I’m home for Christmas break, and last night, my mother and little sister sat watching Michelle Obama give Oprah her final interview as First Lady - coincidentally, the same day the Trumps were confirmed by the electoral college.
I couldn't make myself watch more than a few minutes - it made me too sad, thinking about what we were about to lose. Since then, I find myself less sad and more angry. I'm growing more and more furious, sick to my stomach about the next four years of societal hypocrisy we’ll all be forced to watch in place of our outgoing FLOTUS.
If Michelle Obama had announced she didn’t feel like living in the White House, that she and her children were going to stay in a golden mansion in another state and it was going to fall on the taxpayers to create this fortress for them, people would have lost their shit.
If Michelle Obama had lied about going to college, Fox News would have crucified her and demand some sort of apology from the administration as well as the Democratic Party as a whole. If she had stolen another woman's speech and tried to pass it off as her own at a National Convention, people would have called her an inarticulate idiot, and unspeakable racist slurs.
If Michelle Obama had been an immigrant, the GOP would have launched investigation after investigation about whether a First Lady was even allowed to be something other than American. Talking heads on conservative channels would have petitioned to get her kicked out of the White House daily.
But Melania Trump has done all these things, and the media - both of liberal and conservative leanings - have just watched them slide past with minimal comments, spotlighting certain other family member’s antics. And it makes me so angry I have to lie down.
It is not unfeminist to compare these two women - in fact, it’s necessary. Both as an example of the importance of intersectional feminism, and more importantly, so that we don't forget. So that we and our children never forget in the year 2016 Michelle Obama had to be Ivy-League educated, an incredible public speaker, scandal-free, with poise coming out of every pore to be considered a passable First Lady by the right-wing, who still tried like hell to find something to attack her for.
All Melania had to do was be white.
