Former first lady Michelle Obama said she broke down in tears after Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, but it wasn’t because she didn’t want to leave the White House or was concerned about the new president’s racial rhetoric’s impact on the nation.
Obama said her tears spurred from the pressure of being the first Black presidential family and knowing that any mistake she, her children, or her husband made would not be measured with the same stick as their counterparts.
“We were the first, hopefully not the only, but we were the first,” Obama said. “When you’re the first at stuff, especially the first in the biggest spotlight, the world watching you, you don’t want to mess it up. You want to make sure that you are representing.”
While many tend to argue that Trump was the firebrand that ignited ordinary white people who felt left out and ignored by elite politicians, the former reality star actually capitalized on the racism that was awakened when a Black man held the highest position in the country, Commander In Chief.
“When those doors (of Air Force One) shut, I cried for 30 minutes straight, uncontrollable sobbing, because that’s how much we were holding it together for eight years without really being able to show it all,” Obama said on a March 7 episode of her new podcast.
During her husband’s time as president, the Chicago native was picked apart for how she wore her hair, dressed, and looked, like any other first lady, but she was subject to criticism often reserved for Black women. She was pegged as aggressive, and some critics even suggested that the Princeton University and Havard Law graduate either slept her way to the top or got there through affirmative action.
On the first episode, Obama’s The Light Podcast,” she was interviewed by “Today Show’s” Hoda Kotb. The former first lady told Kotb she had to “quiet some much of herself” “because the mission during those eight…
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