On First Ladies Named Michelle... and Diane

There is a Chris Rock joke that went around the Black blogosphere recently: 

Barack has a handicap the other candidates don't have: Barack Obama has a black wife. And I don't think a black woman can be first lady of the United States. Yeah, I said it! A black woman can be president, no problem. First lady? Can't do it. You know why? Because a black woman cannot play the background of a relationship. Just imagine telling your black wife that you're president? 'Honey, I did it! I won! I'm the president.' 'No, we the president! And I want my girlfriends in the Cabinet! I want Kiki to be secretary of state! She can fight!'

It's a new joke from his latest concert tour and it was noted in the recent cover story on Chris in Rolling Stone magazine and, as much as I love Chris Rock, I don't find it funny.   

I've been thinking a lot about Black First Ladies lately. Naturally, Michelle Obama comes to mind, but I am also thinking of two other Michelles - and a Diane.

Diane Patrick, the First Lady of Massachusetts, is a partner at the law firm Ropes & Gray LLP and a former teacher in the Bronx.  She has stressed her private nature as her husband's political fortunes rose, recently had a bout with depression just two months after Deval Patrick was sworn in as the Massachusett's first black governor (and only the second black governor in American history).  During her husband's historic campaign, she became known for being able to relate easily to different types of people and for being very clear from the start that she had no intention of giving up her career if her husband was elected.

Michelle Fenty is the First Lady of the District of Columbia.  I mentioned her in an article last year, Black Like Barack, where I wrote of how her husband, Mayor Adrian Fenty, was one of the new crop of black politicians redefining our political landscape.  Fenty is Jamaican and a native of London, a graduate of Howard University Law School and  is an Of Counsel at the law firm Perkins Coie. She also does charitable work in her capacity as First Lady. Believe it or not, she is second only to Michelle Obama in search engine results to this web site and I am certain I know the reason.  It's her style.  Michelle Fenty has said that she loves designers like Tracy Reese, Vera Wang and Calvin Klein and it shows.  She is also an unabashed lover of Manolo Blahnik shoes.  Frankly, I am stunned that she hasn't been featured more widely in the media outside of the District.  Then again, I'm not.

And then there is Michelle Paige Paterson.  She had to throw out her Metrocard a few months ago and begin to prepare for a big change in her life as the new First Lady of New York. Her husband David Paterson was sworn-in as the first black (and the first blind) governor in New York and only the third black governor in American history. With the blink of an eye, she now has a bodyguard and state troopers driving her to work and her son to school.

It's Our Camelot

     

Does a Black First Lady matter? It certainly does to me, but I wanted to ask other Black women about it so I started with my grandmother.  I called and asked if a Black First Lady would make a difference to her and she thought that she heard me wrong and asked if I was kidding her.  Ditto for my aunt, who is also my grandmother's sister. "Are you kidding me? In my lifetime?  Both of them would do us well.  Everything about them is such a plus for us.  I'm just so proud of them already."

And, as you might have guessed, that is the same answer I got over and over.  I figured as much, but I didn't want to assume.   One of my friends also just came right out and said it.  "It's our Camelot.  To see a man like Barack Obama run such an amazing campaign is one thing, but to see his dynamic, pretty, relatable Black wife by his side is a huge (make that HUGE!) plus in his column."

I don't know if people realize just how deep this sentiment runs with many black women.  I have received lots, and I do mean lots, of email forwards from other black women, simply filled with gorgeous family photos of the Obama family or especially affectionate pictures of Barack and Michelle hugging, snuggling... dancing.  Seriously!  If you are a black woman, how many times did the following picture appear in your inbox?

We like to see these photos for a very simple reason.   Extensive media coverage of attractive black men married to black women who look black (yeah, I said it!) with their beautiful black children are a very rare commodity.  We are constantly steeling ourselves against negative media images of black women and persistent dismal statistics on the black family so a steady diet of the gorgeous Obama family can be quite satisfying.

