If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others. -Michelle Obama (Why Black wom
If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others.
-Michelle Obama
(Why Black women must speak for ourselves, gatekeep our image, and protect our humanity)
Every so often-too often- I see it again:
A meme, a tweet, or a post using Michelle Obama’s likeness to say something like:
“This is why we have to support men. Look how they called Michelle a man.”
Can we pause right there? A conversation about a Black woman being bullied by the worst of us turns into a reason for Black women to labor and toil ….again? Give….more.
Do you know what a post like that really says?
It says that Michelle Obama’s pain—her decades of public service, strength, and grace under fire—is nothing more than a useful example. A pawn in a conversation that isn’t even centered on her.
It says:
“They called her a man, so now we should sympathize for people other than her.”
Not:
“They called her a man, and we need to talk about the pain of Black womanhood being constantly dehumanized.”
That is not “solidarity.”
That is exploitation.
Exploitation is the selfish act of using someone for your own purposes without regard for their health, safety, or well-being.
This is the opposite of ‘organizing’. You can’t make people be in solidarity with you. You can only get solidarity when people say “yes” to solidarity. Not only doesn’t this ‘mean girl’ thing work, it isn’t sustainable. Check out history. Eventually people will start a war and overthrow you if they have to.
They may lose a lot of battles but oppressed people are pretty motivated to keep trying.
You want support? You have to build it by being a human being and then touching another human being. One person at a time.
“We’ve got a responsibility to live up to the legacy of those who came before us
by doing all that we can to help those who come after us.” ~ Michelle Obama
Like the rest of us, Michelle Obama is a human being. Michelle Obama isn’t just an image.
She is a Black woman who has been mocked, degraded, and publicly dehumanized in ways that cut straight to the bone of what this country thinks about women who look like her.
Being bullied often trains young people—especially our young Black girls—to think, “Maybe if I give them more, they will stop hurting me.” But many groups do the opposite. They take the pleasing as permission.
Fannie Lou Hamer, who gave her body, voice, and safety to freedom work, yet still had to fight political institutions that wanted Black people’s votes without Black women’s full power.
Serena Williams, whose excellence was repeatedly met with racist and sexist policing of her body, anger, clothes, and dominance.
I’m also remembering girls we lost like Shanquella Robinson. She was a young Black woman from North Carolina who traveled to Cabo San Lucas with a group of people she considered friends in October 2022. At first, her family was told she died from alcohol poisoning, but a Mexican death certificate later listed severe spinal cord and neck injuries. A video also surfaced showing her being physically attacked during the trip, which brought major public attention to the case.
What did she suspect before she left? Were they cruel at times, and did she brush it off? Did they make jokes at her expense, but she….let it go for the greater good of the friend group?
When you are the target of bullying, harassment, and campaigns waged by the most harmful and ignorant among us, for some being nice or people-pleasing can seem like the way to go. I’m afraid this approach only works out for the harmdoer while you keep absorbing more harm and loss.
Other similar known cases include:
Where is the space to ask:
How does she feel? Is she okay?
What does it mean to wake up and know your own people are recycling white supremacist propaganda to make a point about someone else’s struggle? People you worked for.
What does it mean to have your body used as evidence but never as something to protect? By your own people. Your own group. Your own circle.
There is no honor in being sacrificed to earn someone else sympathy.
Not when your own feelings, your humanness, are erased in the process.
“One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks,
I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.” ~ Michelle Obama
As for those who ought to know a little better, promoting low racial esteem in an effort to get Black women to take your hand and mule for your suggested causes is an insult back through to every woman in my bloodline. Michelle Obama alone represented you with honor and distinction, and this is how you do?
“Do not bring people in your life who weigh you down. And trust your instincts … good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don’t hurt. They’re not painful. That’s not just with somebody you want to marry, but it’s with the friends that you choose. It’s with the people you surround yourselves with.” ~ Michelle Obama
This is why Black women must speak for ourselves.
This is why we must gatekeep our image and our energy.
You can’t tell it like I tell it.
This is why we cannot keep linking arms with people who will not protect us in return.
Solidarity without reciprocity is not solidarity—it’s sacrifice.
“When women and girls rise,
their communities
and their countries rise with them”
~ Michelle Obama
Black women are not symbols.
We are not metaphors.
We are not stepping stones on the path to someone else’s liberation.
We are human beings.
And if the world refuses to remember that, then we must.
For ourselves.
For each other.
For the girls coming up behind us.
