she became older and the First Lady of the United States, she began "swerving". This was because she no longer could check all the boxes she wished she could, and instead had to "go with the flow" a bit more, and hope for the best. She didn't have the same amount of control over her own life, as her security now had become a part of the national job of the country. "Swerving" was a way for her to fit in her own goals to the way her life had changed.

Why did Michelle Obama call her book "Becoming", and what does that ideal entail?

Becoming means developing, reflecting, and working on oneself for a goal. This is exactly what Michelle Obama did. She became something different than what she began as, but she still stayed true to her roots and values. This is an inspiration for the people that wish to rise from their ashes, background and perhaps even past, to become something new, to become what they were destined to become, and to become whatever they wish, because doing so is possible.

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Becoming Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Becoming is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for Becoming

Becoming study guide contains a biography of Michelle Obama, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Becoming
• Becoming Summary
• Character List

Lesson Plan for Becoming

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Becoming
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Becoming Bibliography

Read an Exclusive Excerpt From Michelle Obama's Revealing Memoir, Becoming

Our editors handpick the products that we feature. We may earn commission from the links on this page.

When Michelle Obama first announced she was releasing her memoir, Becoming , last year, she promised that she'd open up about her roots—"and how a little girl from the South Side of Chicago found her voice and developed the strength to use it to empower others."

In this exclusive book excerpt for OprahMag.com , we're treated to a glimpse of what—or who—exactly gave that young girl the grace to one day stand as our nation's first Black First Lady. Mrs. Obama explains that as she grew up in South Shore, Chicago always focused on school, friends, and the events of the world, there was one comforting constant in her life: her mother, Marian Robinson.

Mrs. Obama writes about recognizing the ways her mother's calm and encouraging presence created room for her to simply be herself.

You'll be able to buy Becoming in stores and at amazon.com on November 13. But your first peek is below. Happy reading!

At school we were given an hour-long break for lunch each day. Because my mother didn’t work and our apartment was so close by, I usually marched home with four or five other girls in tow, all of us talking nonstop, ready to sprawl on the kitchen floor to play jacks and watch All My Children while my mom handed out sandwiches. This, for me, began a habit that has sustained me for life, keeping a close and high-spirited council of girlfriends—a safe harbor of female wisdom. In my lunch group, we dissected whatever had gone on that morning at school, any beefs we had with teachers, any assignments that struck us as useless. Our opinions were largely formed by committee. We idolized the Jackson 5 and weren’t sure how we felt about the Osmonds. Watergate had happened, but none of us understood it. It seemed like a lot of old guys talking into microphones in Washington, D.C., which to us was just a faraway city filled with a lot of white buildings and white men.

My mom, meanwhile, was plenty happy to serve us. It gave her an easy window into our world. As my friends and I ate and gossiped, she often stood by quietly, engaged in some household chore, not hiding the fact that she was taking in every word. In my family, with four of us packed into less than nine hundred square feet of living space, we’d never had any privacy anyway. It mattered only sometimes. Craig, who was suddenly interested in girls, had started taking his phone calls behind closed doors in the bathroom, the phone’s curlicue cord stretched taut across the hallway from its wall-mounted base in the kitchen.

As Chicago schools went, Bryn Mawr fell somewhere between a bad school and a good school. Racial and economic sorting in the South Shore neighborhood continued through the 1970s, meaning that the student population only grew blacker and poorer with each year. There was, for a time, a citywide integration movement to bus kids to new schools, but Bryn Mawr parents had successfully fought it off, arguing that the money was better spent improving the school itself. As a kid, I had no perspective on whether the facilities were run-down or whether it mattered that there were hardly any white kids left. The school ran from kindergarten all the way through eighth grade, which meant that by the time I’d reached the upper grades, I knew every light switch, every chalkboard and cracked patch of hallway. I knew nearly every teacher and most of the kids. For me, Bryn Mawr was practically an extension of home.