Women like Michelle Obama, Michelle Paterson, Michelle Fenty and Diane Patrick remind me of women that I actually know, as opposed to women I only read and hear about in the press.  They are living, breathing - yes, I'm going to say it - Claire Huxtables.  Women like my friends, cousins and colleagues who are Mocha Moms or Jack & Jill members.  Or women like myself who do not belong to any official group or sorority, but are well-versed in the "Negro Geography" game just the same.  We know the meaning of 'Working While Black' and why the word "articulate" can be tricky.  We're not perfect and we are well aware of it.  We just want a fair shake just like anyone else.

Historically, prominent Black wives have always been highly educated, staunchly in the upper or middle class and almost always, light-skinned.  Also, more often than not, they were of a higher social and/or educational class than their husbands.  Black leaders like Booker T. Washington, W.E. B. DuBois, and early black politicians were all married to women who fit the bill.

There were also black women who were married to prominent black men who were accomplished in their own right and, in the case of women like Ida B. Wells-Barnett (top left), Mary Church Terrell (top right), Adella Hunt Logan (bottom left) Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Fannie Barrier Williams and Victoria Earle Matthews (bottom right), history would know their names better than their husbands.  They were also interested in keeping up appearances - publicly and privately. There was added pressure to be domestic icons as well with the added pressure of "Negro Womanhood" on their shoulders. The added pressure of "Negro Womanhood" meant defending the reputation of black women, regardless of social class, along with guarding their own reputation.  In one of my favorite books on the history of Black women in America, Too Heavy A Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves 1894-1994, author Deborah Gray White made an interesting comment regarding this pressure as she noted the reticence Mary Church Terrell had in writing about her personal life in her memoir, A Colored Woman in a White World:

Most of them were cautious about putting their private lives and histories in the hands of a media that had for centuries stereotyped and slandered black women.  Rather than take such a risk, black women learned to practice what historian Darlene Clark Hine called the art of dissemblance.  They let their public see only what they wanted them to see.  As far as their audience was concerned, the public was the private.

So, you see, stereotyping and slandering black women for sport did not begin with Michelle Obama or even the mystical "welfare queens" that haunted the psyches of "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans" in the 1980s.  And yet, even with our history in this country combined with modern day pressures, the Michelle Obamas of the world are taking public risks, for pragmatic and personal reasons, that the Mary Church Terrells could never imagine. 

Diane Patrick, after recovering from her bout with depression, declared in a recent speech, I was demoralized, I was diminished, I was exhausted.  It just all came crashing down. She was referring to the difficulties of seeing her husband criticized in public, in addition to being in the public spotlight herself. It was hard, she said, to be defined not by her own achievements, but by whom she was married to.

"I stopped being Diane, and I started being the lovely wife," she said. "Sometimes I was 'his lovely wife, Diane,' but sometimes I was 'his lovely wife, Donna' or 'his lovely wife, Shirley.' I began to lose my identity."

Michelle Paige Paterson and Gov. Paterson made national headlines when they revealed mutual infidelities to the New York Daily News just hours after the governor was sworn in.

"Like most marriages, you go through certain difficult periods.  What's important is for your kids to see you worked them out.  I feel life is very fragile.  You never know what could happen.  That is why you shouldn't judge people."

Michelle Paige Paterson and Diane Patrick also have a sad common factor in their backgrounds - both were victims of domestic violence in relationships prior to their marriages.  In 2006 while on the campaign stump, David Paterson told one audience that his wife had been the victim of domestic violence. Michelle also volunteers as a domestic violence counselor at St. Luke's Hospital in Harlem. Also, Diane Patrick has shared her story of abuse in her first marriage with domestic violence survivors and she has stated her troubles began because she was raised in a family of strong men and "smart women who suppressed their smarts." She said her first husband exploited those tendencies and broke her down with abuse, which she has said was physical and mental. 

During her husband's campaign, she told the Boston Globe that her first husband was "not a nice man" and that he did not want to let go:

"There were times I said to Deval, I don't know if you want to be with me, because I don't know what my husband would be inclined to do to us," Diane Patrick recalled in an interview. "He said, `I'm not afraid, and you shouldn't be either.'

