Yes, this post is all about the puppy, but I'm worn on out on the topic, having written about it at least five times before. The Discovery Channel, CNN, Fox, everybody and her grandmama in news is reporting that the Obamas have chosen a breed, the Portuguese Water Dog, as the promised puppy for Sasha and Malia.
Why is this big news? Because the nation is still obsessed with the first family and, well, it's a puppy.
From the American Kennel Club's information on this breed:
An athletic, active breed, the Portuguese Water Dog requires daily vigorous exercise. He is very intelligent and responds well to obedience training. His profuse coat is hypoallergenic, but requires regular maintenance. It may be kept in the lion clip (the coat on the hindquarters and muzzle are clipped to the skin) or the retriever clip (the entire coat is clipped to one inch in length and follows the outline of the dog). (AKC)
Quickie review:
On the night of his historic win, President Barack Obama told his daughters, they could have the puppy as promised.
Puppy can't be a mutt like him because Malia has asthma and needs a hypoallergenic dog.
And here's YouTube video of Portuguese Water Dog puppies that I'm sure will start to get tons of hits now.
O.K. I give up. They're darned cute.
And updated, from Time, Michelle Obama talks dog names:
Michelle also gives People the scoop on the First Dog's arrival. The family plans to get their Portuguese Water Dog in April, after a family spring break trip. But they haven't decided on a name. "Oh, the names are really bad," Mrs. O. says with a laugh. "You listen and you go – like, I think, Frank was one of them. Frank! Moose was another one of them. Moose. I said, well, what if the dog isn't a moose? Moose. I'm like, no, come on, let's work with the names a little bit." (USA Today, First Lady talks imperfection of her marriage and puppy names)
Since Ronald Regan's departure from the White House, it's been the tradition of outgoing presidents to leave a private note for the incoming president. I wonder what former President George W. Bush had to say to President Barack Obama. Always take out the trash and watch your back, perhaps? Maybe Bush told Obama a good joke with the final words, "So long, sucker!" I doubt that, but certainly Obama's stepped into the fire and Bush into the sunset.
For the Obama children, Sasha and Malia, better than a note from the former president was a note from the former first kids, pictured at left. The outgoing Bush twins made history leaving a public message for the incoming youngsters, and I think that's sweet.
Jenna and Barbara Bush's wisdom for Sasha and Malia is a letter entitled "Playing House in the White House" at The Wall Street Journal.
CNN and other news outlets are loving this story and giving background on the twins:
The twin daughters of former President Bush were 7 when their grandfather, former President George H.W. Bush, was inaugurated, and 20 when their father became president. (CNN)
It's wonderful to see people do something genuinely nice, and seeing the older Bush girls extend a warm hand to the Obama children gives us more hope that if we try, we can cast aside pettiness and get along in this nation, be civil. It also lets me know that whatever my disagreements are with Bush's policies, he's produced thoughtful daughters. I hope Malia and Sasha read this gift from Jenna and Barbara Bush carefully and heed their advice. Some of the twins' tips are universal:
-- Surround yourself with loyal friends. They'll protect and calm you and join in on some of the fun, and appreciate the history (Jenna and Barbara)
We all need a good support group, and Sasha and Malia will need more support than their parents and the First Grandma may be able to give. The road ahead may get fairly bumpy for the first African-American family to live in the White House.
The twins' daddy has taken a lot of heat, but that will seem like a matchstick's flame compared to the blaze Obama will face. There are opponents who refuse to give him a chance, and naturally, while Obama has friends among his fellow Democrats, he'll still have opposition in his own party -- some open, some cloaked. On top of this, the number of threats to his personal safety and the rumors spread by paranoid people on the fringe may surpass the number of threats and rumors aimed at past presidents.
The following advice from the twins is touching:
And finally, although it's an honor and full of so many extraordinary opportunities, it isn't always easy being a member of the club you are about to join. Our dad, like yours, is a man of great integrity and love; a man who always put us first. We still see him now as we did when we were seven: as our loving daddy. Our Dad, who read to us nightly, taught us how to score tedious baseball games. He is our father, not the sketch in a paper or part of a skit on TV. Many people will think they know him, but they have no idea how he felt the day you were born, the pride he felt on your first day of school, or how much you both love being his daughters. So here is our most important piece of advice: remember who your dad really is.
For a while there all we heard of the Bush twins is that they liked to party like dear old dad, sometimes ditching the Secret Service. Today it appears they've matured into accomplished young ladies.
According to WSJ, Jenna is a writer who's already produced a book. After reading this letter to Malia and Sasha, I give her a thumbs up on talent. Her sister, Barbara, works for a nonprofit.
Throughout the letter the twins share memories of what it was like coming of age in the White House and have other little tips about loving puppies and White House staff. Beautiful. You may read the full text of the twins' letter at The Wall Street Journal.
Over all, I've liked how the Bush family's helped the Obama family move into the White House. I'm not a fan of the former president, but I'll praise him when he deserves it. His daughters are feathers in his cap.
President-elect Barack Obama and future First Lady Michelle shared Thanksgiving thoughts for the nation with Barbara Walters in an exclusive interview 55 days before Barack Obama takes office as the first African-American President of the United States. In this video clip from the interview below, Mom-in-Chief declares she's earned a day off from cooking. President-elect hopes to rebuild the sense of trust in the nation and government. Malia claims Lincoln's desk in White House as future spot of inspiration.
During the full interview, the President-elect talked about the enormous expectations placed on him, the auto industry, the economy and whether he's really offering change given that many of the people he's adding to his staff and cabinet are from former administrations. You can watch the full interview at ABC.com at this link.
