Michelle Obama – Now Thats’ Black LOVE

Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 12:03 AM

This is a part of the inteview done by Andre Leon Talley – for Vogue Magazine, This Month.

to read the whole interview, click the photo.

Enjoy Black Love Day,

~RE

From envisioning a more inclusive White House to embracing fearless fashion, Michelle Obama is poised to become the most transformative First Lady in history.

André Leon Talley reports. Portraits by Annie Leibovitz.

“Do you see our new house?” Michelle Obama asks, walking to a corner window of the reception suite at the Hay-Adams and drawing back the white curtains. It is a wet, chilly Tuesday afternoon in Washington, D.C., two weeks before the Inauguration, and the Obamas have just moved into the hotel so their daughters can begin the new semester at Sidwell Friends. Through the window we can see armed security men in black walking around on the White House roof.

“They tell me they do that a lot,” she says.

Mrs. Obama has a hug—a sincere and friendly embrace—that has become familiar to countless supporters from coast to coast. And when she talks to you, she focuses all her calm attention on your face. For a passionate supporter like me (someone who, like millions of regular American citizens, volunteered in the campaign trenches and basked in the glow of glory at the Inauguration), being the focus of this reassuring gaze is akin to hearing a chord from John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.” Or maybe Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “The Lark Ascending”: All is well and right and real.

With her long, lean, athletic frame, she moves as if she could have danced with Alvin Ailey in another life. Curled up in the corner of a huge taupe velvet sofa, wearing knee-high boots as she nestles into the cushions, she almost seems like any other mom recently relocated to a city because of her husband’s new job.

The work-life balance that this particular mother struggles with is not typical, but the early-days challenges she faces are remarkably ordinary. Getting her bearings, checking out churches to join, helping her kids adjust to unfamiliar surroundings—these are her top priorities and preoccupations. The First Lady puts her family first.

“I’m going to try to take them to school every morning—as much as I can,” she says of Natasha (a.k.a. Sasha), seven, and Malia, ten. “But there’s also a measure of independence. And obviously there will be times I won’t be able to drop them off at all. I like to be a presence in my kids’ school. I want to know the teachers; I want to know the other parents.”

By now, everyone knows that Mrs. Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson, has moved in with her daughter and son-in-law to help keep the kids on an even keel; we’ve all heard how she basically reared Sasha and Malia while their parents were on their two-year journey to the White House. Mrs. Robinson will, she says, be there to help in any way she can. (If you could put a word to how she is feeling about the whole thing, it would be bemused: “I laugh now because I always taught Michelle to step out of her comfort zone in life,” she tells me. “But I never thought she was going to step this far out of that zone.”)

Just as Hillary Clinton took Chelsea along to Europe and Africa when she was off from school, Mrs. Obama anticipates traveling with her own daughters during school breaks. “I’ve been grateful that my girls have been able to see parts of the country that I’m just seeing at the age of 44,” she says. “It’s not only seeing Paris, London, and Rome. It’s also the remote places…exposing them to what we hope all kids will have: a feeling that they are citizens of the world.”

I had a chance to ask Jill Biden, the wife of the vice-president, about Mrs. Obama’s parenting style, and she put the accent on how real the new First Lady is. “During the convention, my grandchildren and her children had a sleepover, watching movies, eating pizza and popcorn, just having fun hanging out,” she said. “And I think that’s what’s special about Michelle—she maintains a normal life in an extraordinary time. You only need to be around her girls for a few seconds to know what an incredible mom she is.”

Caroline Kennedy has shared with Mrs. Obama fond memories of living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “My mother always told me that the happiest times we spent as a family were in the White House because we were all together,” Kennedy says. “After years of campaigning, I am sure the Obamas will feel the same way.”

For all the sleepovers and pizza parties, will Michelle Obama be a traditional First Lady in the cookie-baking, housewife-in-chief mold? Of course not. Those days are probably over for good. First Ladies have always been held like specimens under a media microscope. Some 200 years ago, when Abigail Adams stepped into the role, she was cast as the New England bluestocking. Dolley Madison is still considered the White House’s most fabulous hostess: She wore flamboyant turbans spiked with ostrich plumes, held evening gatherings nearly every Wednesday, and wowed guests with dishes of ice cream as pianos tinkled and guitars strummed. Mary Todd Lincoln hosted regular public receptions, with a gridlock of visitors herded through the eastern gate and ushered out through the western gate. President Lincoln and his wife shook hands with everyone in the receiving line, standing there for two hours if necessary.

It’s been an awfully long time since strangers off the street could wander right into the presidential mansion, but Michelle Obama’s intention is to open up the White House again in a spirit of diversity and inclusion. She speaks of her future there as almost a collective experience. It’s never “me” and “mine” and “some,” but “we” and “our” and “all.” She’s like the neighbor organizing a block party: Everyone is invited.

No doubt this attitude owes a lot to the sense of community she drank in as she grew up in a modest house on the South Side of Chicago, where her parents carved a bedroom out of the living room for her and her brother, Craig Robinson, to share. She doesn’t come from a culture of exclusivity, and she doesn’t appreciate a “members only” attitude. “We like to joke that the South Side of Chicago is our Kennebunkport,” she says. She’ll be guided by another lesson of her upbringing: “We learned in our household that there was nothing you couldn’t talk about and that you found humor in even some of the toughest times. I want to bring that spirit of warmth, openness, and stability to my task.”

Any notion that the White House will be more welcoming to black Americans above all others is unfounded. “She will reach out to the full spectrum of American people,” says Valerie Jarrett, a special adviser to the president and a longtime friend. “That’s what she’s done throughout her whole life—embrace all ethnicities. I believe there will be a special connection with the African-American community, because she’s the first African-American First Lady. Michelle’s heart has plenty of room for everybody.”

Mrs. Obama herself describes it this way: “We want entertaining in the White House to feel like America, that we are reminded of all the many facets of our culture. The Latino community, the Asian-American community, the African-American community.…Hip-hop, spoken word—we want to bring the youth in, for them to hear their voices in this.”

She sees the White House as a national classroom. “We want to make sure that our young people remember and understand what classical music is, who some of the great American artists are,” she says, to give one example. And: “I am excited about the potential of the White House kitchen being a learning environment for the community. The current chef, Cristeta Comerford, is the only female chef in the history of the White House. She’s a young Filipina woman, a mother with a young child, and I am excited to get to know her and for her to know us as a family. If you think about all the kids interested in finding out about all of the inner workings of the White House—I’m hoping that we can build a team to reach out.”

Like Hillary Clinton before her, Mrs. Obama has always been a working woman. She is a lawyer turned hospital administrator turned political right hand. It is a unique résumé. What we know for sure, so far, is that children will be one focus of her formidable brainpower.

What Michelle Obama is less focused on—in direct inverse proportion to the focus of the public—is fashion. Which isn’t to say that she doesn’t appreciate good clothes. Or that the fashion choices of a woman whose image will shortly be—or already is—among the most recognizable in the entire world aren’t iconic. And thus far, those choices have been fearless. Every moment she sallies forth, she will be scrutinized, then alternately set on a pedestal or skewered. Which, thankfully, hasn’t put the brakes on her enthusiasm or originality—so markedly different from, but for an exception or two, previous presidential partners who shrank from matters of style or played it safe. Her self-possession is an inspiration. “I love clothes,” she admits. “First and foremost, I wear what I love. That’s what women have to focus on: what makes them happy and what makes them feel comfortable and beautiful. If I can have any impact, I want women to feel good about themselves and have fun with fashion.”