This is the President Obama’s last Kennedy Center Honors Reception.
Al Pacino, Mavis Staples, Martha Argerich, James Taylor, and The Eagles
THE 39TH ANNUAL KENNEDY CENTER HONORS, to be broadcast Tuesday, Dec. 27 (9:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT), on the CBS Television Network.
Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.
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I’m posting this photograph which I’m certain most people haven’t seen…(taken once again by a non-White House photographer), because unlike the one released by the White House, it isn’t taken from an awkward angle…or motion ..
As I’ve always contended, somehow, the best pictures of this historic FLOTUS are those taken by random, non-White House photographers…
I’m going to keep making this an issue, because it is very much so..
Photographs and videos are documentations for posterity that outlive us all…and shape and inform impressions, perspectives – and tell stories – no matter how false or incomplete…and from a particular perspective..
There’s a reason previous White Houses tightly controlled the images especially of the First Lady…and released only the best and most flattering ..which remain in circulation to this day to support the endless positive narratives of them…that are only possible thanks to these contained and carefully massaged images…there’s also a reason previous White Houses – some even retroactively – make a fuss over its First Lady and her initiatives even when it was mostly non-existent…
If one doubts the power of photographs, videos and massaged narratives, all one has to do is think how the very carefully posed, choreographed and released images and narratives of all previous First Ladies, (there are hardly no non-White House approved ones floating out there) are still used to this day to talk-up previous First Ladies…and used to project on, and argue positives (sometimes false and non-existent) about them..
This is the first White House that does, has done and continues to do the complete opposite…this is the first White House that has not protected and prioritized the President’s wife..
This historic First Lady has not only not been protected in any way by this White House…but in fact, has been done a massive disservice, and has been actively undermined again and again..and from within..
This White House has not only never done anything to counter the years of non-stop damaging and vicious dehumanizing attacks on her, this White House has in fact actively done some dubious stuff that has only fueled and compounded some of those dehumanizing attacks..
Her important projects, events and initiatives are completely buried …while everybody else and their mama is touted, protected, talked up, showcased..aiding the false and damaging and pervasive narratives of this historic First Lady as ‘worthless’, living high on the hog …too ‘lazy’ and too busy vacationing on taxpayer money…and doing nothing more besides..
I have never seen where everyone else comes before the historic First Lady …in her own husband’s White House…where everyone else’s events are highlighted and hers aren’t…where she’s had to accommodate everyone including those who wanted a piece of her First Lady-ship and insisted on co-sharing…or she risked been accused of being ‘ungracious’…or ‘not nice’ …for not allowing folks usurp her role..
Where the First Lady who is normally *the* chief hostess and traditionally co-hosts White House receptions and such – sharing equal billing with the President on those occasions… is for some reason, in this White House, relegated as just one more in the audience cheering her husband on…
In this alternate reality where Al Gore – the former Vice President, is summoned by Ivanka Trump and willingly and gleefully makes the trek to Trump towers to meet with her…
And knowing very well that this same Al Gore would have been insulted and sneered had Mrs Obama – the Princeton and Harvard educated historic FLOTUS – ever asked him to come meet with her..
This White House has for all intents and purposes, essentially sent a message that this historic First Lady doesn’t really matter…
And if some of us hadn’t pushed back as hard as we have, she would be even more disregarded and relegated by this White House…and treated even worse – if that was even possible…
In a country that has traditionally treated and celebrated presidential couples as a unit…Ronald and Nancy Reagan, JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, Bill and Hillary Clinton, George and Laura Bush…and where ‘President and Mrs’ was routine…the only way…
This transferred and brazen disregard and relegation of this historic FLOTUS was never more evident…or disturbingly…distinctly on display and palpable…and so many people are now noticing and speaking out …
Never mind the brief acknowledgement of her for the first time in the last few months…and only because she put herself and her credibility on the line for Hillary…for which she was ‘rewarded’ and suddenly treated well for the first time and only at the time…even ‘earning’ a historic first shout-out on Twitter from POTUS..
We’ve been witness to the many times and occasions that she’s been disrespectfully overlooked and treated as merely incidental…and even inconvenient…and somehow in the way…
We’ve seen this disregard take root and filter through even at black events like the opening of the NMAAHC…where the historic black First Lady of the United States – a direct descendant of slaves – was treated as if she didn’t matter…as if she was just some escort merely accompanying the big man… her husband the President …even as formerfirst lady Laura Bush got to speak…and Patti Labelle gave a shout-out to an absent Hillary Clinton at the end of her performance on the program…and the Smithsonian president gave a shout-out to V.P Biden and his wife…(it is important to note that VP Biden is always, always acknowlegeded together with his wife…even by the White House which always goes out of its way to include Mrs Biden in every mention of the VP…)
The historic First Lady…the double Ivy League educated historic black First Lady and life partner to the historic President, was treated as if she were merely some random woman who undeservedly – and only recently showed up – and hitched her wagon to an already made President…no proper perspective or proper acknowledgement of this daughter and direct descendant of slaves…without whom truth be told, her husband’s historic presidency would not be possible…it is as if she must be completely reduced to nothing…diminished….As if even marginally acknowledging her, somehow takes away from her husband or his historic accomplishment…as if there isn’t room for her to be great right alongside him…as if she can’t be respectfully celebrated equally alongside her husband…in a world that insists on given equal billing to, and fully acknowledging Mark Zuckerberg’s wife of a few years alongside him …a world that now insists that there is no Bill without Melinda Gates…a world that elevates Kim Kardashian, Melanie Trump..
This historic First Lady has been so belittled, trivialized, begrudged and disrespected to the extent that some folks treat her as if she is somehow in the way when she shows up with her husband…and even in the White House…And where presidents and First Ladies are traditionally acknowledged and applauded TOGETHER as a unit…folks are brazen about (in some instances spitefully), making the applause and acknowledgement distinctly and all about and only about the president…
I’m going to keep saying this…as long as we tolerate and continue to allow them mistreat, disrespect, demean, trivialize and blatantly disregard this historic black First Lady, …and some black folks even join in…we reap what we allow…and we allow it at our peril…for it has repercussions that transcend her – especially in this virulently racist society…
And no, I don’t want her occasionally humored or patronized when it suits folks …and always with some underlying exploitative agenda… I want her given the honor and respect that she’s more than earned…and her rightful place right alongside her husband…not with her as part of the cheering audience…but as his full and equal partner…being cheered and applauded right alongside him as a unit…
And that shouldn’t be difficult, or too much to ask..
Thank you Ametia, for being open …and even understanding where I’m coming from …even if you don’t necessarily agree, when I go on my rants …and offer my often not so popular, but
honest observations and perspectives…
I sometimes tire of glossing over stuff that’s staring us all right in the face…