Sarah Jacob, NDTV
- In Denver, at the National Convention of the Democrats, the challenge was to convince voters that the Obamas are a regular all-American family.
“He knows that thread that connects us, our belief in America’s promise, our commitment to our children’s future. He knows that the thread is strong enough to hold us together as one nation, even when we disagree,” said Michelle Obama, Barack Obama’s wife.
While the strategy was to use Michelle Obama to humanise the Democratic presidential nominee, the speech was also part of her own campaign to win America’s trust.
Being America’s first prospective black first lady, Michelle Obama has been the subject of countless columns and websites and jokes. Fox News dubbed her as Barack’s “baby mama”. It later had to apologise for referring to Michelle’s affectionate onstage fist bump with her husband as a “terrorist fist jab”.
“Michelle Obama unfortunately becomes a very easy target for white racists because she is a Black woman and the whole idea of the first lady is a white woman who is the mother of the country. Can a woman of color ever be the mother of the country?” said Prof Manning Marable, director of Institute for Research, African American Studies, Columbia University.
