This makes me feel good about myself.
I’m a tall woman, and my boyfriend just happens to be basically the same height as me. I find that all of my shoes are flat because I don’t want to stand taller than him in heels. I wonder sometimes if flats can be elegant, and Michelle does it so damn well.
*sigh*
It really shouldn’t matter what the Presidential family looks like…I know that. The logical side of my brain insists that Michelle Obama’s shoewear does not deserve a slide-show on the Huffington Post website. Yet…why did I read it? Why does it make me so damn happy? Why am I blogging about it?
Because she is the first black First Lady. She’s is beautiful, and that’s a big deal since there aren’t enough beautiful black women in mainstream media. She’s not petite at all; she’s physically the typical black woman. She makes me feel good because I know that my body type is closer to hers than the petite Jada Pinkett Smith, or the light-n-brite Halle Berry. Michelle Obama is tall, brown skinned, and becoming a style icon. She’s a woman that other strong black women can look up to and aspire to be more like.
So yes. I want to know that she wears flats.
I want to know that she’s tall, and consciously takes into consideration that she’s close in height to her husband.
I want to know that if she wore heels next to her husband she would feel uncomfortable.
I want to know that, because I’m the same way.
It makes her real, like me.
It makes her real, like hundreds of thousands of black women in this country.
Thus it makes her success real enough for us to obtain for ourselves.
They’re just shoes, but it’s a metaphor.
