The White Lady Just Doesn’t Get It: A Response to Maureen Dowd’s “Critique’ of Michelle Obama

by Dax-Devlon Ross

Although she doesn’t seem to realize it (nor do I suspect she would admit as much if confronted with the fact), Maureen Dowd’s admiration for “cheeky women” who “puncture the ego of a cocky guy” comes with a caveat: the women have to be white. She can be a  Hollywood star from a bygone era, Katie Kouric or Cybil Shepherd; she can’t be Michelle Obama. But don’t dare tell Ms. Dowd this because she, like all too many liberal-minded Americans, would be appalled by the suggestion that race has anything to do with her distaste for Michelle Obama’s attitude toward her husband. For her, the discomfort she feels with Mrs. Obama’s “cheeky” remarks about her candidate husband has everything to do with Senator Obama’s candidacy. According to Dowd at least, Obama’s entire campaign rests on his “Camelot Mystique” rather than an actual record, therefore his wife is doing him a disservice by “mocking” him in public.

Interestingly enough, Dowd sees herself as coming to Senator Obama’s defense, when in reality she is only stoking the flames of the always tense black woman-black man-white woman triangle. She is, in effect, contributing to a pervasive stereotype within the black community (and perhaps outside of it as well)— namely that black women pull black men down and are to blame for pushing them into the arms of white women. Writes Dowd,