Chicago Tribune: White privilege and why Melania gets a pass, Michelle doesn't

[pnwmom]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-melania-michelle-criticism-glanton-talk-20160720-column.html

The fact that the words were stolen from Michelle Obama — one of the most demonized first ladies in the history of America — isn't what bothers me most. It's that many people have refused to hold her accountable.

It is one more example of white privilege that explains why Melania Trump has been treated so delicately while Michelle Obama has had to spend the past eight years on the defensive.

When Melania Trump appeared to be in trouble during her debut in the national arena, people quickly rushed to her defense. She was presumed innocent and easily given the benefit of the doubt. Though Twitter had some lighthearted fun with it, even some television pundits were convinced that it wasn't her fault. It was the work of some careless speechwriter, they surmised, who would surely be fired.

Never mind that Melania Trump told the "Today" show's Matt Lauer hours before giving the speech that she had largely written it herself.

The public was quick to attribute the "misstep" to Donald Trump's unorganized campaign. If anybody is to blame, some said, it was Donald Trump for putting his timid wife out there in the first place.

SNIP

Like Melania Trump, Michelle Obama never asked to be in the public spotlight. The first time she appeared at a political convention, she didn't feel comfortable speaking to the nation either. But she has never been able to garner the empathy and patience people were willing to immediately bestow upon Melania Trump.

[tonyt53]

1. Supposed evangelicals applauding Melania, but trashing Michelle.

A person that has posed nude/near nude, lies about her education is their hero. A person that has done nothing but kept her clothes on and made something of herself while helping others is ridiculed and called names. Something is very wrong with Republicans.

[oberliner]

2. Zero to do with race

Preposterous to claim otherwise.

White privilege is real. This episode is not an example of it.

[pnwmom]

3. How can you say that?

A month before Michelle Obama was to give her speech in 2008 at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, The New Yorker magazine used a caricature of her dressed in military fatigues and carrying a machine gun on its cover. The drawing, which also portrayed Barack Obama as a flag-burning Muslim, played into stereotypes the candidate and his wife had been fighting throughout the campaign. Though it was satirical, it seemed insensitive given sentiment among the right wing that she was anti-American.

When she and Obama did a fist bump on stage after he won a primary, some people called it a "terrorist fist jab." She's been called "uppity," one of Obama's "cronies of color" and "Obama's baby mama."

[oberliner]

5. Those paragraphs have nothing to do with the article you posted

With respect to the speech plagiarism issue, Melania was treated like an idiot. Or some sort of stooge.

In fact, when she claimed to have written the speech herself, that assertion was laughed off, as all the experts assumed she was lying. That she was not capable of writing her own speech.

I would say sexism was evident in the way she was treated, and also a general assumption that people who speak English with an accent aren't that smart.

[pnwmom]

7. They are PART of the article I posted. Melania got the pass that beautiful white women

are routinely given.

This didn't happen to Michelle, being a beautiful black woman.

[oberliner]

8. My point is that the author all over the map

And making disconnected remarks - trying to tie things together into a narrative that does not fit.

Don't you think the points I raised in my response are valid?

[pnwmom]

10. I don't think the same kind of "sexism" would have happened if Michelle had done that.

They're always saying how smart Melania is, and how she speaks 5 languages and is a great business person. They weren't treating her like an idiot. They just kept saying that she was just a spouse and a "non-political" person.

Well, Michelle was a non-political person, too. She made it very clear she didn't like politics -- she was just doing it for Barack.

So why would Melania get a pass based on being a woman that Michelle never got?

What I saw were a bunch of male commentators, especially white male commentators, basically going weak at the knees -- in a way they never did with Michelle.

[oberliner]

14. I guess it depends on who the "they" is

Certain commentators rave about Michelle Obama while others don't. I think the same is true with Melania.

Personally, I think that people assume Michelle is smarter than Melania because her English is not so good (and because of her career as a model).

Often I find there is a bias towards assuming people with "Ivy League degrees" are by definition smarter than those without them.

I think that Melania does not so much as "get a pass" on this as fall victim to the assumption that she was too stupid to write her own speech (even though she claimed that she had).

If all things about Melania Trump were exactly the same except instead of being a fashion model from Slovenia who spoke with an accent, she was Princeton and Harvard educated (and spoke without an accent) that would have made a more significant difference in her treatment than if she was non-white.

[pnwmom]

15. Were you watching CNN and MSNBC in the night after the plagiarism was discovered?

The white men, especially, were treating her like a delicate flower who couldn't possibly have intentionally done anything wrong -- at the same time that they were saying how smart she was, how many languages she spoke, what a great business woman she was.

That would never have happened if Michelle had been the plagiarizer.

[oberliner]

16. I did not see that coverage

But do you think the whole "delicate flower" treatment was a result of her being white?

If she had been a black fashion model who spoke several languages and was a business woman, would she have been treated differently?

[pnwmom]

17. Yes. I don't think any woman with Michelle's coloring would have gotten the same treatment.

Maybe a woman who looked like Halle Berry -- I don't know. But not a woman as dark as Michelle.

