First in family values? How a White House image could change perceptions
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But the holiday season, when family relationships, good and bad, move to the forefront, might be just the time to consider how the image of the Obamas in the White House — mother, father, two daughters, grandmother — has affected ideas about the American family in general, and the African American family in particular.

In this case, the personal is political because in America, the very idea of the strong black family is revolutionary in the popular imagination, if not reality.
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Yet this most “traditional” picture of family gets little credit from those who most loudly espouse that vision as ideal as well as some of those thought more friendly to the current White House occupants.

Years ago, I wrote a column taking some white feminists to task for not coming to the aid of an embattled Michelle Obama, and it was depressing to see the same back and forth surface after a recent Politico article called the first lady “a feminist nightmare” for choosing causes and a family-first priority not deemed worthy of her time and education. The author was criticized for both narrowly defining feminism and casually dismissing work on behalf of childhood nutrition and encouraging educational goals. A chorus of columns reminded those without a sense of history that a black woman being able to choose to raise her children might be a dream rather than nightmare. The first lady’s parents sacrificed so that her mother could do the same.

In an interview in 2008, Michelle Obama told me, “Sometimes I do believe that people don’t believe I exist.” She could have broadened the sentiment to her whole family.