Just finished Michelle Obama’s ‘Becoming’. Loved every single sentence. I’ll admit I didn’t think about reading it until everyone was going mad about it. Some readers are all like, «Oh no, I don’t read what’s popular. Please.» But I was curious to know what was setting folks on fire.
The thing that pushed me to finally buy the book wasn’t that this is the journey of a working-class black woman making it into one of the most public positions in the world or the fact that this woman redefined a very boring, very sexist and very white role. It was the fact she wore those gold spangly thigh boots on her book tour. I was like «Oh no she didn’t». I’m not even into fashion but they melted my brain and had my inner seal flapping its flippers and yawping. But back to the book. This should be on the school syllabus, inspiring young girls everywhere.
Reading this I felt like I stepped inside the clothes her mother made her as she studied her butt off. Felt what it might be like to be powerful and black in a white world, how vulnerable that might make a person. I fell head over heels for Barack Obama when we worked together at a law firm (lol) and then felt how hard it was to hand him over to the entire world. I have been floating in her astounding energy for a few days and am grateful for it. Do read it. It’s a great way to start the year.
One of the most powerful points in the book, can’t quote it word for word, but she describes beginning to deeply fear for her husband’s safety, wondering if they had taken the right path as there’s s a list of powerful radical thinkers who have been shot dead in America. Then she remembered that her husband is a black man and if he weren’t the president he could just as well be shot by a police officer for walking into a petrol station on the wrong day of the week. That got me right in the marrow. 11/10
A Book A Week 