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Why Michelle Obama could have said more, but didn't

"when they go low, we go toe to toe" - Symone Sanders

Aug 24

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woman holding book — Photo by Alex Nemo Hanse on Unsplash

“Sticks and stone may break my bone, but words can never hurt me” is probably one of the most pernicious myths we’ve told children. In fact, words can kill. Towards the end of her memoir Becoming, Michelle Obama notes how Donald Trump’s birther conspiracy theories stirred up an even greater hatred towards the First Family.

This is how Michelle Obama described it:

“I was briefed from time to time by the Secret Service on the more serious threats that came in and understood that there were people capable of being stirred. I tried not to worry, but sometimes I couldn’t help it. What if someone with an unstable mind loaded a gun and drove to Washington? What if that person went looking for our girls? Donald Trump, with his loud and reckless innuendos was putting my family’s safety at risk. And for this, I’d never forgive him.”

Michelle Obama continues:

“Months after the birther rumors picked up steam, on a Friday night in November a man parked his car on a closed part of Constitution Avenue and started firing a semi-automatic rifle out the window, aimed at the top floors of the White House. A bullet hit one of the windows in the yellow oval office, where I sometimes like to sit and have tea, another lodged itself in a window frame, and more ricocheted off the roof.”

Michelle Obama wasn’t home that day, but one of her daughters was. When it comes to my family, I can easily go from Shae the Historian to Halle Berry in Kidnap or Liam Neeson in Taken in a heartbeat. But who wouldn’t? If someone pedaled lies that fueled an assassin or sought to destroy your family, what would you do?

When Michelle Obama took the stage at the DNC this week, many wondered which tone she would take with her speech. We should continue the “when they go low, we go high” tone from her 2016 speech or would she go toe to toe?

She chose the latter and went with a searing critique of Donald Trump. What amazed me about the speech was not just her presence, oratory skills, or even the speech itself. It was what she didn’t say. It was her restraint. She showed mercy when she could have eviscerated the man whose rhetoric threatened her and her family’s life.

After centuries of oppression and maltreatment in this country, black people could have chosen a response equal in measure, but instead, they often chose righteous discontent. As Professor Evelyn Brooks Higgenbotham has unearthed in her classic book Righteous Discontent, black women in this country have had some of the most salient expressions against racism and sexism in this country.

From challenging the black church to take more of an active political role in advocating for voting rights and anti-lynching legislation, black women have not only pushed the black community but this country writ large to be better.

This is why Michelle Obama’s defense of black women in her speech nearly drove me to tears. Many black women are not afforded, as Michelle Obama noted, the grace of “failing forward.” As she said in her speech, “we don’t get a second, third or fourth chance.”

This is why we must all pay attention when anger in this country is stirred up as she said by “the existence of two hard-working, highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black.” An excellent example of this is Dr. Claudine Gay, the former President of Harvard, who was not given the grace or a second chance that would have been afforded a white male University President if put in the same predicament.

Hours after VP Kamala Harris received the endorsement of President Biden, I made a TikTok that went viral admonishing Black women to prepare themselves for the next few months. Whenever black people in general advance in America, something that the historian Carol Anderson called “White Rage” is unleashed.

This is how Professor Anderson describes “White Rage,”

“The trigger for white rage, inevitably, is black advancement. It is not the mere presence of black people that is the problem; rather, it is blackness with ambition, with drive, with purpose, with aspirations, and with demands for full and equal citizenship. It is blackness that refuses to accept subjugation, to give up.”

As the young people say, Michelle Obama could have chosen metaphorical “violence”, using her pen as a sword. Still, instead, she chose mercy, hope, and righteous indignation—all things this country needs right now.

with care,

p.s. make sure you’re staying up to date with the 100 Historic Black Women You Should Know By Election Day series over on Spotify and YouTube! Important announcement coming next week!

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SHAE THE HISTORIAN is a newsletter for history lovers seeking to search the past, learn something new, and contribute to the archive of life. If you enjoyed this story, feel free to share it with someone. Stay curious, friends!