The Claim That Michelle Obama Is A Man Isn't A Conspiracy Theory -- It's A Racialized Attack On Black Womanhood

[Quiet Em]

But comments like these are not merely absurd. They are not harmless jokes, and they are far from being isolated incidents.

They reflect something much older, much deeper, and much more troubling: a centuries-old pattern in which Black women’s femininity, humanity, and identity are routinely questioned, denied, and weaponized. Michelle Obama is simply the latest target and has been for some time.

Long before social media, before cable news, and before political polarization reached its current fever pitch, Black women were already fighting stereotypes that portrayed them as less feminine, less desirable, less vulnerable, and less worthy of protection than white women. The claim that Michelle Obama is a man is not new. It’s simply a modern version of an old story.

While the language has changed over time, the underlying message has remained remarkably consistent. Black women are frequently denied the right to simply be seen as women.

Social Media Didn’t Create These Ideas. It Amplified Them.

Today, these stereotypes rarely appear in the overt forms many people associate with the past. Instead, they often emerge through memes, GIFs, viral videos, comments sections, and online jokes.

A Black woman expressing frustration may be labeled as angry immediately.

A Black woman demonstrating confidence may be characterized as intimidating.

A successful and/or powerful Black woman, such as Michelle Obama, may be mocked as masculine and have her appearance scrutinized in ways that have little to do with reality and everything to do with maintaining harmful stereotypes.

https://zora.medium.com/the-claim-that-michelle-obama-is-a-man-isnt-a-conspiracy-theory-it-s-a-racialized-attack-on-669ac6b6fef2

[MineralMan]

1. It's also patently and obviously incorrect.

I can't believe it's still out there...

[Sweet Rosie Red]

2. Michele Obama

is a lovely, intelligent, sophisticated and very accomplished women who intimidates the small dicks and incels who populate the Magaverse. They’re afraid her existence might give their “little women” ideas. She also intimidates Maga women because they can’t hide their surrender of identity and lack of accomplishments behind their skin color and “faith”.

So the insults serve a double purpose. The men want her to be invisible, and they all want to show their “little women” how they’ll be treated if they ever try to assert themselves. It’s a psychological fence line at the kitchen door!

I only have one problem: In my next life, do I want to be like Michele Obama or AOC?

Thank you for the history. It validates everything I’ve been thinking!

[Biophilic]

3. The woman is outstandingly beautiful, intelligent, kind, and brave. Among other qualities.

No wonder they are afraid of her. She is awesome. she makes me proud to be a woman.

[Mustellus]

4. On the other hand....

... Melinia's naked porfolio is still available on the internet. No one can dare make the claim that she is a man.....

[ananda]

6. First Ho

...

[MorbidButterflyTat]

8. That has nothing to do with the OP

[GiqueCee]

5. Lowlife bags of racist rat shit...

... spawned in the bottom of an outhouse have no other recourse by which to elevate themselves but to attack those who are innately superior to them by every possible metric. But the schadenfreude is especially sweet for those who have been their favorite victims for more than four hundred years.

[Lonestarblue]

7. Modern gynecology owes its beginnings to a little-known black woman who endured many experiments as a slave.

Read the whole piece from Wikipedia. It is horrifying and inhumane as the doctor doing experimental surgeries on her could have used anesthesia and chose not to. It seems clear that he saw her as less than human.

I could not find a photo I remember seeing years ago of Anarcha on a bed with chains hanging nearby to restrain her during the pain of surgery with no anesthesia. Dr. Sims was honored for his heinous experiments and became known as the father of gynecology.

"Anarcha Westcott (c. 1828 – June 27, 1869) was an enslaved woman who is known as the "mother of modern gynecology" for having undergone a series of experimental surgical procedures conducted by medical doctor J. Marion Sims, without the use of anesthesia, in order to develop treatments for vesicovaginal fistula and rectovaginal fistula resulting from traumatic childbirth, primarily aimed at benefitting white female patients.[1] Sims's medical experimentation on Anarcha and other enslaved women, and its role in the development of modern gynaecology, has generated controversy among medical historians, particularly because enslaved women have not had the right to refuse involvement."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcha_Westcott

[TheProle]

9. Michelle Obama deserves none of this.

But casting this as an exclusive issue of race is a little off the mark, in my opinion.

Politics in the US engenders hatred and that hate manifests in insults against political enemies.

People are cruel and it's not the province of a single race or political persuasion...

[MorbidButterflyTat]

10. At least two of those fragments appear to be in defense of transgender individuals

A bit disingenuous without context.

[mcar]

11. Thank you for this. nt

[RandomNumbers]

12. It's sick misogynistic bullying. Dipped in a thick coating of racism

in the case of Michelle Obama.

Deliberately misgendering anyone is sick bullshit. Especially calling a woman a "man" JUST BECAUSE she doesn't comport herself according to the name-callers fantasy of womanhood ... or (as for some in the case of Michelle), intentionally as in insult ... it's misogynistic bullying, period.

I agree that the being Black adds another dimension to it. But it is sick regardless.

It's almost like a large segment of America thinks bullying is okay.