Michelle Obama: “Note to Self”

Posted on December 18, 2018 by rikyrah

Hat tip 3 Chics Eliihaas Thank you!

Michelle Obama: “NOTE TO SELF”

Official portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama in the Green Room of the White House, Feb. 12, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

This is who Michelle Obama is speaking to with ‘Notes to Self’

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62 Responses to Michelle Obama: “Note to Self”

  4. eliihass says:
    January 11, 2019 at 6:32 pm

    “.. I purposely read only a few chapters at a time to try and make it last as long as possible 😂 I didn’t want it to end!”

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BseFCwynr0y/

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BrwGRtCnfkj/

    Reply
  7. eliihass says:
    January 11, 2019 at 5:26 pm

    “…As first lady, Obama shattered the mold. Americans had never seen a life like Obama’s. She did not fit the dominant cultural frame that has been mounted around African American women.

    “Becoming” shatters the mold, too. Not only because Obama writes in her signature tell-it-like-it-is style, but because she steeps her story in the richness and complexity of African American history that seldom reaches national audiences.

    She is the descendant of enslaved people, a grandchild of the Great Migration, and the product of the storied black community on Chicago’s South Side. She is an observer of segregated housing, restrictive covenants and the exodus of white families to Chicago’s northern and western suburbs. She bears witness to the dashed dreams of her great uncle and grandfather, who wished for greater educational and employment opportunities at a time when few if any existed for black men.

    Through humor and poignant storytelling, Obama captures the joys of growing up in the neighborhood that writers have called “the capital of black America”: the sound of jazz blasting from her grandfather’s house around the corner, the barbecues where countless cousins gathered, and the feeling that, as Obama writes, “everyone was kin.”

    There is a universality in the themes that “Becoming” addresses that many readers will recognize and appreciate, but at its heart, this is a story about the complexity of black women’s lives told firsthand by a black woman. This is a pioneering and important work that helps fill a gap in the literature on African American women’s lives.

    This is the story of a woman who has lived with contradictions: Obama has enjoyed the intense adoration of people all over the world while also being insulted, stereotyped and caricatured as angry, militant, unpatriotic and worse. She is a supportive and loving wife, but also a woman whose light shines just as brightly as her husband’s, who made a pledge to herself to never get lost in his shadow. She has lived with the challenges of being a working mother, of being sure to make it home for her daughters’ bedtime despite the unrelenting demands of campaigning, and who would announce that her most important role was “Mom-In-Chief” despite the criticism that she would face for embracing this title. “Becoming” helps us to understand Obama’s priorities and to admire her steadfast resolve to keep them.

    Obama is the personification of what writer Zora Neale Hurston meant when she wrote: “I love myself when I am laughing, and then again when I am looking mean and impressive.” That quote was Hurston’s response to a series of photographs that Carl Van Vechten, the white photographer and patron of the Harlem Renaissance, took of her. Hurston, like Obama, dared to be herself in public and was also often criticized for it.

    What greater mark on the world could Obama possibly make? “Becoming” — the title alone — makes it plain that Obama will always perceive herself in a constant state of evolving. Obama begins the memoir by explaining that she spent most of her childhood “listening to the sound of striving.” By the memoir’s end, those sounds are in a different key. They are less about the need for affirmation from others and more about a larger humanistic striving to, as Obama writes, “to begin to fear less … to invite one another in … to be willing to know and hear others.” This striving feels more urgent now than ever.

    The greatest contribution of “Becoming” is the inspiration that Obama gives to press onward, to keep trying and to continue plinking, just like the children did who took piano lessons from Michelle’s great-aunt on the first floor of the red brick bungalow where Michelle grew up…”

    https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/books/becoming-by-michelle-obama-how-the-girl-from-the-south-side-grew

    Reply
  8. eliihass says:
    January 11, 2019 at 5:21 pm

    “…Reading Michelle Obama’s memoir, “Becoming,” feels like catching up with an old friend over a lazy afternoon. Parts of her story are familiar, but still, you lean in, eager to hear them again. Other parts are new and come as a surprise. Sometimes her story makes you laugh out loud and shake your head with a gentle knowingness. Some parts are painful to hear. You wince and wish that you could have protected her from an unkind world.

    Obama has sworn to tell her readers everything, and she delivers on that promise. From the silly to the surreal, from the momentous to the mundane, from the tragic to the transformative, she tells it all. As she shares her story, you are struck that every word is honest, brave and real.

    Obama invites us into the upstairs apartment of the red brick bungalow to experience the camaraderie and closeness that she shared with her parents, Marian and Fraser, and her older brother, Craig.

    As first lady, Obama shattered the mold. Americans had never seen a life like Obama’s. She did not fit the dominant cultural frame that has been mounted around African American women.

    “Becoming” shatters the mold, too. Not only because Obama writes in her signature tell-it-like-it-is style, but because she steeps her story in the richness and complexity of African American history that seldom reaches national audiences.