Later, Obama discusses his marriage and his relationship with Michelle, his rock. Michelle enters the conversation with her husband and Walters and talks about being First Lady. Her husband interrupted her to say she seemed to have lipstick on her tooth, an amusing moment, possibly the kind that contributed to Barbara Walters calling them cute.
Mrs. Obama told Walters that she's never defined herself by her career in response to Walters broaching how as wife of the president she must give up her life for Barack's goals. I discussed this aspect of Michelle Obama's life in the post "Michelle Obama is Covered in Handprints."
Keeping to her practical parenting style, Mrs. Obama also said she's already talked to the White House staff about boundaries for the the girls, Sasha and Malia. She said they will still have to pick up after themselves and to make their own beds at the White House. In addition, the Obama children still believe in Santa and write letters to St. Nick, said their parents in the interview, which aired last night. You can gain more insight into the Obama's parenting style if you watch the Walters for yourself.
Also, Obama shared that he has a deep religious faith and faith in people as Walters probes racist threats against him and asks how he sleeps through the night. He has challenges, however, other than who may wish him harm and said he doesn't want to lose touch with the American people, is struggling through life without a Blackberry, and is still working to give up smoking for his own sake and his children's.
Interestingly, despite the story that popped up in the campaign from the Clinton campaign that Obama has wanted to be President of the United States since kindergarten, he said he didn't expect in his youth to become President of the United States. He wanted to be an architect.
Thanksgiving Day is done and so it may seem that an interview that includes the Obamas' Thanksgiving hopes for the nation is stale, but after writing yesterday about the verdict in the Megan Meier case and the terror in Mumbai, I wanted to share something uplifting. Also this funny note, Obama said "no girly dog" for his family. At the end of the interview, he laughed at the idea of having a little lap dog as Walters promoted their getting a dog like her cha cha for the girls. He wants a big, rambunctious dog.
I agree with some of the details of Jolene Ivey's commentary speculating that Michelle Obama is reinventing the stay-at-home mom, but I can't shake that the piece starts on a faulty premise: "America's vision of the stereotypical June Cleaver at-home mom is about to get a shake-up." I keep thinking that America tossed the notion of June Cleaver on the garbage heap at least two decades ago, recognizing June's limitations.
It's true that some of us mothers still have in our minds that we've failed if we don't reflect a little of the fictionalized mothers of 1950s television, but that's more our guilt speaking than reality. Nevertheless, will Michelle Obama be a SAHM or a WAHM? Perhaps she'll be a temporary SAHM, then a WAHM-WOHM hybrid. (SAHM=stay-at-home mom/WAHM=work-at-home mom, and WOHM=work-outside-home mom. Don't you love these labels?) I'm leaning toward her defying classification.
What rings true in Ivey's piece is that in parts of the black community we have tended to look at staying home with one's children as wasting a good education while in the white community it wasn't unusual at all to see a woman go to a prestigious university, graduate with honors, and then stay at home after obtaining her MRS degree. In fact, some white women of the older mindset only went to college to lasso a man and get that Mrs. in front of their names. The majority culture used to promote that women didn't go to school to find careers but to find husbands, a doctor or lawyer maybe, and that is one of the inequities the feminist movement has worked to correct.
The majority population also promoted that people who take care of children, such as black housekeepers and mammies, were not as valuable as others, which may be one of the reasons the African-American community began to devalue staying at home with children. (Let's not get too snooty on these ideas being old-school or that we're enlightened today because traditional "women's work," which is often mother's work is still undervalued in this country.)
Another reason African-Americans have resisted applauding stay-at-home moms is that black folk are often poor folks. No use staying at home to take care of a child if your staying home means the child won't have her basic needs met. Children require food and shelter.
For black women the world has been a different place as Sojourner Truth made clear as early as 1851 with her powerful speech "Ain't I a Woman?" While white women were kept from reaching a higher potential with myths that women are delicate flowers who should never endure the hardship of work, black women were forced into fields and factories, kept from the benefits of being dedicated, stay-at-home mothers. Ivey touches this historical fact in her commentary as well.
I guess what I'm not getting with Ivey's premise is that Michelle Obama's break from the traditional workforce to look after her children is a shake-up. Michelle Obama has not elected being a full-time stay-at-home mom as career choice, it seems. She's only promised that she will stay home until her daughters Malia and Sasha have adjusted to life as first kids--settle into school, decorate rooms, make friends, find a church, get a dog.
Well, my first responsibility will be to my girls. It’s a big transition to move to a new city and home, so I’d focus first on making sure that they’re comfortable and happy.
Once they’re settled, I would keep working on finding ways to support working women and families. To me, policies that support families aren’t just political; they’re personal. They’re the issues I carry in my heart every single day. And that’s why, since very early in the campaign, I’ve been hosting roundtable discussions with working women and military families to hear firsthand the concerns of women in their communities, and to help communicate Barack’s plan to support America’s families. (from future First Lady Michelle Obama's own mouth from her exclusive BP interivew.)
From what Mrs. Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, has said about her daughter, Michelle Obama has always put her children's welfare first, a value she undoubtedly learned from Robinson who did elect to stay at home and raise children.
I don't see Michelle Obama's decision to put her aspirations on hold for the sake of her family as unusual for an African-American mother. And it seems even less unusual for an educated woman who's sensitive, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law, and is now steps into the role of America's First Lady. I sincerely doubt that any conscientious mother with children as young as Sasha and Malia would move into the White House, get straight to work, and ignore the needs of her children. And again, it's the job of being First Lady that Michelle Obama's placed on temporary hold. Once she's satisfied that her daughters have adjusted she will move forward not in her previous career but in the career many other first ladies have accepted, that of First Wife, lending her skill and voice to causes compatible with her husband's agenda.