"I was five years older than he [Deval] was," she said, her steady voice quavering almost imperceptibly.  "I was going through a difficult divorce. I wasn't this Ivy League-educated person. He had the world available to him, and he stuck with me through probably the most difficult time in my life, and I didn't have much to offer him. Deval didn't give me a voice, but he reminded me that I had one, because I had forgotten I did."

Last year, Governor and Mrs. Patrick introduced a zero-tolerance policy for domestic violence in Massachusetts.

Now, I am aware that there have been many black mayors, especially in major cities over the years.  However, it seems that, more often than not, their wives were usually seen and not heard, with no visible public role with the exception of campaign appearances or those dreaded scandal-induced press conferences.  Michelle Paige Paterson is local for me, but the technology of our era allows me to sit in my apartment in Newark, New Jersey and read about Diane Patrick in Massachusetts or Michelle Fenty in Washington, D.C. even though they are not national figures.  However, even a decade ago, you would have to be in a given city to even know the first lady's name.

It will be interesting to see where these women go in their lives and careers and the influence, if any, they have on their husband's constituents.  The high-profile First Lady is a relatively new role for black women, so I will be watching closely.

Candidates and Their Wives Who Mirror Our Lives

A Candidate Who Mirrors Their Lives: Black Professionals See Obama's Trials, Gains as Reflection of Their Own:

This mid-20s to mid-40s generation has never questioned Obama's authenticity as a black man, even as their parents voiced doubt before voting began about a biracial candidate who never marched for civil rights. To many young black professionals, Obama was black like them. They brought the noise with Public Enemy but could sing along with Duran Duran. To them, Barack and Michelle were Cliff and Clair, and they were headed to the White House with their with their two little Rudys. They embraced his candidacy early and slapped Obama '08 bumper stickers on their cars.

"He is very familiar to them," says Mary Pattillo, a professor of sociology and African American studies at Northwestern University. "He's done a great job of doing what middle-class blacks do, work in a predominantly white world but still maintain a sense of racial identity and groundedness."

Diane Patrick, First Lady of Massachusetts

Diane Patrick says she has climbed back (Boston Globe)

Eventually, Diane Patrick said, she "just blocked out the world" and sought medical help.

"No one person did anything to me," Patrick said. "It was just being a political wife and having your own accomplishments and talents not only not used, but not even recognized."

She is still guarded - Patrick would not answer questions from reporters yesterday - but has started making more appearances, taking up causes on education, domestic violence, and depression.

"I stand here today, a year later," Patrick said, "and I feel so incredibly strong."

Michelle Paige Paterson, First Lady of New York

No Bed of Roses for Sudden First Lady (New York Times)

“You’re really a single parent when you’re married to an elected official,” says Mrs. Paterson, who was raised in the city — Brooklyn, Staten Island and the Upper East Side — by her mother, a Postal Service manager. “I never dreamed David would be governor; we got a rude awakening in March. I knew it was a good thing for him, because in politics, this is what you strive for, being in a position to make a difference. But I didn’t think it was going to be such a good thing for me.”

Michelle Fenty, First  Lady, The District of Columbia

Michelle Fenty: Washington's First Lady (Women Bisnow)
With the  best British accent in the District  (sorry Ambassador Sheinwald) Michelle tells us the expectations that come with being DC’s first lady are manageable. “People recognize that I have children and a job. They’re incredibly grateful when I show up—I didn’t feel a massive expectation to be out there everyday.”

Michelle Fenty Feels at Home With Women in Power (Politico)

Despite her charity work and social schedule, Fenty said she never considered giving up her career as her husband became more prominent in local politics. "I think it's important for working mothers to see that I work," she said. "If people are going to take notice of what I do or what I don't do, I would like them to say, 'She works, she has a career and she didn't give it up when her husband became mayor.'… I think it's really important for me to send that message, especially to the low-income women."

Michelle Obama, (Potential!) First Lady of the United States of America

Michelle Obama on First Ladies: I can only be who I am (Newsweek)

You said you wanted to focus on the work-family balance if you're in the White House.  But why not focus on the thing that got you into public service in the first place—those kids on the South Side of Chicago, inspiring them to service?

