Ransom Notes: Michelle a fierce first lady

President-elect Barack Obama has energized the entire world with his historic victory, his rapid moves to build his administration and his sober, intelligent consideration of the issues that plague this nation.

Obama is something different, certainly different from the previous eight years, and everything he does makes history.

But while the world is waiting for Barack Hussein Obama to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, I admit, I’m looking forward to something else.

I’m looking forward to Michelle LaVaughn Obama as the First Lady.

Back when everyone (especially Black people) were debating whether or not Barack Obama was Black enough, there were no such concerns about his wife.

While her husband’s story is compelling and worthy of the two memoirs he has already written, the story of Michelle Obama may be even more interesting and much more like what most Black people have experienced.

While her husband grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, with a white mother and an absentee Kenyan father, Michelle Obama is a neighborhood girl who made good.

I’ve seen the South Side of Chicago streets where she grew up. I’ve lived on some of them. She is a proud alumnus of Whitney Young Magnet High School, a fine school that is known for nurturing excellence. I’ve seen the grit that she had to have to make it from those streets to the Ivy League halls of Princeton, cum laude–thank you, and then to the prestigious classrooms of Harvard Law School.

I recognize her late father, Fraser Robinson III, a city water filtration plant employee and Democratic precinct captain, as one of those quintessential Black fathers that everyone now says are rare. He worked for more than 30 years, despite being diagnosed at age 30 with multiple sclerosis, a debilitating disease that robs its victims of their mobility, but obviously does not retard their strength. He died in 1991 at the young age of 55.

I’ve seen her mother, Marian Robinson, a no-nonsense woman who has looked after the Obama girls, Malia Anne and Natasha, while their parents were on the campaign trail. She raised her own two children, Michelle and her older brother Craig, head basketball coach at Oregon State University, and she guided them through those streets and through schools. She is Michelle’s role model, and there is steel there.

Michelle Obama has the unique opportunity to teach this nation just what it means to be a Black person, a Black woman and a Black mother. It is a lesson not restricted to white people who only know Black people from television. She will set an example for Black people as well.

More importantly, she will set an example for young Black females. She presents a different model than Oprah because when she speaks about raising children, she is talking from experience. When she talks about building and nurturing a relationship with a Black man and navigating a 16-year marriage, her husband is right there nodding in agreement.

Some are focusing on Michelle, the fashion and style icon. They are comparing her to Jackie Kennedy and musing about a “Bamalot.” But that is much too superficial, and it doesn’t come close to capturing the achievements of this fierce Black sister who has made a decision to keep her own stellar career in the background while she supports her man.

She is no shrinking violet, and I can’t wait to hear her on the bully pulpit that is the office of the First Lady. She’ll speak out with force and with intelligence. She has already decided that she’ll champion the plight of military families, and while she won’t be huddling with her husband over policy, she is equipped to become a real force in the U.S. society.

I can’t wait to see how the White House transforms into the Obama House. I can’t wait to see this strong, beautiful, intelligent, accomplished Black woman take over.

Michelle Obama is the model of the modern Black mother, the modern Black woman. She would be adopted by my mother, befriended by my sisters, hit on by my brothers and admired by my father. She is already a part of so many families.

While Barack Obama will be the President of the United States and represent every citizen, I am jealous about Michelle. She is the First Lady for Black people, and she doesn’t have to do anything at all to fill that position.

Lou Ransom is Executive Editor of the Chicago Defender. He can be reached via email at lransom@chicagodefender.com.