If anything, I think what we'll see in the White House is an ideal of how modern marriage should work and a focused mother should operate. I'm not sure we'll see anything new under the sun, just something new to many Americans whose only experience with African-Americans has been the black criminal or black victim on the nightly news or the black woman or man they nod to in the hall at work and sometimes joke with at the water cooler. America's not used to seeing regularly a real, well-educated, affluent African-American family, but beyond that the Obamas and Michelle will be very similar to other American families with goals and socially-conscious priorities. Will that be the shock, that an upper-middle class African-American family is very much like other affluent families, that black skin doesn't make you stupid, a gangsta rap aficionado, or hate white people? Will it mean that the Huxtables were not so far fetched after all as even some black people thought they were?
Now if Mrs. Obama were going into the White House asserting that what her husband, President-elect Barack Obama, does has no bearing on her life choices and so she will return to her work in hospital administration and call in nannies for their daughters because she believed a woman's personal career should never take backseat to her husband's, then that would be unusual. I admire Michelle Obama, but the only mold she's breaking is one in the minds of people who think all black women are the same.
She's being what she should be, an asset and not a liability to her husband, the President-elect, a loving mother, and a First Lady with a cause, the same cause she makes clear in that quote and also spoke of at BlogHer. I expect her to shine as the talented, well-educated, thoughtful woman we've seen over the past few years.
I guess like so many of us, Ivey, the founder of Mocha Moms, is excited about the Obama family heading to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and like so many of us women, she's busy admiring Michelle Obama, watching her, and hoping the new First Lady will reflect our needs, desires and causes.
I can't think of a better ambassador for Mocha Moms than Michelle Obama. For all the 16 years I was home with my kids, no one cared what my views were on anything more exciting than toilet training. She'll be in the position to bring light to issues and organizations that are currently working in obscurity, and energize their efforts.
Two issues she's chosen so far are on the work-home life balance and the needs of military families. I hope she'll also take on eliminating domestic violence as an issue. It crosses class and race, and has such long-lasting negative effects on families. We can use some star power on that one. (Ivey at CNN)
I certainly won't fault Ivey for projecting her own interests and aspirations onto Michelle Obama. The former political press secretary is not alone in imprinting Mrs. Obama with her dreams. As PunditMom observed Michelle Obama may already be dragged into the so-called Mommy Wars, and she too thinks of the future first lady as a defacto stay-at-home mom and quotes Rebecca Traister on the "momification" of Michelle.
Pundit Mom and Traister's post examine the possibility that America must mommify Michelle Obama to make her less threatening. That's possible because I recall in 2007 that Michelle Obama took heat early for supposedly speaking out of turn or being the strong black woman. Later she had to fight the stereotype of the angry black woman. If we must mommify Michelle to make her less strong, then that's a sad commentary on how America feels about mothers and implies that to not stay home with children is to be less motherly. I'm sure Ivey would disagree with any notion that weak women stay home. I would as well.
For the record, I like Ivey's Mocha Moms concept. Perhaps if a group like that had been around when I tried my hand at staying home more than 21 years ago, I would have been more successful as a stay-at-home mom myself, content in my own skin, and not spent much of my life running away from mothering.
Yes, I'm one of the African-American women to which Ivey refers who had impressed upon her that staying at home with children was a waste of a good brain and education. But I was also a female raised with images of June Cleaver and white women on TV who got to stay home and make everyone else's life happy. No wonder I suffered with a double-mind, discontent with both staying home with children and kicking it 9-to-5. Perhaps had I been raised with only my working mother and aunts as role models and a TV shows featuring Claire Huxtables, I would have been more stable internally. Well, maybe not more stable, but at least a little less conflicted and guilty.
Nevertheless, my gut tells me that if we see more African-American mothers deciding to stay home, it will not be so much a shift in African-American cultural values creating the shift. African American mothers have always loved their children and longed to be more available to them, weeped when they had to leave a sick child at home alone in order to earn a living just like any other mother who had to work. If we see more African-American mothers staying home, what we'll be seeing is the arrival of more African Americans to affluence which comes with options. More money makes the hard choice to stay home easier.
However, if the African-American family continues to drift toward a one-parent household model, money will continue to be scarce. Most black mothers will continue to work and never have the luxury of choosing to stay home.
With our economy as it is, any parent who can stay home with children without sacrificing healthy food and safe shelter should consider him or herself blessed. And you don't have to be a future First Lady to know a blessing when you see you one.
The future first-family is still in the market for a presidential puppy. However, future First Lady Michelle Obama said during a 60 Minutes interview with her and husband, Presidential-elect Barack Obama, that Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, won't get a puppy until late winter or spring. The Mom-in-Chief wants to wait until she's established a routine for the family and settled the girls in to their new White House home and schools.
Nevertheless, I saw this potential puppy while watching CNN's Anderson Cooper on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (video at HuffPo of Cooper), and found the story to which Cooper referred in The New York Post for the feature Mr. Prez, Adopt this Puppy. The dog's name is Kody. He's a poodle mix, a mutt, which is something the President-elect says his family prefers, and even better, he's hypoallergenic, a requirement since Malia has asthma.
"He's smart, playful and willing to please," said Melissa Barnes, a spokesman for Animal Lovers League in Glen Cove, LI.
This small pup who is hypoallergenic weighs about 20 lbs and is 3 to 4 years old.
"He loves to go for rides in the car." (NYP)
The article begins discussing a different dog named Gipesy. Technically I don't think either dog is puppy because puppies are less than one-year-old.
