But does this picture of Michelle Obama fit a little too snugly into ready-made stereotypes for powerful women, first spouses, and black women in general?
Some folks think so. Including, it seems, Obama herself. In a Wednesday interview with CBS This Morning cohost Gayle King, she said she hadn't read the book, but "that's been an image that people have tried to paint of me since the day Barack announced. That I'm some angry black woman."
Peterson agrees. "She's absolutely accurate. That's how the media have sought to paint her since the early days of Obama's campaign."
Imani Perry, professor at the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University, adds, "And many African American women have had that experience as well, so the statement resonates."
Obama's Princeton thesis was ransacked for evidence (taken out of context) that she was a black militant, furious with the U.S. legacy of oppression. When in February 2008 she said, "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback," some took it as angry arrogance.
Myra G. Gutin, professor of communication at Rider University and a historian of American first ladies, says, "I listened to Rush Limbaugh's and [Sean] Hannity's radio shows that very day, and they were already calling her an angry black woman - and saying her thesis proved it."
Similar stereotypes are visible on the left, Peterson argues, even when used in the service of satire. He points to the July 14, 2008, New Yorker cover by Barry Blitt, in which the Obamas do a fist-bump - he in traditional Muslim dress, she in Angela Davis-style hair, plus bandolier and AK-47.