As I was entering seventh grade, the Chicago Defender, a weekly newspaper that was popular with African American readers, ran a vitriolic opinion piece that claimed Bryn Mawr had gone, in the span of a few years, from being one of the city’s best public schools to a “run- down slum” governed by a “ghetto mentality.” Our school principal, Dr. Lavizzo, immediately hit back with a letter to the editor, defending his community of parents and students and deeming the newspaper piece “an outrageous lie, which seems designed to incite only feelings of failure and flight.”

.css-meat1u:before{margin-bottom:1.2rem;height:2.25rem;content:'“';display:block;font-size:4.375rem;line-height:1.1;font-family:Juana,Juana-weight300-roboto,Juana-weight300-local,Georgia,Times,Serif;font-weight:300;} .css-mn32pc{font-family:Juana,Juana-weight300-upcase-roboto,Juana-weight300-upcase-local,Georgia,Times,Serif;font-size:1.625rem;font-weight:300;letter-spacing:0.0075rem;line-height:1.2;margin:0rem;text-transform:uppercase;}@media(max-width: 64rem){.css-mn32pc{font-size:2.25rem;line-height:1;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-mn32pc{font-size:2.375rem;line-height:1;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-mn32pc{font-size:2.75rem;line-height:1;}}.css-mn32pc b,.css-mn32pc strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;}.css-mn32pc em,.css-mn32pc i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;} Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result.

Dr. Lavizzo was a round, cheery man who had an Afro that puffed out on either side of his bald spot and who spent most of his time in an office near the building’s front door. It’s clear from his letter that he understood precisely what he was up against. Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result. It’s vulnerability that breeds with self- doubt and then is escalated, often deliberately, by fear. Those “feelings of failure” he mentioned were everywhere already in my neighborhood, in the form of parents who couldn’t get ahead financially, of kids who were starting to suspect that their lives would be no different, of families who watched their better-off neighbors leave for the suburbs or transfer their children to Catholic schools. There were predatory real estate agents roaming South Shore all the while, whispering to homeowners that they should sell before it was too late, that they’d help them get out while you still can. The inference being that failure was coming, that it was inevitable, that it had already half arrived. You could get caught up in the ruin or you could escape it. They used the word everyone was most afraid of— “ghetto”—dropping it like a lit match.

My mother bought into none of this. She’d lived in South Shore for ten years already and would end up staying another forty. She didn’t buy into fearmongering and at the same time seemed equally inoculated against any sort of pie-in-the-sky idealism. She was a straight-down-the-line realist, controlling what she could.

At Bryn Mawr, she became one of the most active members of the PTA, helping raise funds for new classroom equipment, throwing appreciation dinners for the teachers, and lobbying for the creation of a special multigrade classroom that catered to higher-performing students. This last effort was the brainchild of Dr. Lavizzo, who’d gone to night school to get his PhD in education and had studied a new trend in grouping students by ability rather than by age—in essence, putting the brighter kids together so they could learn at a faster pace.

With any game, like most any kid, I was happiest when I was ahead.

The idea was controversial, criticized as being undemocratic, as all “gifted and talented” programs inherently are. But it was also gaining steam as a movement around the country, and for my last three years at Bryn Mawr I was a beneficiary. I joined a group of about twenty students from different grades, set off in a self-contained classroom apart from the rest of the school with our own recess, lunch, music, and gym schedules. We were given special opportunities, including weekly trips to a community college to attend an advanced writing workshop or dissect a rat in the biology lab. Back in the classroom, we did a lot of independent work, setting our own goals and moving at whatever speed best suited us.

We were given dedicated teachers, first Mr. Martinez and then Mr. Bennett, both gentle and good-humored African American men, both keenly focused on what their students had to say. There was a clear sense that the school had invested in us, which I think made us all try harder and feel better about ourselves. The independent learning setup only served to fuel my competitive streak. I tore through the lessons, quietly keeping tabs on where I stood among my peers as we charted our progress from long division to pre-algebra, from writing single paragraphs to turning in full research papers. For me, it was like a game. And as with any game, like most any kid, I was happiest when I was ahead.