Here is part of Mr. & Mrs. Obama's 60 Minutes interview from last night.
Mrs. Obama said Laura Bush is gracious and a "very sweet person" who made them feel welcomed. Watch more at 60 Minutes. She also talks about her expectations for the future of the girls at the White House, and how life's changed since they began their journey toward the White House.
We all know, as CNN reported earlier, that Presdient-elect Barack Obama's and Mom-in-Chief Michelle's daughters, Sasha and Malia, have landed in a fishbowl with their father's winning office. And now the dress 7-year-old Sasha wore election night in Grant Park has been named after her, the Sasha.
I knew something was up with Sasha Obama's dress and Malia's also because I've been getting hits at this blog from people looking for more information on the dresses ever since Obama won. I'm no fashionista, so I didn't follow up that interest, but it's a popular topic.
Brenda Edwards designed the dress, according to CNN video, watched Obama's acceptance speech, saw Sasha, but didn't realize until a friend showed her a photo the morning after election night that Sasha was wearing the dress she'd designed. Gerson & Gerson is busy making the dress in more colors, not just black, pink, ivory, print, etc., for next season, reports Jeanne Moos.
Here's video from CNN about The Sasha and the designer. In it you'll see dress designer Brenda Edwards and clips of the Sasha dress going into production, etc.
Some days, I'm too tired to blog hard news, but how could I ignore the historic meeting between President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama as well as First Lady Laura Bush giving future First Lady Michelle Obama. Still, I'm gonna take the easy way out, not really write commentary, and mainly supply links to articles and post a video or two.
Another great slideshow from the Huffington Post of the meeting. As I clicked through I thought the future First Lady looked fantastic, and the President-elect makes others around him, such as President Bush, look good. However, to be fair to Bush, I've heard that he was quite gracious in welcoming the Obamas and sitting with the President-elect. That's good. He's setting the right tone to help us overcome the bitter taste of nasty campaign rhetoric.
A little history on presidential meetings and the transfer of power from Time Magazine.
Some Obama anticipation and background at The New York Times.
Anderson Cooper 360: I enjoyed the show tonight. Anderson gave some cool facts about The White House such as it was built in part by African-American slaves, that FDR took flack for having Booker T. Washington, a black man, visit the White House, and Nixon added a bowling alley to 1600 Pennsylvania. Plus other trivia such as number of rooms (132 rooms and 35 bathrooms). The decorating and maintenance budget is $100,000 per presidential term.
CNN's Jeannie Moo's take on the Bushes and Obamas "making nice."
MSNBC video.
And finally, this video about the Obama's daughters, Sasha and Malia, moving into the White House. It begins revealing the Secret Service code names for the family members. The President-elect is "Renegade;" future First Lady, "Renaissance;" Malia is "Radiance;" and Sasha is "Rosebud." These are public code names that do not jeopardize the family's security.
Hello! This post is not about President Obama's grandmother. It's about the First Lady's mother. If you want to know about the president's grandmother, click here.
Thanks to President-elect Obama's winning the election, we now have not only a black First Family and First Lady, we also have a visible First Grandmother in Michelle Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, who helps take care of Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10. She will join the family in the Washington, but may not necessarily live in the White House, reports new sources. (The woman in the red shirt in the picture above is Robinson.)
We saw Robinson with the family throughout the campaign, and here is the beginning of a profile from this spring on the future First Grandmom from The Boston Globe that shows how critical Robinson is to The First Family:
CHICAGO - She is the linchpin of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and yet she does not raise money, plot strategy, lead conference calls, or carry a BlackBerry, which, in her day, was an unassuming fruit that grew on bushes.
Marian Robinson does, though, carry an exalted title in this race: mother-in-law. And from that perch, she makes the whole thing run.
A steely 70-year-old matriarch with a raspy voice and seen-it-all laugh, Robinson manages the family while Obama and his wife, Michelle, venture to the far reaches of the campaign trail. (Boston Globe, May 2008)
You may also watch this video of the profile from the paper and hear Robinson speak herself. The interview reveals that she is very much a typical grandmother, tempted to spoil her granddaughters with foods of which their parents disapprove.
Also, ABC News ran a story today about the grandmother-effect and the Obama campaign, discussing Obama's grandmother, the recently deceased Marilyn Dunham, and Sasha and Malia's maternal grandmother, Robinson:
Now that the Obamas are headed to the White House, Michelle Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, will be making the move as well. Family friends have told the New York Times that the Obamas relied on Robinson to care for Malia and Sasha Obama while their parents were out campaigning.
Robinson, a widow and retired bank secretary from the South Side of Chicago, will follow the Obamas to Washington D.C. to support the first family, according to the Obamas' family friend Verna Williams.
None of this is anything new or unusual to American families who have integrated grandmoms and granddads into their households, especially to assist with or sometimes take over child care.
Of course, the Obamas are by all accounts an intact and nurturing family, and they don't use a nanny to take care of their two young daughters -- they use grandma. (ABC News)
I read in a British newspaper that Mrs. Obama persuaded her mother to move into the White House. I'm sure that's a better solution than having her live elsewhere in D.C., but Robinson will miss her Chicago home.
Michelle Obama's mother has reluctantly agreed to leave her lifelong home on Chicago's South Side and move to Washington to help smooth the transition for the grand-daughters who dote on her.
... They will move in to the White House after Barack Obama is inaugurated on January 20. But President George W Bush and his wife Laura will greet their successors at the South Portico on Monday before giving them a tour of their new home - giving them the chance literally to measure the drapes.
