OPINION: Michelle Obama’s silent stand: A refusal that echoes the power of Black women saying ‘no’ to emotional labor. TheGrio’s Natasha S. Alford explains.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. This opinion was originally posted on Bounding Into Sports. Read more opinions on theGrio.
When news broke that Michelle Obama wasn’t attending Donald Trump’s inauguration, word spread around the internet faster than gossip after a funeral.
After all, it was quite literally a funeral that sparked the first inkling that Michelle Obama wasn’t playing by anybody’s rules anymore.
As we watched former presidents and dignitaries solemnly walk into that church and sit down to pay respects to Jimmy Carter, a noticeable elephant in the room stomped louder than Mr. Bush thumping on Mr. Obama’s chest to slide into that pew and avoid interacting with Donald Trump: Michelle didn’t come.
The former first lady issued a statement with gracious condolences to the Carter family and a vague explanation about being in Hawaii, but some of us were already putting 2 + 2 together that Mrs. Michelle LaVaughn Robinson probably had zero interest in breathing the same air as the man who put a target on her husband and family’s back for years.
Birth certificate? Called my husband the founder of ISIS? Yeah. I refuse. *Smooths microbraids.*
While the world applauded Mr. Obama’s class and going high as he politely entertained Trump during the Carter funeral, the princesses of petty read the tea leaves that Mrs. Obama likely skipped a funeral to avoid being fake. The disgust was likely too much to contain.
But once it was confirmed that Michelle was indeed not attending Trump’s inauguration, thereby crushing all the eggshells many had been tiptoeing around during this latest Trump transition, a collective slow clap of standing ovation emerged across the country, particularly among Black women.
Why, you ask?
Well, frankly, she is our hero- rather she-roe; for refusing to go along with the shenanigans we’ve all been forced to stomach over the past two years of this presidential election season and, frankly, much longer.
The collective kissing of the ring from the billionaire tech and corporate class to curry favor with Trump before he enters office is enough to turn your stomach – but frankly, it’s not surprising.
But this general sense of resignation from so many others, the rolling over and going along with the absurdity of it all – from unqualified nepo-baby-like cabinet picks to press conferences about renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” while LA burns – is making what we are about to face on Jan. 20 with a second Trump term seem a lot more normal than it actually is.
Everyone, none of this is normal.
In everyday people’s lives, we have all had to stomach things we could barely contain, just for the sake of survival.
Smile and be cordial with a superior who was purposefully undermining you at work? We’ve been there.
Kindly advocate for your child at school or the doctor because you know they hold power over something precious in the world to you? We’ve been there.
Watch your tone as you’re pulled over to avoid arrest or worse? We’ve been there.
Walk into rooms where we know we’re not welcome – or neighborhoods, regions, even parts of the country We’ve been there, as have the ancestors.
But Michelle Obama did what so many of us didn’t know we could do – just say no.
Knowing people would notice. Knowing in the far-est right media spheres she’d never hear the end of it and would be judged.
No.
And she did it without explanation.
Reminding us that “no” is a complete sentence. A sermon. A documentary. An eight-episode miniseries. There can be one million reasons and theories about why we said “no” and why we won’t go, but Mrs. Obama has shown us the why’s are for other people to figure out. Hell, the “why” may be something we’re still figuring out ourselves, and that’s OK. She has exemplified the beauty of being free from the burden of overexplaining ourselves in 2025. From pretending to accept that which is unacceptable.
Some of us don’t even know we can say “no” in certain realms of our lives.
Michelle has us all evaluating jobs, relationships and calendar commitments for the rest of the year.
It’s the death of FOMO, like it was autotune. It’s the slashing of shoulds, and the elevation of ifs. As in: If I want to, I’ll do it.
Many of the 92% have already been on strike since Nov. 5 because we know that sometimes the best lessons in life are letting people have exactly what they think they want.
In the meantime, we’re hunkering down to try to survive through it all.
But Michelle Obama gave us that little essential head nod — the “I see you” — that lets us know our resistance to certain kinds of emotional labor isn’t in vain.
The old saying goes, “When you entertain a clown, you become part of the circus.”
What’s clear from watching the news is that we’re in store for a lot of circus over the next four years. And even if we have to watch it go down, not a single one of us needs to paint on a big red smile and take center stage.
Natasha S. Alford is the Senior Vice President of TheGrio. A recognized journalist, filmmaker and TV personality, Alford is also author of the award-winning book, “American Negra.” (HarperCollins, 2024) Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @natashasalford.
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