People in power are not that smart, says Michelle Obama
LONDON: After eight years in the White House as the first lady and attending various high-level events during the presidentship of her husband Barack Obama, Michelle Obama let out a secret on Monday evening - people at the top are “not that smart”.
A sell-out audience in the Royal Festival Hall gave her something of a rock star reception at an event to mark the London launch of her memoir, Becoming.
More than 40,000 people tried to get tickets for the event, even though the venue has a capacity of 2,700 seats.
Billed as “An evening with Michelle Obama”, the event was marked by wit, humour and frankness about her upbringing (“we discussed sex at the dinner table”), and issues such as ‘demons’ in her mind about not being good enough, her informal encounter with Queen Elizabeth and marital problems (“trying to melt two lives together, that is hard”).
In conversation with Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Michelle, who turns 55 in January, spoke of various lessons in life.
Asked for advice to young black women on navigating life, she said, “It’s still hard out there…we are demonised, we are too loud, we are too everything. I experienced that. Just having an opinion, how dare I have a voice and use it. It is a threat not just to white men but to women.”
She added, “Some of my first pricks came from women journalists who accused me of emasculating my husband…you have to start by getting those demons out of your head. The question I ask myself is, am I good enough?”
Michelle took a dig at those in power at the United Nations, saying, “I’ve been at every powerful table that you can think of. I have worked in non-profits, I have been in foundations, corporations, I’ve served on corporate boards, I’ve been at summits, I’ve sat in at the UN. They are not that smart.”
After a prolonged applause, she said, “They do a lot of things to keep their seats; they do not want to share their power. And that makes you feel that you don’t belong. I am not saying that there are no talented people out there.”