5 Gems Michelle Obama Dropped On 'All The Smoke'
5 Gems Michelle Obama Dropped On ‘All The Smoke’
Michelle Obama is the forever first lady, but she’s also now a podcaster. She and her brother, Craig Robinson, are now hosting a joint podcast called In My Opinion (IMO). They’ve talked to guests including Dawn Staley, Victoria Monet, Julia Louis Dreyfus, Angie Martinez, and a guy you may have heard of, Michelle’s hubby Barack Obama.
They’ve also been guests on other podcasts, including Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO, Sibling Revelry with actress Kate Hudson and her brother, Oliver, and Amy Poehler’s podcast, Good Hang. Last week, they dropped by All the Smoke, hosted by former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson.
Here are five gems Michelle Obama dropped during the interview.
ON BLACK MEN AND HEALTH:
“What I don’t do is take my physical being, my health, for granted. To see my father (Fraser C. Robinson III), who contracted MS (multiple sclerosis) in the prime of his life, he was an athlete, he was a swimmer, he was a boxer, he was a cool dude, he was a jazz dude. You know. To go from that, to have an unexplained loss of the use of your legs, that stands out for me even now. That’s why I work out. That’s why I pick up a tennis racket. That’s why we’re a family of sports and movement, because we saw our father miss out on that. So I don’t take it for granted. I also think what we learned from him is not withholding. There was strength in that. But we got into some arguments about the fact that my dad wasn’t, like, fighting to find answers.
You know, it’s like, well, why don’t you go to a physical therapist? Why don’t you enroll yourself in a research study? I mean, that stoicism also kept him from finding, perhaps, some other therapies that would have made his life easier. So that strong Black man kind of ‘I got it’ thing. You know, we don’t know what the outcome might have been. So [as the First Lady], I’m fighting for health care, having conversations about childhood obesity. When I think about the kind of things I took up as First Lady, the kind of things that we talked about in the White House, a lot of that has to do with your health is not guaranteed. And so I think that there’s a part of me that tries to push against that. With my brother, all the Black men in my life, I want them to be super conscious. I don’t want them to think that that strength, you know, I don’t want that strength to put them in the grave.”
ON THE PAY SCALE IN THE WNBA:
“There are two ways to look at it. They’ve come a long way. Things have changed. There is a league, there are stars, it’s growing. Their owners [are really] making the investment. All that’s wonderful to see. But we just had a great conversation with (retired WNBA legend) Candace Parker, and to be reminded of how hard things were playing in Russia and China, getting maybe two weeks [to take a] break on her body a season because she had to play in two seasons. Being pregnant in a league that didn’t have a maternity policy. The toll that that’s taken on her body. She’s just 39, right, and is one of the greats.
The fact that she will not experience, or did not experience, the fruits of her outstanding athletic ability, it’s sad. Why? Because she’s a woman. It’s ridiculous! So you know, politically, you want to say, well, it’s great, they’re making their way, but I say faster, better, quicker. Why do women athletes have to jump through so many hurdles? And it’s not just in basketball. You know, (retired Olympic track champion) Alyson Felix can tell you the same story. We haven’t figured out how to recognize and pay women for their talent, even though their name and likeness are being used by people making money off of them. Nike still uses Alyson Felix’s name and likeness, but they wouldn’t pay her when she got pregnant. Women can have babies and dunk and run fast, and you know, do it all, but why are we constantly third in line for the payoff?”
ON SOCIAL MEDIA + SPORTS:
“I think the tough thing [for athletes] is the social media elements to it. But that’s true across the board. I mean, we’ve talked about this on our show. It just takes a normal occurrence. These young kids today, what they have to go through, what they have to be able to withstand because social media is such a huge part of their world. I mean, there’s the hate, but now the hate is in your room, on your phone with you all the time, and you can’t, for whatever reason, tell these kids to turn it off because they’re making their living that way. They now are expected to stay engaged. So I think that makes it feel even worse. But as you point out, that’s happening in sports across genders. It’s just harder now to withstand other people’s horrible, horrible opinions.”
ON GOING LOW OR GOING HIGH:
“Well, here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. Going high is about being strategic, right, and that’s really my point. That doesn’t mean you don’t feel it emotionally, that doesn’t mean you don’t get angry, you know, but that means that our response needs to be strategic and have a goal beyond us just being mad. Because that’s just, you know, I don’t want to waste my mad, right? So let’s be thoughtful about what we say, why we say it. What’s the plan, where we headed? That’s what ‘going high’ is.”
ONE BOOK EVERYONE SHOULD READ:
“The book I read every couple of years is Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. Toni Morrison is my favorite author of all time. She writes in metaphor, and her prose is just awesome. So Song of Solomon.”
Watch the full interview below:
5 Gems Michelle Obama Dropped On ‘All The Smoke’ was originally published on cassiuslife.com