I told my mother everything that happened at school. Her lunchtime update was followed by a second update, which I’d deliver in a rush as I walked through the door in the afternoon, slinging my book bag on the floor and hunting for a snack. I realize I don’t know exactly what my mom did during the hours we were at school, mainly because in the self-centered manner of any child I never asked. I don’t know what she thought about, how she felt about being a traditional homemaker as opposed to working a different job. I only knew that when I showed up at home, there’d be food in the fridge, not just for me, but for my friends. I knew that when my class was going on an excursion, my mother would almost always volunteer to chaperone, arriving in a nice dress and dark lipstick to ride the bus with us to the community college or the zoo.

In our house, we lived on a budget but didn’t often discuss its limits. My mom found ways to compensate. She did her own nails, dyed her own hair (one time accidentally turning it green), and got new clothes only when my dad bought them for her as a birthday gift. She’d never be rich, but she was always crafty. When we were young, she magically turned old socks into puppets that looked exactly like the Muppets. She crocheted doilies to cover our tabletops. She sewed a lot of my clothes, at least until middle school, when suddenly it meant everything to have a Gloria Vanderbilt swan label on the front pocket of your jeans, and I insisted she stop.

Still to this day I catch the scent of Pine-Sol and automatically feel better about life.

Every so often, she’d change the layout of our living room, putting a new slipcover on the sofa, swapping out the photos and framed prints that hung on our walls. When the weather turned warm, she did a ritualistic spring cleaning, attacking on all fronts—vacuuming furniture, laundering curtains, and removing every storm window so she could Windex the glass and wipe down the sills before replacing them with screens to allow the spring air into our tiny, stuffy apartment. She’d then often go downstairs to Robbie and Terry’s, particularly as they got older and less able, to scour that as well. It’s because of my mother that still to this day I catch the scent of Pine-Sol and automatically feel better about life.

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At Christmastime, she got especially creative. One year, she figured out how to cover our boxy metal radiator with corrugated cardboard printed to look like red bricks, stapling everything together so that we’d have a faux chimney that ran all the way to the ceiling and a faux fireplace, complete with a mantel and hearth. She then enlisted my father— the family’s resident artist—to paint a series of orange flames on pieces of very thin rice paper, which, when backlit with a lightbulb, made for a half-convincing fire. On New Year’s Eve, as a matter of tradition, she’d buy a special hors d’oeuvre basket, the kind that came filled with blocks of cheese, smoked oysters in a tin, and different kinds of salami. She’d invite my dad’s sister Francesca over to play board games. We’d order a pizza for dinner and then snack our way elegantly through the rest of the evening, my mom passing around trays of pigs in a blanket, fried shrimp, and a special cheese spread baked on Ritz crackers. As midnight drew close, we’d each have a tiny glass of champagne.

My mother maintained the sort of parental mind-set that I now recognize as brilliant and nearly impossible to emulate—a kind of unflappable Zen neutrality. I had friends whose mothers rode their highs and lows as if they were their own, and I knew plenty of other kids whose parents were too overwhelmed by their own challenges to be much of a presence at all. My mom was simply even-keeled. She wasn’t quick to judge and she wasn’t quick to meddle. Instead, she monitored our moods and bore benevolent witness to whatever travails or triumphs a day might bring. When things were bad, she gave us only a small amount of pity. When we’d done something great, we received just enough praise to know she was happy with us, but never so much that it became the reason we did what we did.

Advice, when she offered it, tended to be of the hard-boiled and pragmatic variety. “You don’t have to like your teacher,” she told me one day after I came home spewing complaints. “But that woman’s got the kind of math in her head that you need in yours. Focus on that and ignore the rest.”

She loved us consistently, Craig and me, but we were not overmanaged. Her goal was to push us out into the world. “I’m not raising babies,” she’d tell us. “I’m raising adults.” She and my dad offered guidelines rather than rules. It meant that as teenagers we’d never have a curfew. Instead, they’d ask, “What’s a reasonable time for you to be home?” and then trust us to stick to our word.