It is the first time in living memory that three generations of a new presidential family have moved en masse to Washington, although Mrs Robinson has not yet decided whether to take rooms in the White House itself or live nearby. (UK Telegraph)
Without my maternal grandmother available to look after me, I don't know what my mother, a school teacher in New Orleans, La., when I was younger, would have done. As I watch the Obama family supported by a loving grandmother, I remember my own MaDear.
Marian Robinson, far right, sits with her son-in-law, President-elect Barack Obama, her daughter, Michelle Obama, and her granddaughters Malia and Sasha, awaiting election results Nov. 4, 2008.
My post, "The Interview Obama Regrets, But We Love," has hundreds of hits from CNN and Google, telling of the nation's obsession with the Obamas, the nation's next First Family. Some surfers are especially fascinated with President-elect Barack Obama and Michelle Obama's daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7.
People want to know where will the girls go to school in Washington, D.C.? What kind of puppy will they bring to the White House? How is Michelle Obama preparing her daughters for the move? How will Malia decorate her room? The Obama children will be the youngest children to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue since the Kennedy children and President Jimmy Carter's daughter, Amy.
That "Obama regrets" post and other Obama family posts at WSATA also get visits through BlackPlanet.com mostly from an Oct. 31 exclusive interview with Michelle Obama by Alyson Mance in which the future First Lady answers multiple questions, one of which queries how Michelle Obama feels about being compared to Claire Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad), a fictional character and the mother on The Cosby Show:
Do you feel a new-found responsibility as a black beauty/family icon? You’ve been compared to Claire Huxtable so many times! You know, being compared to American icons like Claire Huxtable is flattering of course, but let me tell you, this whole experience is a whirlwind. Barack and I both come from normal, very ordinary circumstances. Of course, we’re also incredibly blessed. Our families were very close and loving, with strong values.
And today, Barack and I work each day to pass those values along to our daughters. So really, we are your typical American family. And that’s something that I think really comes through when you learn about Barack, and when you hear his message. He and I both know what it’s like to struggle. We both came from families who worked incredibly hard to give us opportunities, and always pushed us to work hard so that we could give back to the communities that need our help the most. And I think that’s one of the reasons that so many people from all walks of life have been inspired by Barack’s message of change. Because his story… and my story … really are the American dream. And we want to make sure every person gets their chance at that dream. ("Michelle Obama Said What?" at BlackPlanet.com)
In the pre-election interview, Mrs. Obama also said that if she were to become First Lady her daughters would be her priority. However, once assured their needs had been met, she "would keep working on finding ways to support working women and families" as her First Lady cause. That answer is in keeping with what the Mrs. Obama blogged at BlogHer during the campaign.
Conjecture that the Obamas are like the Huxtables and so The Cosby Show helped to open the door for a black family to live in The White House has popped up around the Net and in the mainstream press. My daughter and I had discussed the Huxtable connection privately, and I reminded her, because she was so young during The Cosby Show's TV reign, that the Huxtables were not everyone's favorite. Some African-Americans complained that The Cosby Show did not reflect the majority of African-Americans because the Huxtable family was upper-middle class.
I was a fan of the show because besides it being funny and a positive African-American image, The Cosby Show reflected my upbringing and values more closely than other black family comedies such as The Jeffersons and Good Times. However, my family was a middle class family, not upper-middle. I am the daughter of a postal worker and a school teacher, not a lawyer and doctor, but my extended family includes doctors, both PhD. and MD, academic administrators, and between my parents, aunts, and uncles, I experienced steady promotion of African-American pride and an appreciation of our heritage that viewers saw on The Cosby Show.
As I watched the parade of sweatshirts on the the show from historically black colleges, observed Cliff and Claire's expectation that the children will succeed academically, and chuckled at parents grilling children about potential dates, I was especially fond of this gem:
It's the scene in which the Huxtables performed for the children's grandparents' anniversary, singing "Night and Day." The clip still makes me laugh, and it reminds me of the summers when my cousins came in from California and Tennessee, and we got together at some point and put on a show for the elders at my grandmother's home. We thought we were Motown material, I suppose in the same way Michelle Obama has said her daughters think they're Disney material. But like my parents, she keeps Malia and Sasha focused on education first.
Yes, many Americans enjoyed the The Cosby Show and many African-Americans wished they were the Huxtables, but speculation about whether or not the Huxtable family influenced America's love affair with the Obama family, seems to focus more on white acceptance of the Obamas and the belief that the Obamas and the Huxtables are post-racial or universal.
The New York Timesran a story earlier this month entitled "Before Barack Obama's Victory There Was Bill Cosby's Show." Here's an excerpt from that:
Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, a psychiatrist at the Jude Baker Children’s Center in Boston and a professor at Harvard Medical School who was a script consultant on “The Cosby Show,” said in an interview that “there were a lot of young people who were watching that show who are now of voting age.”
Dr. Poussaint added: “When ‘The Cosby Show’ first came on, it was a professional, middle-class family. And they said, ‘That’s not a black family.’ We heard it from blacks and whites. I think that’s why Karl Rove calls it postracial, because it was universal.”
In an interview on Thursday Mr. Cosby praised Mr. Obama and his campaign operation as “the architects of the almost perfect run for, and winning of, the office.” He added, “This isn’t something that happened just because of a TV show.”
But Mr. Cosby strongly suggested that his series, which ended in 1992, had a lasting effect on America’s racial views. Its legacy, he said, might have played a role in the country’s embrace of Mr. Obama and his family. (NYT)
Bill Cosby is right. The Obama win didn't happen just because of a TV show, but it's possible America's acceptance of the Obama family and an African American as President of the United States may be correlated to the image of African Americans changing in fictional media. Our images shifted from slave, mammy, maid, butler, cook, clown, thug, drug-addict, pimp, hooker, rapist, drug dealer, and parasite on both the small and big screen to teacher, police officer, military leader, lawyer, doctor, judge, patriot, hero, and President of the United States.
