Becoming by Michelle Obama

‘If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others.’ – Michelle Obama

Cast your mind back to 2009, to the time when Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift at the VMA’s, or even the time when a 18 year old boy secretly painted a 60ft penis on the roof of his parents £1 million Berkshire mansion.

What a time to be alive!

2009 was also the year when the democratic candidate Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States and, the first African-American President

Cue West Wing music

During President Barack Obama's time in office its fair to say that First Lady Michelle Obama played a transformative role in the White House. She didn’t want to become another statue in the gallery of First Ladies of the United States. Here are some of the initiatives she set up during her time at the White House:

- The Let’s Move initiative focused on tackling childhood obesity

- Joining Forces focused on supporting American service members and veterans

- Reach Higher had the aim of inspiring young people across America to continue in education after high school

- Let Girls Learn was a joint initiative with Barack Obama to help girls around the world to go to school and stay in school

‘When you’re First Lady, America shows itself to you in its extremes’

In 2018 Michelle Obama released her own memoir telling her own story not only about her time in office titled: Becoming.

The memoir starts right from the beginning of her childhood. From growing up in the South Shore neighbourhood of Chicago with her brother and parents, to meeting Barack Obama, and then onto becoming First Lady of the United States. It’s fair to say that being an African-American in the big USA had its struggles and this is clearly portrayed.

At the start of the book Mrs Obama makes this very bold statement:

‘'‘Since stepping reluctantly into public life, I’ve been held up as the most powerful woman in the world and taken down as an “angry black woman.” I’ve wanted to ask my detractors which part of that phrase matters to them the most- is it “angry” or “black” or “woman.”'

Now for a woman who was concerned about her husband running for President and the life package that comes attached, it would be foolish to not have concerns. I think it takes a lot of guts to keep going on everyday and continue to make change. She could of easily have gone after the press, but no, she instead shows them who she actually is and not some creature that the media could shape and control. I admire her for her courage, kindness and being an advocate for change.

One of the iconic moments from the memoir is when Mrs Obama describes to us the time when she had to choose the college she desired to go to. Her older brother, Craig, had applied and successfully got into Princeton, and our Michelle wanted to follow in his footsteps. However, her Witney School College Counsellor believed otherwise:

'“Because rightly or wrongly, I got stuck on one single sentence the woman uttered.

“I’m not sure”, she said, giving me a perfunctory, patronising smile, “that you’re Princeton material.”'

Dang! All I can say is she had no idea who she was messing with.

Now Mrs Obama goes onto say that it could have been her grades that gave this Counsellor the impression that she wasn’t “Princeton Material.” BUT here is what Mrs Obama takes away from this situation:

‘But as I’ve said, failure is a feeling long before it’s an actual result.’

Imagine if she didn’t go to Princeton and then onto Law School, she may have never met Barack Obama at Sidney &Austin in Chicago. Her life could of been completely different.

Now I’m not saying that the counsellor is an evil mastermind or anything, but by planting that seed of doubt she had questioned her beliefs that had been built up by herself and first and foremost her parents.

So here is our lesson to take away: always trust your gut. If something feels right, go for it. Because you only live once.

Mrs Obama at the end of the biography answers societies demanding question in relation to if she would want to become President:

‘I have no intention of running for office, ever. I’ve never been a fan of politics, and my experience over the last ten years has done little to change that.’

And y’know what. I don’t blame her.

After the intense scrutiny she has received and the mixture of both love and hate for her husband and family, it might be nice to step away and hide from society and become human again.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone. The end. Why you ask?

If you want to feel empowered, amazed, flabbergasted all at the same time then this is the book for you. I believe that Michelle Obama's warm and inviting personality shines through every single word and story in this memoir.

If you don’t have time for the book, then I would also recommend the Netflix documentary that has recently came out over the COVID lockdown which shows her going on tour for memoirs release.

Here’s a trailer for the documentary:

Other favourite quotes of mine from Becoming:

- ‘But scepticism didn’t bother him, the same way long odds didn’t seem to bother him. Barack was a unicorn, after all- shaped by his unusual name, his odd heritage, his hard-t-pin down ethnicity, his missing dad, his unique mind.’ P.116-17

- ‘I’d never been someone who dwelled on the more demoralising parts of being African-American. I’d been raised to think positively…But listening to Barack, I began to understand that his version of hope reached far beyond mine: it was one thing to get yourself out of a stuck place, I realised. It was another thing entirely to try and get the place unstuck.’

- ‘…I didn’t want them ever to believe that life began when the man of the house arrived home. We didn’t wait for Dad. It was his job now to catch up with us.’

- ‘Barack and I developed a special fondness for Queen Elizabeth, who reminded Barack of his no-nonsense grandmother. Over the course of many visits she showed me that humanity is more important than protocol or formality.’

- ‘For every door that’s been opened to me, I've tried to open my door to others. And here is what I have to say, finally: Let’s invite one another in. Maybe then we can begin to fear less, to make fewer wrong assumptions to let go of the biases and stereotypes that unnecessarily divide us.’