There are a ton of things I'd love to do. I would love to be able to continue this conversation with folks on the ground. How do we keep having these kinds of discussions so that there's a link from the grass roots directly up through the White House, as opposed to going through three different departments and under secretaries and so on and so forth? How do you continue the conversation with people so that Barack and I are still connected to the day-to-day experiences, challenges, struggles of regular people? … I want to bring more kids into the White House of all backgrounds, doing new kinds of internship programs. I mean, come on. I'm an idea person. There are tons of things that I can think about doing. But I'm also a practical person.

First Lady in Waiting (Vanity Fair)

“I’m kind of sarcastic, and I’ve felt that my sense of humor had to be subjugated on some level,” she admits. “My husband loves my sense of humor, and we tease each other mercilessly. But if somebody doesn’t get the joke, then you become a caricature of what the joke was. So it’s like, Well, jeez—let me not joke, then, if it’s going to be all that problematic. People get real worked up about some things I felt were really minor, funny, harmless observations about who we are as people.”

Mrs. Obama nonetheless believes that it’s better for voters to understand her husband and herself before deciding on their choice. “My hope is that Americans really want to know who the people who are going to be in the White House are,” she says. “What’s our sense of humor? What are we trying to accomplish? What are our values? My view is: know that now; make the judgment. I think people are ready for truth, if it’s real—so that’s what I’m banking on.”

The Other Obama: Michelle Obama and the politics of candor (The New Yorker)

She is unquestionably accomplished, but she is not a repressed intellectual, in the mode of Teresa Heinz Kerry. More than anything, she seems to enjoy talking about her husband and her daughters (Malia, nine, and Sasha, six). She can give the impression, in the midst of the campaign’s endless roundtables and kaffeeklatsches, that she’d rather be talking to them. Obama seems like an iconoclast precisely because she’s normal (the norm for a candidate’s wife having been defined, in the past, as nonworking, white, and pious about the democratic process). 

Comments

[rikyrah]

I love this. Love it. I'm going to put it on JJP, but I have to cut and paste.

[Nichelle]

Haha! That's understandable Rikyrah - thanks a lot. I told you I had a lot to say!

[sfsinger]

Thank you for this. I saw a link from JJP but had to come to the original story. I really liked the historical tie-in.

[lizzy]

Thanks for this post. Very inspiring and educational. And wouldn't it - won't it - be wonderful to have a First Lady with a sense of humor? I hope she can maintain it and express herself to the public.

[Craig Hickman]

Nice work. Black women in public life need this kind of write-up.

Thank you.

[Danielle]

This was a beautifully written article. I'm glad to have gained some insight into these amazing women, their struggles and triumphs.

Thank you!

[mmsjohnson]

Thank you for writing this lovely article. Michelle Obama and the other first ladies mentioned here are such an inspiration to black professional women like me who have to deal with so much bias against us in the public sphere. My sister and I always say that we fell in love with Barack after we saw him with the awesome Michelle.

[Buffalo Cowboy]

Excellent read, once again I have to keep blinking back tears at the thought of what will come to pass in my lifetime.

[OG]

Great post!! I had to link it to my blog and spread some positive light in the lieu of all the Michelle haterade being passed out.

I just moved to Boston three months ago I love the Patricks their youngest just came out as a lesbian yesterday. The things she said about her parents and their acceptance was so sweet!

-OG

[Barbara Parker]

You don't need words, the picutures says it all!!!! This article brings tears of joy to my heart.

It's time for comedians to stop airing jokes at the expense of black women in regards to black men, we need to focus on the positive!!!

[Lisa]

Hello there! {waves}

I love this story! Please continue to write more posts about the black wives who are in the public arena and representing black womanhood with sophistication and grace.

Peace, blessings and DUNAMIS!

Lisa

[Anali]

Wonderful post! Thank you for this!

[The Sauda Voice]

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this post!!! Sometimes we need a little reminder of just how great we are and have always been! Thanks!!

The Sauda Voice

[frederick douglas]

This is the most inspiriing arcticle I've seen about Michelle and family. The beauty, power, unstoppable truth is flowing into the White House. The people's House will be filled with love of human beings and God. Go Barock. He knows how to pick the right woman & she Knows how to hold em.