Michelle Obama Makes Interesting Revelations About Her Upbringing, Marriage and White House Days As She Discusses Her Book, ‘Becoming’ With Chimamanda Adichie
The immediate past FLOTUS, Michelle Obama, 54, has made interesting revelations about her background, her days in the White House, her marriage, her visit to the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth, and more while fielding questions from Nigerian-born writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who moderated at the event as they sat to discuss about the former’s recently published autobiography titled, ‘Becoming’ at Southbank centre, London; on Monday.
With the hall packed full and many unable to gain access to the ticketed event, Michelle opened up about how her parents valued her contributions to matters while growing up. She told about how her mom encouraged her siblings and her to let their voices be heard and how they had ensured they didn’t try to put out her light the way parents are known to do with their daughters.
She said:
“One of the things my parents believed was that my voice was relevant and my opinions were meaningful and my anger and frustration was real.
My parents saw this flame in me. Instead of doing what we often do to girls who are feisty which is try to put that flame out to douse it because we are worried about them not being lady-like or being bossy. They found a way to keep that flame lit.
To have that flame lit in a girl you need to let that flame speak accordingly and learn how to use it.”
On her marriage, Michelle talked about the difficulties of marriage and confessed to sometimes wanting to “push Barack out a window”.
She talked about how her father, Fraser C. Robinson had made sacrifices to see that they had all they needed.
When asked how she feels about being recognized as a “symbol of hope”, Michelle answered:
“I still have a little imposter syndrome, it never goes away, that you’re actually listening to me.
It doesn’t go away, that feeling that you shouldn’t take me that seriously. What do I know? I share that with you because we all have doubts in our abilities, about our power and what that power is.
If I’m giving people hope then that is a responsibility, so I have to make sure that I am accountable.
We don’t have any choice but to make sure we elders are giving our young people a reason to hope.”
On her visit with husband, Barack Obama to see the queen of England, Michelle recalled that she was panicky; she did not want to do anything wrong and was amazed when the queen beckoned, “Just get in“.
“I had all this protocol buzzing in my head and I was like ‘don’t trip down the stairs and don’t touch anybody, whatever you do’.
And so the Queen says ‘just get in, sit wherever’ and she’s telling you one thing and you’re remembering protocol and she says ‘Oh it’s all rubbish, just get in’.”
The mom-of-2 whose new book ‘Becoming’ broke sales records to become the best-selling book released in 2018, just 15 days after its release also spoke on her experience of black women being caricatured. She said:
“The size of our hips, our style, our swag, it becomes co-opted but then we are demonized.
My advice to young women in that you have to start by getting those demons out of your head. The questions I ask myself – ‘am I good enough?’ – that haunts us, because the messages that are sent from the time we are little is: maybe you are not, don’t reach too high, don’t talk too loud.
The former first lady said this was true for women and working-class people, and “profound for women of colour”, as people in power tried to make them feel they did not “belong”.
See video below: