Soon after it came out in 2020, I watched Michelle Obama’s Becoming. I don’t usually seek out biopics, but as my cursor scanned the films on offer I must have lingered a second, and Becoming started to roll. And then I couldn’t look away.
Michelle Obama has filled many roles in her lifetime, but among her other identities she is now a woman entering her third age. So I wanted to hear what she had to say.
Michelle came up from working-class roots and excelled in the academy and the law through sheer intelligence and force of will, along with the support of a grounded family. Fairly soon, she decided that lawyering wasn’t for her – but not before having invested a great deal of time and effort in gaining a Harvard law degree and a job at a prestigious Chicago law firm. Now nearing 60, does she regret her initial career choice, which turned out to be a false start? I don’t know, but after leaving the law firm she soon found her path, helping Chicago nonprofits reach across racial and class lines and connect with the surrounding community.
In her role as first lady, she reached across generations. I remember the day in 2009 when black SUVs showed up at Bancroft Elementary School across the street from my house in DC. It was Michelle, coming to help the students plant a school garden as part of her signature initiative to get children moving and eating healthy food. That garden exists to this day, and Bancroft families can stop by anytime to harvest the veggies and take them home. Michelle also invited children from Bancroft, and other DC elementary schools, to the White House to plant and harvest a kitchen garden on the South Lawn.
Fast-forward to 2022: Obama is in her post-presidency. And she is now one of us, so to speak – a third age woman thinking back on her life and deciding how to spend the rest of it. As she says in the film, after eight years in the White House she finally has “time to actually reflect … to figure out what just happened to me.” She has written a memoir, which I’ll talk about in a future post. And she has continued to connect across generations. Parts of the film show her talking with young people, most of them African American or Latino, about their lives and hers. She tells them they can find power in their own stories and decide what to do with their lives, just as she’s deciding about the next phase of her life, and just as we third agers are deciding about our own.
As I watched the film, I thought about how the Obamas represented what is best in this country. I don’t agree with everything the Obama administration did and did not do. The lost opportunities and misguided policies, including the deportation of three million people, have been amply debated elsewhere. But I feel only respect for the family’s human decency, dignity, and honesty, and their compassion for the country they led.
For a while after 2008, many Americans felt that this young administration represented all that is or could be good in our society. This is who we are as a nation, we thought. It felt like a turning point. It wasn’t.
A moment in the film stands out. On Inauguration eve in 2017, the night before the Obamas moved out of the White House, Malia’s and Sasha’s friends begged for one more sleepover. One reason, Michelle tells us, is that the friends loved White House breakfasts: you could have anything you wanted! Chicken biscuits, waffles. But the next morning she hurried the girls out so the packing up could begin. “The Trumps are coming,” she warned.
It’s the only point in the film, I believe, where the 45th president is named. The effect is startling. The scene of the girls and the sleepover and the waffles that Michelle describes suddenly feels defiled, contaminated.
Where the Obamas famously go high, the Trumps go lower than we ever imagined anyone could go and still occupy public office. The crass vulgarity, the self-dealing, the lying, the cruelty and the sneering disdain for those deemed lesser all stand in striking contrast to what came before.
The Trumps, too, are who we are.
It’s become a liberal commonplace to insist that the nation is “better than this,” as if Trump arrived from some other planet to corrupt our inherent goodness. It’s a nice thought, but as I reflected while watching the film, simply not true. History shows that our national character, to the extent that we can define one, contains some of the qualities we admire in the Obamas. But it also contains much of what we say we despise in the Trumps: selfish individualism, unfettered greed, arrogance and aggressiveness, and above all, white racism. Trumpism isn’t like an infection that can be cured by the medicine of an election. We found that out after the 2020 election that removed him. It’s more like an incurable disease present from birth – the nation’s birth in conquest and slavery. It’s an affliction that we will need to control and, hopefully, beat back into remission, always remaining alert to the threat of a resurgence.
Still, I felt encouraged as I watched the film. White supremacy is entrenched in our institutions – education, law enforcement, the justice system, and more. But I don’t think it’s inscribed in any kind of immutable national genetic code. Proof of this is the young people, Gen Z-ers mostly, to whom Michelle listens in the film. Coming of age in the Trump era, they are not having any of it. They have other ideas, and they are not afraid. They too are becoming. Those of us in our third age need to keep doing everything we can to change the country and ourselves. But at some point it will be up to those coming after us, and we will have to stand aside and let them lead.
The Obama era intersected with my "third age," offering hope for changes many of us wanted to see. The president wasn't able to do all that we'd hoped, but the Obama family optics were heartening, and Michelle was responsible for a lot of the good feelings. For eight years we saw a down to earth American family at the top that resonated with most of us - not celebrities or super rich power brokers. Michelle often wore store-bought clothing; I remember her simple J Crew outfits. She didn't aim to make herself look sexy or seem seductive; she was a mom first and foremost. I had the feeling she really cared about people, unlike the administration that came after, where the first lady made her intentions known by wearing a military style jacket with the words on the back "I don't really care - do you?" And I think that's where we're at, many of us, in our third age. We care about people more than ever; we want to make things better for others; we want our country to be united. We want ethnic hatred to calm down and fade, by making sure our youths receive a good schooling in accurate history and civic responsibility. We want women to be well-treated, paid equally with men, and maintain control over their own bodies. We want less war and more peace. We want leaders like the Obamas who are more like "the people."
Dear Kathy,
Thanks for this post. I remember well watching the Obama/McCain Debates. I was with a friend and when the Obamas were on stage he turned to me and said, "That is the family I want in the Whitehouse."
I was so thrilled when he was elected. I was teaching during the swearing in, and I had it on the radio. I told my class, "this is history".
I agree with Kathy in that I feel disappointment in much of Obama's presidential decisions. But I never doubted his integrity or his efforts to do what he thought was important for the country. He was also so eloquent and his many speeches go down as among the best in American history. I saw Mrs. Obama as both elegant and down to earth. Her activities were a perfect complement to the work of her husband.
I agree with Kathy that the Trump base is also who we are, basically 50% of us. As one of those liberals I find it hard to understand the thinking of this base. But understanding that thinking is not as important as understanding where that thinking comes from. Not too long ago I read a book that I will always remember. The title is "Tightrope" and it is by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. It discusses the lives of many people living in rural Oregon. It is a very empathetic portrait of this community. I highly recommend it. Nicholas Kristof is currently a candidate for Governor of Oregon.