I also noticed that the black male commentators were less likely to appear transfixed by Melania than the white ones.

[oberliner]

19. What about from those black male commentators?

Did you think the commentary was different depending on the race of the person commenting on CNN/MSNBC?

Also, what about from the female commentators, of any race?

[pnwmom]

22. As I recall, one or more of them commented that Michelle wouldn't have been treated the same.

And so did a black female commentator.

And watching from where I was, I agreed.

We had just watched a very boring speech, full of nothing but platitudes, and everyone was saying what a great speech it was. Yeah, right. Then, when it turns out key paragraphs were plagiarized, they were rushing to make excuses. Especially the white men (and one woman Republican.)

Nicole Wallace, to her credit, was very firm in saying it WAS plagiarism. No ifs, ands, or buts. She wasn't hypnotized by Melania's beauty or compelled by party politics to defend the indefensible.

[1StrongBlackMan]

9. Because ... well ...

white privilege/racism/white supremacy is real ... liberals just never seem to be able to find examples of it, except of course if the n-word is used.

[Thinkingabout]

4. As I told my RW friends, I think Melania has great admiration of Michelle Obama, kinda set them back

Proves Michelle gave a powerful speech in 2008, Melania may in time become as important as Michelle, don't think Melania will be first lady.

[Pacifist Patriot]

6. She's gotten a pass?

I must be looking in the wrong places. Most of what I've seen has either ridiculed or shredded her.

[pnwmom]

11. She got a full pass in the hours after this came out, with almost every commentator leaping to her

defense.. They were calling it plagiarism but I didn't see any commentator who held her responsible for it. Even if she wrote the speech, they all said that someone failed her by not vetting it.

It was only after Manafort came out with his statement that media people started thinking maybe she did have some of the responsibility.

[Cosmocat]

12. It is 99 percent party related

The pedestal for condi rice falls just short of st ronnie.

Meanwhile, our candidate for potus is the gold standard for misogynistic right wing slander.

If michelle obama had an r behind her name she would get the same hands off treatment.

[MyNameGoesHere]

13. All I remember is being told how amazingly intelligent she was.

Seems like she is the most intelligent idiot they have. That's pretty sad even in 7 languages or more.

[jcgoldie]

18. I disagree

With the last paragraph that Michelle was ever uncomfortable speaking to the nation in the way Melania or most people would probably be. Michelle Obama is phenomenal and in her element. It's apples to oranges. She's held to a different standards and mostly because of race as the article suggests... but she was never a deer in the headlights like Melania Trump.

[pnwmom]

20. Michelle was VERY uncomfortable with being a political wife.

And we don't know how shy Melania really is -- we only know what Trump said. Maybe he was purposely holding her back, waiting for the big reveal.

This is about how Michelle Obama didn't want to be in politics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Obama

Although she has campaigned on her husband's behalf since early in his political career by handshaking and fund-raising, she did not relish the activity at first. When she campaigned during her husband's 2000 run for United States House of Representatives, her boss at the University of Chicago asked if there was any single thing about campaigning that she enjoyed; after some thought, she replied that visiting so many living rooms had given her some new decorating ideas. She reportedly turned down requests by the campaign for her to attend fundraisers. Obama was against her husband's run for the congressional seat and after his defeat would have preferred her husband tending to the financial needs of the family in what she deemed a more practical way.

SNIP

In May 2007, three months after her husband declared his presidential candidacy, Obama reduced her professional responsibilities by 80 percent to support his presidential campaign. Early in the campaign, she had limited involvement in which she traveled to political events only two days a week and rarely traveled overnight; by early February 2008 her participation had increased significantly, attending thirty-three events in eight days. She made several campaign appearances with Oprah Winfrey. She wrote her own stump speeches for her husband's presidential campaign and generally spoke without notes.

[jcgoldie]

21. Those last 3 sentences are exactly my point

She may not have liked it in the beginning but she was a natural and by the time she gave that '08 spouse speech at the DNC she was a pro.

[pnwmom]

23. No, she wasn't a natural and she wasn't a pro -- though she stopped wearing designer clothes

in the hopes of softening her image -- and that apparently helped.

Is anyone criticizing Melania for her wardrobe? Or calling her Trump's "baby Mama"?

No, they're too busy falling at her feet when their knees buckle.

From the article in the OP:

A month before Michelle Obama was to give her speech in 2008 at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, The New Yorker magazine used a caricature of her dressed in military fatigues and carrying a machine gun on its cover. The drawing, which also portrayed Barack Obama as a flag-burning Muslim, played into stereotypes the candidate and his wife had been fighting throughout the campaign. Though it was satirical, it seemed insensitive given sentiment among the right wing that she was anti-American.


When she and Obama did a fist bump on stage after he won a primary, some people called it a "terrorist fist jab." She's been called "uppity," one of Obama's "cronies of color" and "Obama's baby mama."

From Wikipedia, about the 2008 campaign:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Obama

The change was even reflected in her fashion choices, wearing more informal clothes in place of her previous designer pieces.