Craig tells a story about a girl he liked in eighth grade and how one day she issued a kind of loaded invitation, asking him to come by her house, pointedly letting him know that her parents wouldn’t be home and they’d be left alone.

My brother had privately agonized over whether to go or not—titillated by the opportunity but knowing it was sneaky and dishonorable, the sort of behavior my parents would never condone. This didn’t, however, stop him from telling my mother a preliminary half-truth, letting her know about the girl but saying they were going to meet in the public park.

Guilt-ridden before he’d even done it, guilt-ridden for even thinking about it, Craig finally confessed the whole home-alone scheme, expecting or maybe just hoping that my mom would blow a gasket and forbid him to go.

But she didn’t. She wouldn’t. It wasn’t how she operated.

She listened, but she didn’t absolve him from the choice at hand. Instead, she returned him to his agony with a blithe shrug of her shoulders. “Handle it how you think best,” she said, before turning back to the dishes in the sink or the pile of laundry she had to fold.

It was another small push out into the world. I’m sure that in her heart my mother knew already that he’d make the right choice. Every move she made, I realize now, was buttressed by the quiet confidence that she’d raised us to be adults. Our decisions were on us. It was our life, not hers, and always would be.

From Michelle Obama's new memoir, Becoming , in stores and available at amazon.com on November 13.

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SPC Reads 2020-21 Presents Becoming by Michelle Obama: Essay Contest

• About the Author
• About the Book
• Online Events
• Incorporating the Book
• Online Book Club
• Supplemental Readings

Essay Contest

• Winning Essays
• SPC Reads Archives
• Netflix Watch Party

Information

• Traditional Essay
• Creative Writing Essay
• Creative Virtual Piece (art, photography, video, etc)

In 2018, following her two consecutive terms as First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama published her memoir, Becoming. As the first African American woman to fill that role, she reflects on the challenges as well as the accomplishments of her life to date, noting that she, like all of us, is forever in the process of “becoming.”

You do not have to have read the book to enter. However, to be considered, your entry needs to address one of these themes of Becoming .

Socialization

Self-belief

Making a difference

Empowerment through Education

For this contest, you may submit one of the following:

• a personal or informational essay of 200-250 words,
• a creative piece of writing, such as a poem or short story, not to exceed 250 words, or
• a piece of visual art, such as a sculpture, drawing, or painting.

Essay Contest Rules

To be considered, your work must adhere to the following guidelines:

• Essays and creative writings must be double spaced in Times New Roman, 12 pt font.
• Visual arts must be photographed, or if video, uploaded to a video hosting site (provide URL).
• All entries must be submitted online to the Essay Contest Form by October 26, 2020.
• Winners will be announced on November 16 via SPC Workplace  and SPC social media channels.

Congratulations to our SPC Reads Essay Contest Winners!

1. Traditional Essay: Robyne Vaughan             

2. Creative Essay: Jessica Humphreys          

3. Digital Art:  Beth Aligood 

How Submissions will be Scored

Scoring rubrics will be available here.  All submissions will be scored by a committee consisting of SPC Instructional Support Specialists and faculty members.

• Traditional Essay Rubric
• Creative Writing Essay Rubric
• Creative Virtual Piece (art, etc) Rubric

Prizes are funded by SPC's SCOP (Student Council of Presidents).  Special thank you to the SP Gibbs campus for offering to pay for the essay contest prizes this semester!  Interested in getting involved on your campus SGA?  Visit the li nk for Student Life and Leadership.

Traditional Essay Winner:  $25 Amazon gift card and copy of the book

Creative Writing Essay Winner:  $25 Amazon gift card and copy of the book

Creative Virtual Piece:   $25 Amazon gift card and copy of the book

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• Next: Winning Essays >>
• Last Updated: Oct 23, 2023 11:42 AM
• URL: https://spcollege.libguides.com/becoming

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At the Kenya State Dinner, Jill Biden Is True Blue

In Sergio Hudson, the first lady is stepping up her fashion diplomacy game.

