Did Michelle Obama heckler use coded racial words? Or not?
The fallout from Michelle Obama’s heckling incident continued Thursday, as some defenders of the first lady charge that the heckler used coded racial language, and in general spoke from a perspective of “white privilege.”
These folks point to a comment protester Ellen Sturtz made after she interrupted the first lady during a fundraiser and challenged President Obama to fulfill a campaign promise and sign an order banning federal contractors from discriminating against gays and lesbians.
Rather than speak over Ms. Sturtz, Mrs. Obama left the podium and confronted the heckler in person, saying she’d leave if the heckling didn’t stop.
“She came right down in my face. I was taken aback,” said Sturtz after the incident.
What, did Sturtz think the first lady was just going to let the interruption go on, or hand her the mike?
Sturtz’s description of the encounter was a “breathtaking bit of projection and entitlement that also tiptoed dangerously close to the ‘angry black woman’ stereotype that Mrs. Obama has been dogged by for years,” writes Anna Holmes, founding editor of the feminist blog “Jezebel,” in a Time Magazine column.
Over at “Mediaite,” columnist Tommy Christopher writes that Sturtz and her supporters have taken lots of heat for “their perceived sense that interrupting Michelle Obama is not only something they’re entitled to do, but that Mrs. Obama somehow should have welcomed. The source of that sense of entitlement, the theory goes, is white privilege.”
And at “Black Enterprise,” columnist Janell Hazelwood writes that “In 2014, that tired prevalent notion that any time a black woman speaks up – and it’s not to coddle, coo or sweet talk – she’s ‘angry’ or ‘aggressive’ is getting old.”
Ouch. We’ll echo Mr. Christopher here and say that it’s also possible that Ellen Sturtz was simply an inept protester. She picked one of the most popular women in the world to interrupt. Also, a woman who’s been viciously attacked by extremist critics in racial terms in the past, and who supports gay rights generally.
Did GetEQUAL consider that might not end well?
“We value the first lady’s leadership and invite her to lead the charge within the Democratic Party to end employment discrimination,” said the group in a press release following the incident.
And might some of the charges of implicit racism be something of an overreaction?
Sturtz might have been taken aback by the first lady’s aggressive criticism because President Obama, like many experienced public speakers, takes a more relaxed approach with hecklers. He often plays along lest he be seen as overbearing, while waiting for security to arrive. That’s the technique the president used with Code Pink activist Medea Benjamin when she interrupted his speech at the National Defense University on May 23.
“Like it or not, Michelle Obama’s reaction to Sturtz was a Michelle moment, not a stereotypical black woman’s touchiness or a South Side time-out,” writes contributing editor Helena Andrews at “The Root,” a blog of African-American culture.