Our transformation from more negative images to more positive images did not happen accidentally. African-American actors, directors, producers, and professors with the help of sympathetic white professionals in the entertainment industry worked hard to get positive images of African-Americans on the screen, and frequently attempts to present a better image met opposition. You may read about the evolution of blacks in the movies at this Long Island University link, and during black history month about two years back, Turner Classic Movies presented a series, The Black Experience in Cinema.
Acknowledging the progress of presenting positive images does not affirm that all images of black people on the TV and silver screen are positive today. Courtesy of gangster rap and related music videos, African-Americans still battle negative stereotypes, often ones we've created ourselves. As experts consider that young people today grew up watching the Huxtables and so may have been more willing to believe in the Obama family, I wonder what will the next generation that has been raised with images of gangster rappers flanked by half-naked, wiggling young girls think of us.
I anticipate that an African-American family loving each other in the White House, and a successful, effective African-American President of the United States will balance the negative. I hope that blacks will become simply human and not grotesque caricatures in the eyes of some Americans who've focused on the worst images from "black" America.
Look! Look! Black People are on TV
When I was a child, whenever an African-American entertainer would appear on the TV such as on the The Ed Sullivan Show, the phone in my parents' house would ring repeatedly with friends and family shouting, "The Supremes are on!" or "Girl, Lola Falana is on!" After a while, we adjusted to the seeing "us" on TV with the broadcasting of shows such as Julia, about a single black mother who was a professional, a nurse, caring for her young son. It starred the gorgeous Diahann Carroll, who you has an interview at YouTube about the show and in it discusses the struggle to get the show on the air and the absence of the black male.
Julia, a half-hour comedy premiering on NBC in September 1968, was an example of American network television's attempt to address race issues during a period of heightened activism and turmoil over the position of African-Americans in U.S. society. The series was the first to star a black performer in the leading role since Beulah, Amos 'n' Andy, and The Nat "King" Cole Show all left the air in the early and mid-1950s. By the mid-1960s, a number of prime-time series began featuring blacks in supporting roles, but industry fears of mostly southern racial sensibilities discouraged any bold action by the networks to more fully represent African-Americans in entertainment television. (from The Julia Show at TV Museum)
And we also watched Room 222, starring the handsome Lloyd Haynes, an African-American man in the lead role of an affable history teacher at Walt Whitman High, an integrated school. Denise Nicholas, also black, played the guidance counselor.
Images of African-American Males in Authority
In the last two decades, America has seen more African-Americans on TV and at the movies in the roles of authority figures. Denzel Washington tends to play good guy, protector roles. Morgan Freeman is a popular actor who we see as dignified, wearing a mantle of integrity, and that's largely based on our feelings about the characters he's played in movies. And Freeman played the role of President of The United States in Deep Impact, a movie comets colliding with the Earth, ending the world. One joke about Deep Impact was that of course, that is when a black man would be president, at the end of the world.
And let us not forget, as the following NPR story reminded me, that Morgan Freeman has also played God. ;-)
NPR revisited the idea that movies may have influenced a willingness to accept a black president one year later, Jan. 2008, in the story Has Hollywood Helped Pave Way for Obama?. At that time Todd Boyd, professor of critical studies at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, said the following:
"I'm a bit hesitant to say that because James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman or Dennis Haysbert played a president on a TV show or in a movie, it means Barack Obama can be president," Boyd says. "I think that's a bit of a stretch."
Boyd goes on, though, to tell NPR's Michele Norris that such representations — especially those like 24's, beamed weekly into American living rooms — "may have unconsciously made some things in society seem less troubling" than if there'd been no pop-culture pictures of a black president. (NPR's All Things Considered)
Additionally, Slate has an informative article, Black Presidents: A Pop Cultural Survey, about the reign of the Palmers and other black presidents, most notably James Earl Jones in The Man:
The first movie to imagine a black president of the United States at any length was Joseph Sargent's satirical drama The Man in 1972. There, Douglass Dilman, president pro tempore of the Senate, happens into the Oval Office after the president and the speaker of the House die in a ceiling collapse. Unavailable on DVD, The Man is now a rarity, and yet it clearly forecasts the screen existences of subsequent black presidents. (Troy Patterson at Slate)
The following clip from that movie uses the "n" word, a warning to those who may be offended.
How can I write about positive images of people of African descent in fictional media and not mention Sidney Poitier, who has not played the role of president in movies, but certainly was the epitome of the strong black male during the 60s and early 70s. I've considered Poitier's contributions before while discussing Barack Obama's coolness factor.
Poitier was the first black man I saw in a movie who did not let anyone push him around, specifically as Det. Virgil Tibbs, his role in In the Heat of the Night. I wish when I had written the Obama black cool post that references Poitier and in which I also said being cool sometimes is associated with being a rebel, that I had known the Secret Service's code name for Barack Obama was "Renegade")
While I have spent most of this post considering conjecture about The Huxtable Effect, the image of African-Americans in the make-believe worlds of TV and movies, I think that what has most influenced America's willingness to accept an African-American president and a black family in the White House is real-world integration. Black, white, and brown have mingled and so we know each other better. Some of us respect one another more, have friends from multiple ethnic groups, and even marry each other. Critics of integration have called it a failed experiment, but given the history we all made November 4, 2008, I say the critics are wrong.
Nevertheless, we must not underestimate the power of mass media images and how they influence our feelings and beliefs.
