Becoming

by Michelle Obama

He had a simple, buoying faith that if you stuck to your principles, things would work out.

Don’t worry, Barack was saying. You can do this. We’ll figure it out.

what I’d remember forever, was the grip. It settled me like nothing else ever had. I had faith in this union, faith in this man.

If I’d learned anything from the ugliness of the campaign, from the myriad ways people had sought to write me off as angry or unbecoming, it was that public judgment sweeps in to fill any void. If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others.

You belong. You matter. I think highly of you.

Dominance, even the threat of it, is a form of dehumanization. It’s the ugliest kind of power.