Nigerian Novelist, Chimamanda Adichie, journalist, Gloria
Steinem, and actress Rashida Jones have written love letters to U.S first lady,
Michelle Obama. The letters were published on October 23 issue of The New York Times
Magazine, Great issue, which has Mrs. Obama on its cover.
The letters, titled “To the First Lady, With Love,” began
with a note from Nigerian author and feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,
best known for her 2013 TEDx talk “We should all be feminists,” which was
sampled by Beyoncé for her song “Flawless.”
Adichie writes that Obama “first appeared in the public
consciousness, all common sense and mordant humor, at ease in her skin.”
"Because she said what she thought, and because she smiled only
when she felt like smiling, and not constantly and vacuously, America’s
cheapest caricature was cast on her: the Angry Black Woman,” Adichie continues,
adding that she felt protective of FLOTUS because “she was speaking to an
America often too quick to read a black woman’s confidence as arrogance, her
straightforwardness as entitlement."
Journalist and political activist, Gloria Steinem also
contributed her own love letter to Obama, writing, "She managed to convey
dignity and humor at the same time, to be a mother of two daughters and insist
on regular family dinners, and to take on health issues and a national food
industry addicted to unhealthy profits."
Actress Rashida Jones marveled at the First Lady’s
strength. "Michelle Obama embodies the modern, American woman, and I don’t mean
that in any platitudinous or vague way,” Jones writes. “Rarely can someone
express their many identities at the same time while seeming authentic."
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