Adichie pays homage to FLOTUS: She opened the White House 'to people on the margins'

There are not enough words in the English language to capture the essence of Michelle Obama. But that doesn’t mean T Magazine can’t try.

On Monday, the magazine ran a series of essays from author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, feminist activist Gloria Steinem, actress-producer Rashida Jones and media titan Jon Meacham, with Adichie offering the most intimate account of how Obama has shouldered the pressure of shifting negotiations, simultaneously challenging and affirming what it means to be a black woman and a first lady and incrementally making space for the fullness of her spirit.

Because, as Adichie explains, Obama wasn't always afforded the luxury of being unfiltered.

"Because she said what she thought, and because she smiled only when she felt like smiling, and not constantly and vacuously, America’s cheapest caricature was cast on her: the Angry Black Woman. Women, in general, are not permitted anger — but from black American women, there is an added expectation of interminable gratitude, the closer to groveling the better, as though their citizenship is a phenomenon that they cannot take for granted." 

But even as the first lady has walked that tightrope, trying to balance public expectations and field prejudice, she has effortlessly juggled initiatives to help promote youth wellness and girls' education.

"She threw open the White House doors to people on the margins of America," Adichie wrote. "She was working class, and she was Princeton, and so she could speak of opportunity as a tangible thing. Her program Reach Higher pushed high schoolers to go further, to want more. She jumped rope with children on the White House grounds as part of her initiative to combat childhood obesity. She grew a vegetable garden and campaigned for healthier food in schools. She reached across borders and cast her light on the education of girls all over the world."

And with her legacy solidified, Obama's apprehension has crumbled and her unapologetic spirit is now shining bright. It is a beacon, Adichie writes, particularly for black women and girls who, for eight years, have watched her as "a form of God, because she represented their image writ large in the world."

Read the essay in its entirety here.