Echoes of TV’s First Lady-Michelle Obama’s last true cultural antecedent is ‘Cosby’s’ Clair Huxtable

washingtonpost.com via MSNBC ^ | June 19, 2009 | Robin Givhan

[John W]

WASHINGTON - So far, the first lady has chosen to be a food bank volunteer with an outsize entourage and an education activist with the largest soapbox imaginable. But Michelle Obama also fills a role that is not of her choosing but that may, in fact, be the most influential: She serves as a symbol of middle-class progress, feminist achievement, affirmative-action success and individual style.

And she has done all this on the world stage . . . while being black.

Time and again, observers grasp for adjectives to describe Obama's combination of professional accomplishment and soccer-mom maternalism. It's no wonder so many eye her with awe and disbelief. Or why a minority still view her with suspicion. There have been few broad cultural precedents for what she represents.

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Cue Aunt Esther...

[rabidralph]

I don’t recall the Huxtables needing any help from affirmative action.

[jaydubya2]

Puke alert!

[oblomov]

Affirmative-action success? What about the meritorious schlubs who didn’t get the job?

[Ancesthntr]

Definitely Aunt Esther. Claire Huxtable wasn’t a hater, wasn’t an angey person who carried a boulder on her shoulder.

[captnorb]

Do you think Governor Palin could receive these kinds of accolades from any network or print media person? Never: After all, Sarah Palin just accomplished everything on her own without affirmative action. Psst, she's white and a republican...Never happen!

[agere_contra]

She serves as a symbol of middle-class progress, feminist achievement, affirmative-action success and individual style.

Oh Michelle is the poster child for affirmative action all right.

Make that politically-connected affirmative action.

Most people don't get $350,000 jobs created for them. Most people can't cruise through college on a race-baiting diversity thesis.

But yeah, she's got individual style all right. Style like a trainwreck.

[Krankor]

And she has done all this on the world stage . . . while being black.
Is that anything like "driving while black"? Seriously, though, what are her accomplishments. She got into college on affirmative action. Her first job was at a very prestigious law firm where she was in charge of Barney the Dinosaur. Next she worked for Mayor Daley and, finally, she got a position at the University of Chicago Hospitals, where her major duties were to make sure poor, black people without insurance came no where near their emergency room. A job, by the way, which was immediately eliminated once she left for the White House.

[agere_contra]

Her first job was at a very prestigious law firm where she was in charge of Barney the Dinosaur.

W-what? I've missed this part of the Greatest Story Ever Told. Please tell!

[ConservaTexan]

And she has done all this on the world stage . . . while being black.

No inherent racism in this statement...none whatsoever.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Clair Huxtable, albeit a fictional character, exuded class and charm. She also actually knew how to dress tastefully, as I recall.

Michelle Obama is nothing like her at all.

[Dixie Yooper]

"I mean, you got the first mainstream female African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking gal," Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, dame."

[Krankor]

http://michelleobamawatch.com/michelle-obama-represented-barney-the-dinosaur

[agere_contra]

Thanks!

This stuff is gold

White, who is now retired from the firm, says he gave her the most interesting work he could find, in part because he wanted to see her advance, but also because she seemed perennially dissatisfied

[csense]

It's no wonder so many eye her with awe and disbelief.

How ironically true...

[rabidralph]

Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how the press finds other things to write about, should she become president. It’s funny how the republican journalists (Karen Hughes, Sarah Palin) are way smarter than the liberal ones.

[Krankor]

Actually, her relationship with Barney is almost never mentioned in the MSM. Could you imagine if this was Sarah Palin? The jokes would be endless and there would be thousands of photos with Barney photoshopped in.

[Pharmboy]

Parlour Magazine beat her to it...