Jack & Jill Politics

In the Our Own dnA Explains What’s Wrong With Juan Williams post, there was a reply that broke it down raw.

From texascowgirl:

This makes me angry on so many levels because I know if Michelle looked like Beyonce or Halle Berry she wouldn’t be talked about this way. Michelle is a dark skinned black woman and she does not fit the phenotype of a woman married to the leader of the free world, even if he is black too. And as angry as I want to be at white folks, Juan Williams not being able to hide his disdain for Michelle shouldn’t be that surprising because black people don’t always have a lot of love for women who look like Michelle either. You mentioned hip hop so let’s ask ourselves how often we see dark skinned women in rap videos. Does it kinda grab you attention when you actually do? Michelle may be fabublous and beautiful to me, but I know how many people don’t feel the same way and never will. I also know it has nothing to do with her “proud” comments. For me Michelle is how I knew Barack wasn’t a phoney. She’s not about bullshit so I knew her husband couldn’t be about bullshit either, but many would gladly take him and leave her. If you’re brown stick around, but is you’re black get back………Michelle is undoubtedly, unashamedly and therefore unforgiveably black. She is not supposed to be the kind of woman who is placed on a pedastal and the First Lady is just that. This is “Who does she think she is, how did she get that man and how can we knock her down for getting to big for her britches”. Whether it’s criticizing her appearance or telling her to watch her mouth, it’s all designed to make her recede from a place that she never should been in the first place.

And for the record we have seen this before. Other women get this treatment, it’s just that with Michelle it’s more visceral becasue of the obvious racism. Hillary caught hell she never would have caught if she looked like Cindy McCain or Sarah Palin. You think Teresa Heinz Kerry could have gotten away with being so damn “foreign” if she looked like Sophia Loren? Sarah Jessica Parker’s fame could not be understood by Maxim Magazine, who declared her “unsexy” because she doesn’t look like their cover models. Barbara Streisand couldn’t have a happy ending with Robert Redford in “The Way We Were” because he was more beautiful the she was. And it was ok for Brad Pitt to cheat on Jennifer Aniston because Angelina Jolie was prettier. Every public woman who doesn’t fit our culture’s narrow and unbending view of beauty get’s this kind of treatment. It exists for a reason because most women don’t fit it can be beaten down by it. This racism, sexism and lookism.

“Who does she think she is, how did she get that man and how can we knock her down for getting to big for her britches?”

I also found this in the replies over at Ta-Nehisi Coates and thought it was on point:

In response to Mr. Juan Williams and his latest verbal barrage I say the following:

I am of the humble opinion that First Lady Michelle Obama has made such a postive impression on the WORLD stage during this 2 year campaign process culminating with the Inguaration last week that Fox News had to crank up the propaganda machine. The entire CELEBRATION last week has frightened them. How could it be that America have young, intelligent, family oriented, respectful representatives (President and First Lady Obama) with world wide support, hope and optimism for America to rise again to it’s once illustrious standing? Oh and did I mention they happen to be African American.

So what do they do, they use Juan Williams (a man of color) to attempt to demean and denigrate The First Family (people of color) by informing the uninformed that his wife, First Lady Michelle Obama, is some type of RADICAL & ANGRY African American woman by linking her to a Black Power historical figure. They are using a parsed statement {“really proud”} from a speech First Lady Obama was giving while campaigning to suggest she is some time of ticking RACIAL TIME bomb and that she is not really an asset to her husband, America, and the world at large. Once again Fox News is attempting to open up a cultural war from the sixties in America; affable Blacks (Juan Williams and President Obama) versus radical Blacks (alledgedly First Lady Obama); while simultaneously playing divide and conquer between a Black husband and wife. Moreover, it is obvious to anyone with eyes that The Obama Family (Husband, Wife and Daughters) possesses strength in each other. What is the best way to marginalize that power, attack the foundation of the family, the wife and mother. This is so “old school”, one would have to go back to the Southern Plantation to reference it.

Posted by Josephine | January 27, 2009 11:06 PM

Two different posters that broke it down to the core, IMO.