By Vanessa Friedman

There are few moments of political theater as grand as a state dinner, essentially a pantomime of diplomacy and national pride from the set to the staging to the scripts — and the costumes. In that drama, the first lady is cast as both hostess and symbol, her dress a part of the decorative storytelling of the night.

Through the five state dinners of the Biden administration, Jill Biden has seemed comfortable with the hosting part of her (nonofficial) job, but she has never seemed all that excited about the fashion part . In those moments of high public attention and posing, she has most often chosen to wear gowns from traditional White House designers (Oscar de la Renta, Ralph Lauren) that, while elegant, didn’t seem exactly sewn with subtext.

On Thursday, at the state dinner for Kenya , that finally changed.

In a sapphire blue dress covered in sequins, crystals and bugle beads, with a swath of satin across the bodice and sleeves, Dr. Biden played her part. At the official photo op, as she and the Kenyan first lady, Rachael Ruto, flanked their husbands, President Biden and President William Ruto, in matching tuxedos and bow ties, it was the women who stood out.

Dr. Biden’s dress was by Sergio Hudson, a Black American designer who has been a part of the Biden story since the 2020 election. It is the first time she has worn a gown by a Black designer at a state dinner.

Mr. Hudson first became widely known during Mr. Biden’s inauguration , when Michelle Obama wore his plum-colored trousers, turtleneck and greatcoat to the president’s swearing-in. Vice President Kamala Harris also wore a Sergio Hudson look to the inaugural balls — a black sequin column and long tuxedo coat — one of a series of looks by Black American designers she chose to mark becoming the first Black woman to be elected vice president.

Since the beginning of this election year, Dr. Biden has worn Mr. Hudson’s work twice. Each time she wore his long-sleeve sequined bodysuit with loose trousers to be the keynote speaker at major events. (One of the trademarks of her time as first lady has been a laudable willingness to re-wear looks .)

The first time she wore the look was in February, at a gala in Los Angeles for the 15 Percent Pledge , a nonprofit founded by the designer Aurora James after the murder of George Floyd to support Black designers. “We’re all here because we know the threads of social justice are interwoven with economic justice,” Dr. Biden said at the event, where she discussed the Biden administration’s record on equity.

She wore it again in March at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in Los Angeles, where she talked about marriage equality and the threat to democracy.

That she would wear Mr. Hudson yet again to the first state dinner for an African leader since 2008, and at one of the largest state dinners of the Biden administration — one with a guest list that seemed calibrated in part, as The New York Times wrote, as a campaign event — is probably not an accident.

“It’s the highest honor to be able to design for the first lady,” Mr. Hudson wrote in an email. “I think it would be a dream for any American designer, and I consider it a career milestone.”

He said the dress was made with the Kenyan first couple in mind. “A lot of African formal wear incorporates vibrant color and draping,” he said, “so this particular style felt right for a state dinner with Kenya. I wanted Dr. Biden to feel glamorous and evoke royalty considering the guests of honor.”

Speaking of those guests, Mrs. Ruto stepped off the plane in Washington in a kitenge dress in the colors of the Kenyan flag and wore a flounced gown of corroded gold to the state dinner. She has been a highly effective and active ambassador for her country’s fashion since her husband took office. Perhaps in recognition of that, Vice President Harris wore a caped Chloé gown by Chemena Kamali in the green of the Kenyan flag to the state dinner.

In that context, the blue of Dr. Biden’s gown was similarly striking. It was the blue of the Democratic Party, the flag (especially when paired with a red carpet), loyalty and honesty. Earlier in the day she wore a light blue suit — one that matched her husband’s light blue tie — for the Rutos’ arrival ceremony. She’s pushing a lot of buttons.

This stepped-up dressing is consistent with what seems to be Dr. Biden’s stepped-up role in the presidential campaign. State dinners may not be for everyone — after the entrances, what happens in the tent is private — but the pictures send their own message. Dr. Biden is showing up as true blue. That’s one takeaway that’s not just for the folks in the room.

Vanessa Friedman has been the fashion director and chief fashion critic for The Times since 2014. More about Vanessa Friedman

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