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Reading Comprehension

Becoming by Michelle Obama - a book review

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Before I tell you how much I love Michelle Obama, let me tell you what I have against her.
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The former first lady is a woman capable of muddying your stance on things you stood firmly
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against. First on the list is the very concept of a first lady. Just think about this. For feminists,
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or anyone frankly with a 21st-century grasp of gender equality, it is a highly troublesome
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concept. It is a position that involves a woman – no matter the glorious complexity, glittering
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accomplishment or human drama of her prior life – being shoehorned into a role that is, by
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definition, about the man to whom she is married.
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Her role has never been defined, because, I suspect, to do so would involve the awkward
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truth – that it’s essentially to make her husband look good. First ladies both feed into, and
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reflect, our patriarchal values, and so, in this world still so intolerant of female domination,
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making their husbands look good inevitably involves diminishing themselves, and a
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decoupling from their own achievements, so as not to outshine the president.
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Obama is both the ultimate first lady and has also, which is the second issue, been folded
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into a narrative of the American dream. This is problematic from a black perspective
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because, as Malcolm X so pithily expressed it, “I don’t see any American dream. I see an
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American nightmare.” Obama’s role has been in the American dream of both the future, and
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the past. It’s often remarked that African Americans are the only Americans who do not have
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any “good ole days”. Because which period of American history could they be nostalgic for?
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The state sponsored terror of slavery, and segregation? The long, painful battle for civil
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rights? Or the enduring economic disadvantage and racism that all three left behind?
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But it is precisely amid the dark chaos of these conundrums that we find the irresistible light
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of Michelle Obama. In Becoming – the first book that tells her story from her own perspective
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– she reveals that her life is a form of alchemy. Her childhood, growing up on the South Side
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of Chicago, is recalled with an essentially American kind of wholesomeness: a strong
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nuclear family of four, sharing a one-bed apartment upstairs while the one below was
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occupied by her piano teacher great aunt Robbie. Her family worked hard and kept things
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moving upwards.
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If Obama were British, this would be a class tale. She describes herself in her early years as
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“the striver”. Later, campaigning for the first time with her husband, she recounts the moment
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she realised that her task is mainly to share this story with “people who despite the
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difference in skin colour reminded me of my family – postal workers who had bigger dreams
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just as [her grandfather] Dandy once had; civic-minded piano teachers like Robbie;
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stay-at-home moms who were active in the PTA like my mother; blue-collar workers who’d
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do anything for their families, just like my dad. I didn’t need to practice or use notes. I said
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only what I sincerely felt.” [...]
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But this protective love of Obama’s childhood did not shut out the communal sense of
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suffering and injustice that is, for any observer of America, impossible to avoid. The
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neighbourhood she grew up in was transformed by white flight, and later “deteriorated under
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the grind of poverty and gang violence”. An early experience with the police via her beloved
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brother Craig taught her that “the colour of our skin made us vulnerable.” Persistent
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experiences of discrimination bred in her family “a basic level of resentment and mistrust”.
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Most of Obama’s narrative on race, however, comes courtesy not of her own perspective,
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but that of the many commentators who weaponised her blackness against her. “The
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rumours and slanted commentary always carried less than subtle messaging about race,
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meant to stir up the deepest and ugliest kind of fear within the voting public. Don’t let the
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black folks take over,” she writes. [...]
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It’s hard to be cynical about either Obama’s strength of character or her authenticity.
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Her book confirms what was observable about her time in the White House, that while she
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may have had to shape herself into the mould of what politics requires of a first lady, it was
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still a first lady-shaped version of something real. Her genuine dislike for politics is hard to
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avoid, in a book rooted in a high moral ground above insults and mudslinging, the political
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process itself seems the only thing she allows herself to freely insult.
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“The appeal of standing in an open gym or high school auditorium to hear lofty promises and
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platitudes never made much sense to me,” she writes. “The political world was no place for
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good people”, nothing but “the ugly red versus blue dynamic”, whose “nastiness” has
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affected her so personally. In this vein, she attempts to end the stubborn speculation about
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her own future candidacy. “Because people often ask, I’ll say it here, directly: I have no
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intention of running for office, ever.” [...]
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During Barack Obama’s tenure, it was Michelle Obama’s roots in the African American
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experience, in the history of the south that she understood innately as “knit into me”, that lent
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him crucial legitimacy among black voters. It resurfaces here, adding the profound warnings
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of past suffering to the observation that, as she sees the Trumps take over the White House,
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“the vibrant diversity ... was gone, replaced by what felt like a dispiriting uniformity, the kind
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of overwhelmingly white and male tableau I’d encountered so many times”.
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Becoming reads as Obama’s first intervention into this distressing new reality. It definitely
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does not read like it will be the last.
(948 words)
Hirsch, Afua, “Becoming by Michelle Obama review – race, marriage and the ugly side of politics.” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/14/michelle-obama-becoming-review-undoubtedly- political-book; published on November 14, 2018; accessed on October 4, 2022
Instructions:
  • Tick the correct answer/statement or statements as indicated.
  • Provide a quotation from the text to support each correct answer: the line number(s) plus the first three and the last three words of the quotation.
  • If the quotation is six words or shorter, write it down in full.
0
Example: Tick the correct answer (true/false). true false
The author of the article, Afua Hirsch, has mixed feelings about Michelle Obama.
0
1
Tick the correct statement.
According to the author, the role of the US president’s wife is
considered a great privilege.
defined by her husband’s office.
questioned by women’s organizations.
determined by her former achievements.
line(s):
1
2
Tick the correct answer (true/false). true false
The idea of Michelle Obama being an example of the American dream is controversial.
line(s):
1
3
Complete the table using quotations from the text.
When Michelle Obama talks about her family background, she mentions
their economic situation.

line(s):
1
their aspirations.

line(s):
1
4
Write the correct letters in the boxes provided below.
Match the phrases (A-F) regarding Michelle Obama’s childhood experiences to either her family or community. Note: There are two more phrases than you need.
A increased diversity
B racial profiling
C dire circumstances
D strong bonds
E working-class politics
F social disorder
letters / phrases
family
  • 1
community
  • 1
5
Tick the correct answer (true/false).
wahr falsch
People shied away from utilizing Michelle Obama’s African-American background.
line(s):
1
6
Complete the sentence.
The phrase “it was still a first lady-shaped version of something real” (l. 54) implies that
1
7
Tick the correct statement.
When it comes to politics, Michelle Obama is
prepared to set a better example.
opposed to a bipartisan approach.
disappointed by the politicians’ character.
intrigued by the seriousness of the political debate.
line(s):
1
8
Complete the sentence in your own words.
According to the author, Michelle Obama’s role during her husband’s presidency was
because
1

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