Scholars have demonstrated the mass media's impact on perceptions of ethnic groups, for better and for worse. For example, one pioneering study of the 1930s found that the derogatory depiction of blacks in the classic silent film, The Birth of a Nation, increased the prejudice of young children toward black Americans.
A later study looked at the effects of the film, Gentleman's Agreement, which criticized anti-Semitism, on college students. The result was improved attitudes toward Jews, even though most of the students stated that the film had not changed their attitudes!
A more recent study found that white children felt that TV comedies like The Jeffersons accurately portrayed black family life. Yet many of these same children admitted that the blacks they knew were different from these TV shows. They concluded that the blacks they knew were the exceptions. TV was the reality. (Media Literacy)
Children may have trouble separating fantasy from reality at times, but adults voted Barack Obama into office. Yet we were all at some point children, perhaps kids who spent time at the movies and watching TV, including Sesame Street, a show that has always practiced ethnic inclusion.
Finally, as we reflect on America's fascination with its new First Family and President-elect Obama's transition to the White House, we should weigh what some readers have said and be careful not to trivialize the Obamas, no matter how popular they become, and equate them with entertainers. President-elect Barack Obama and his family's achievement far exceeds that of rock star or actors. One reader in particular lamented that in Ebony's black cool issue, Barack Obama appeared surrounded by entertainers and few black leaders. Still, we see that the creative artists' work, such as the music of the 60s, should not be dismissed and may move us to embrace something good that we have rejected before.
The beauty of today is that we have the opportunity to take the dreams of our nobler selves and bear sweeter fruit, to touch each other finger-to-finger, and to gaze at each other eye-to-eye in the flesh. We can hope and believe in ourselves united.
BLOGGER NOTE: This post partially focuses on images of the black family and black men in fictional media, and that's why the possible influence of high-profile, successful African Americans such as Oprah Winfrey are not discussed.
I've posted part of the Obama family interview with Access Hollywood before under dressing on a budget. At that time I linked to an MSNBC article in which Obama calls the that interview "a mistake." He regretted letting the spotlight linger on his daughters because he's a protective father.
Supporters applaud Obama's being protective of his girls, but many disagree with him on the interview being a mistake. Clips of it are popping up all over the Net as well-wishers and the curious want to know more about the President Elect, our future First Lady, Michelle, and their adorable daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, especially how the family will transition from Hyde Park to the White House.
Here is the full July 2008 Access Hollywood interview:
In it the Obamas talk not only about frugal shopping, but also about possibly moving into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, getting a puppy, and how "Daddy" doesn't pick up his clothes and leaves his big bag (briefcase) where Malia may trip on it. Malia sounds like she may be a natural writer, but she doesn't say that's her aspiration. I'm saying it because the family agreed she likes to tell long stories, apparently sometimes to their dismay. However, her mother says Malia wants to be an actress. I did too when I was ten, and my parents worked on making me more practical as Michelle Obama is trying to do with her daughters:
But she wants to go to a good school like Yale so that she can get a job if the acting thing doesn't work out. (Laughs.) Sasha says -- I think she wants to sing or dance. They're still into wanting to perform. I'm trying to, you know, get them focused on, like, law or something like that, but right now they love the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana. So I think they see themselves as Disney potential. (Michelle Obama, CBS interview)
.Malia also says she can't wait to decorate her room in the White House, but Inside Edition reports there will be limitations on that dream:
Ten-year-old Malia has said she can't wait to decorate her room at the White House, but there will be limits. Landmark rules prohibit the girls from hammering posters into the walls, for example. Still, they won't have any complaints. The private quarters on the second and third floors are fit for a princess. (IE)
This week the world held its breath as Americans elected Senator Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. In President-Elect Barack Obama’s acceptance speech he gave a short but moving tribute to his African-American wife, partner, biggest supporter, and mother of his children, Mrs. Michelle Obama. Black women across the country wept at such a public expression of love and respect for a woman whose physical image reflects their own. Some have never witnessed such an outpouring of affection over an entire lifetime. Finally the world was seeing an educated, nurturing, accomplished mother who looks, talks, and shares the same goals, values, and aspirations as them. For the first time, on the world stage was a Black woman that seemed so familiar; someone who could fit in easily at a book club or at the local Mocha Mom or Jack and Jill group. The minute Michelle Obama came on the national scene the passive stance of Black mom consumers changed. Black moms are now chanting “No more!”, and they are putting their purses where their mouths are. This is indeed the Michelle Obama Effect. (Terri-Nichelle Bradley)
It seems many Americans have exceptionally high expectations of the Obama family. Even internationally people see in them promise of a brighter future for themselves and their children. In Kenya, parents have started naming newborns after Michelle and Barack Obama. I'd buckle under the pressures placed on this family, but it seems the Obamas have been granted a brilliant grace.
The nation has gone Obama crazy. Isn't it wonderful? CNN's Morning Express with Robin Meade posted an interview (see video below) with Time Magazine photographer Callie Shell, who has published a photo essay of President Elect Barack Obama. So, she's had the opportunity to get up close and personal, sort of, with the Obamas through her camera lens.
During the interview, Shell talks about how women cry and teens and college kids jump and scream when they hear Obama speak the same way they'd do at rock concerts, that he has something special that inspires people of all backgrounds.
In addition, she discusses the beauty of Michelle and Barack Obama's relationship, a benefit to this nation that has been analyzed elsewhere. The photographer said that the Obama children also seem well-adjusted. Michelle and Barack Obama must've done something right with Malia,l0, and Sasha, 7, because "those kids are so gracious," said Shell.
Here's the video, a closer look at the Obamas.
The story includes Obama's victory night promise to get the girls a puppy, a topic buzzing on the web right now.