    She is the descendant of enslaved people, a grandchild of the Great Migration, and the product of the storied black community on Chicago’s South Side. She is an observer of segregated housing, restrictive covenants and the exodus of white families to Chicago’s northern and western suburbs. She bears witness to the dashed dreams of her great uncle and grandfather who wished for greater educational and employment opportunities at a time when few if any existed for black men.

    Through humor and poignant storytelling, Obama captures the joys of growing up in the neighborhood that writers have called “the capital of black America”: the sound of jazz blasting from her grandfather’s house around the corner, the barbecues where countless cousins gathered, and the feeling that, as Obama writes, “everyone was kin.”

    There is a universality in the themes that “Becoming” addresses that many readers will recognize and appreciate, but at its heart, this is a story about the complexity of black women’s lives told firsthand by a black woman. This is a pioneering and important work that helps fill a gap in the literature on African American women’s lives.

    Becoming,’ by Michelle Obama: A pioneering and important work – Allyson Hobbs Stanford University; Associate Professor of American History, Director of African and African American Studies.

    https://history.stanford.edu/news/‘becoming’-michelle-obama-pioneering-and-important-work-allyson-hobbs

    Reply
  9. Ametia says:
    December 28, 2018 at 3:39 pm

    TURNING MICHELLE OBAMA’S ‘BECOMING’ INTO A CLASS CURRICULUM FOR BLACK GIRLS
    by Kandia Johnson
    December 27, 2018

    Lauren Christine Mims is a former assistant director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans and a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Psychology at the University of Virginia. She’s also one of the many women inspired by Michelle Obama’s Becoming, a New York Times best-selling book that sold more than 1.4 million copies within the first seven days of its release. Now, Mims is turning Obama’s book into a curriculum for black girls to further their learning and development.

    https://www.blackenterprise.com/michelle-obama-becoming-curriculum-black-girls/

    Reply
  11. Ametia says:
    December 26, 2018 at 8:45 pm

    I’m listening to “Beciming” on audio. I’m in heaven listening to Michelle reading her life story.

    Reply
  20. Ametia says:
    December 21, 2018 at 2:50 pm

    Got to get the vids where i can get them

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2xvLwbugxE

    Reply
  22. vitaminlover says:
    December 20, 2018 at 10:18 pm

    I just really admire First Lady Forever Michelle Obama.

    Reply
  23. Ametia says:
    December 20, 2018 at 2:59 pm
    Reply
  25. Ametia says:
    December 20, 2018 at 2:56 pm

    Michelle Obama Brings Serious Sparkle to Her Second Brooklyn Book-Tour Stop

    https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/12/michelle-obama-brooklyn-book-tour

    Reply
  28. rikyrah says:
    December 18, 2018 at 8:35 pm

    That is my Forever FLOTUS 😍 😍

    Reply
  33. eliihass says:
    December 18, 2018 at 3:00 pm

    “..Michelle Obama has unseated David Walliams as Britain’s Christmas favourite, with her memoir Becoming set to be the UK’s bestselling book during the festive period..

    Christmas is a crucial period for UK booksellers, with the four weeks of December accounting for approximately 15% of annual book sales.

    Walliams has been the bestselling author in the final week before Christmas for two consecutive years, with his children’s books The Midnight Gang and Bad Dad topping charts in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

    Obama is the first person of colour to be crowned Christmas No 1, and the first woman since JK Rowling in 2008 to take the top spot. In the UK, Becoming sold 380,000 hardback copies in the first three weeks after publication – 485,000 across all formats – while 3m copies have been sold in the US.

    On Tuesday, Walliams tweeted his congratulations to Obama. “You are rightfully sitting at the very top of the tree like the shining light you are,” he wrote.

    Nielsen BookScan, which gathers data from 6,500 booksellers around the UK, reports that book sales are up by £22m year on year, with 2018 looking to beat even the bumper £1.59bn sales seen in 2016, a year when booksellers were armed with a new Harry Potter book – Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – and the first Wicks cookbook..”

    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/dec/18/michelle-obama-topples-david-walliams-to-secure-christmas-no-1-becoming?CMP=twt_gu

    Reply
  34. Liza says:
    December 18, 2018 at 2:49 pm

    Love this.

    Reply
  35. eliihass says:
    December 18, 2018 at 2:40 pm

    Thank you so, so much, Ametia..❤️❤️

    Reply
    • Ametia says:
      December 18, 2018 at 2:42 pm

      you’re most welcome, eliihaas. When i listened to this video, the photo of that little girl viewing the portrait of FLOTUS was all I could see.

      Reply
      • Liza says:
        December 18, 2018 at 2:47 pm

        Yeah, that photo is iconic.

        I always think about the guy who took the picture, who realized what was happening there. Takes a good eye and a whole lot of emotional intelligence.

        Reply
      • Ametia says:
        December 18, 2018 at 3:38 pm

        Indeed, Liza. you can’t capture a photo like this without making an emotional connection with the person/ subject.

        Reply

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