I heard our president elect or future first lady say in another interview that the girls' puppy will come from a rescue shelter. However, the Obamas need a hypoallergenic dog because Malia has asthma. Tonight the show Inside Edition suggested the girls should adopt a Golden Doodle, a mix between a Golden Retriever and a Poodle. I think they'll have trouble getting that dog from the humane society.
And if folks are not buzzing about the girls and the puppy, then they're chatting about Michelle Obama wearing a Narciso Rodriguez dress election night in the park. At BlogHer, Mom101 calls Mrs. Obama unexpectedly hott! That's two "Ts." And other fashionistas have come out to agree or disagree. One reader gave the dress a big NO:
Even today, I cry when I see the whole Obama family on the stage. Beautiful on many levels - what they look like, what they represent, what it means.... I get it. And swore I would not belittle the moment by snarking about that ghastly dress. Just don't think it worked on her - wrong cut, wrong colors. Too, I dunno, aggressive - the blotch on the front looked like the markings of some deadly amazon reptile or something. (Alyssa Rose)
BlogHer co-founder Lisa Stone said the dress was a winner with her:
Politics aside, I must say, I love Michelle Obama in red. Her Ebony cover (September edition) was gorgeous. (Lisa Stone)
I have no comment on the dress. The family is so adorable, I missed the dress, but usually I note what Michelle Obama's wearing; however, I'm far from being a fashionista myself.
Enough about that dress. Onto children in the White House. Tonight on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, the network ran a story telling viewers that Sasha and Malia will be the youngest children at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue since the Kennedy children, Caroline and John Jr. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy was "fiercely protective" of her young ones, according to the story, but as you can see at People Magazine, someone took pictures.
The CBS report suggested Obama may have to take another page from the Kennedy book when it comes to the children (You may noticed that President Obama is frequently compared to John F. Kennedy). As I've already written, Obama is equally protective of his girls, and the nation got a taste of that Halloween night, when he told the media to back off Sasha.
The CBS piece also included Doug Wead, author of All the President's Children, who talked about what it's like growing up in the White House and said White House kids can have a good life, not normal, but good. Also, the story had a clip of Susan Ford, the late President Gerald Ford's daughter, saying how tough it was sometimes to be first daughter.
"It's the articles that are written, the critical letters that you get in the mail from people who don't even know you who just read something in a magazine or a tabloid or whatever. And you really don't ask to be there," she said. (Susan Ford)
Michelle Obama said she thinks Malia is grasping the shift, the big move to the White House.
Bravo to CBS for having the Obama Family video up already and embeddable. Here it is: Other Links: Morning Express at CNN and syndicated entertainment show Inside Edition. Also, The Huffington Post has another slide show, "How Sasha's Grown," and guesswork about the ritzy DC schools the girls may attend. Inside Edition's polling who thinks the Obama's daughters should go to public school. Really? They didn't attend public school in Chicago, why start now? A public school would have to be recreated just to meet security measures.
According to James Hibberd at The Daily Feed, 33.6 million viewers tuned into Obama's infomercial last night. He runs a TV industry blog, and has links to a fact check, McCain's response, and what other industry professionals said.
Reviews of his infomercial say the candidate managed to pull off a strong half-hour of political messaging. Of course, critics are usually subjected to NBC's "Knight Rider" and CBS sitcoms in this time period, so Obama wasn't exactly kicking "Mad Men" off the air. (Hibberd at The Live Feed)
The 30-minute political ad, which ended with Obama speaking live to a crowd at a Florida rally, ran on CBS, NBC, Fox, and some cable networks, but not ABC which came to the table too late. If you didn't want to watch Obama last night, you could have watched Pushing Daisies on ABC or kids shows and other stuff on cable.
Earlier in the week Michelle Obama appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (see video here) and was entertaining, but the story I enjoyed most was about the Obama's 10-year-old daughter Malia who expressed concerned about her father's television appearance when she heard he'd be on all the major networks.
"You're gonna be on all the TV. Are you going to interrupt my TV?" Malia asked Barack Obama. Her dad assured her he had not bought tine on Disney and Nickelodeon, and she said "Oh, good," and left the room.
Malia Obama may not have wanted to see her daddy on TV Wednesday night, but apparently lots of other Americans did. Hibberd says Obama's airtime outperformed shows that normally come on during that time slot in the Nielsen ratings. Read his post here.
At BlogHer, women are sharing their thoughts on Obama's ad, both bad and good, and are responding one writer's plea to Hillary supporters to vote in the election on November 4 and not stay home in anger. Here's the link to that.
Great interview here, video of Michelle Obama, possibly our next First Lady, on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. (See video below.) I like the story she tells about their daughter Malia's concern regarding her father's upcoming half hour of airtime on major networks. Mrs. Obama also has a post at BlogHer in which talks about getting her daughters ready for Halloween and the need for us all to pull together and work for change in these final days of the election.
I don't know if the entire video is on this one clip, but if it's not, you can watch more at this link at which it's reported that she said she shops at J. Crew and orders online. Undoubtedly a response in light of the Palin wardrobe flap. It's no secret, however, that the Obamas dress on a budget.
Mrs. Obama said she still thinks of Barack Obama as the underdog. He'll be the underdog until he's sitting in the Oval Office, and with a name like Barack Obama, he's definitely the underdog, she said.
Yes, this post is all about the puppy, but I'm worn on out on the topic, having written about it at least five times before. The Discovery Channel, CNN, Fox, everybody and her grandmama in news is reporting that the Obamas have chosen a breed, the Portuguese Water Dog, as the promised puppy for Sasha and Malia.
