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Chapter 15
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Becoming, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Optimism, Growth, and Fulfillment
Community, Investment, and Hard Work
Race, Gender, and Politics
Marriage, Parenthood, and Work
Power, Privilege, and Responsibility
Summary
Analysis
Barack announces his campaign in Springfield, Illinois, but his announcement is inadvertently scheduled on the same day as the State of the Black Union. The leader of this forum suggests that the move shows a disregard for the African American community. Then, a day before the announcement, Rolling Stone publishes a piece entitled “The Radical Roots of Barack Obama,” quoting from an angry sermon that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright had delivered many years earlier intimating that Americans cared more about maintaining white supremacy than they did about God.
Michelle again expresses frustration that they are facing criticism from both white people and black people, judged once again as though they are not part of either community. This kind of scrutiny demonstrates the inherent racism of America’s political institutions, as it is an extra level of scrutiny that other candidates do not have to face.
Themes
Michelle starts to understand the stakes of what they’re about to do: literally climbing (as a family) onto the national stage. She’s nervous as she steps onstage, but her nerves vanish immediately, seeing more than fifteen thousand people turn out for his announcement speech. What she feels instead is an immense sense of responsibility: that she and Barack owe something to each and every person in that audience.
Michelle begins to feel the sense of responsibility that will be placed on both her and Barack’s shoulders when he enters the White House. Where they live and the power they wield will be a privilege, and yet here she acknowledges that it also comes with the duty to serve every person in the country, both those who support them and do not support them.
Themes
Hilary Clinton is a formidable opponent, having a commanding lead. On name recognition alone, she could win, particularly when going up against a black man named Barack Hussein Obama. Even in the black community, they struggle, with many not yet believing that he can win. The scrutiny on Barack will be extra intense, she knows, and he will have to do everything twice as well.
Again, the idea that Barack might be disqualified on his name or race alone emphasizes how much entrenched racism remains in the country, and how that racism prevents even supporters from fully investing in a candidate like Barack.
Themes
Barack’s campaign staff understand that they either have to win Iowa or stand down. Michelle visits Iowa almost weekly, as a “surrogate” for Barack. She also hires two people for her own staff: Melissa Winter as a chief of staff, and Katie McCormick Lelyveld as her communications director.
Michelle starts to take on a different kind of role: one that fully supports (and even stands in for) Barack. She shares his message of optimism, and it allows her to begin a new phase of her life and gives her a new perspective on the passions she wants to pursue.
Themes
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Michelle’s first solo campaign event in Iowa takes place in early April in a modest home in Des Moines. Realizing that people would quickly understand if she wasn’t being genuine, Michelle simply tells her own story—of where she grew up, of her hardworking parents, of the values that they’d instilled, and the faith she had in her husband to make a better world (despite her distaste for politics).
Michelle recognizes the value in her own story, and how her family and her hard work reflects a traditional idea of the American Dream. She shares Barack’s optimism, but knows that part of their goal is to make sure that everyone can have the same opportunity that they had.
Themes
As the weeks go by, Michelle visits more and more towns in Iowa and tells the same story. Along the way, Michelle frequently fields questions from reporters wondering what it’s like to be an Ivy-educated black woman speaking to rooms of mostly white Iowans. Michelle dislikes the question because it seems so counter to the common ground she is finding with people she meets.
Even though the question is meant innocently, the idea that Michelle can’t relate to white, middle-class people is simply untrue, and it reinforces a harmful idea that people of different races and backgrounds wouldn’t be able to find ways to relate to one other.
Themes
Around this time, Malia’s pediatrician tells Michelle that her body mass index is starting to creep up. She understands what has been happening: she’s been home less and cooking less, and ordering food or going to McDonald’s more. She hires a young man named Sam Kass to help cook some dinners for the family. Sam does not only that, but also educates them on how the food industry markets processed food as cheaper and more convenient and the public health consequences of this marketing. One evening Michelle and Sam discuss that if Barack makes it to the White House (still a long shot), Sam could help Michelle with a children’s health initiative.
Michelle recognizes some of the ways in which she needs to ensure Malia and Sasha are eating healthy. This plants the seeds of one of Michelle’s own initiatives in the White House, a children’s health initiative called Let’s Move!. That it is borne out of an issue that she and her daughters face herself shows how Michelle takes issues that are important to her and tries to make measurable improvements to the lives of others.
Themes
Michelle continues the race of each day, juggling work (though only part time now), the commitments of the campaign, and trying to cling to normalcy for her daughters. Michelle starts to get recognized more and more, and she worries about being known as someone’s wife. She is hurt by a column written by Maureen Dowd suggesting that she is “emasculating” Barack by speaking publicly about his not picking up his socks or putting the butter back in the fridge.
Michelle starts to experience more and more of the sexism of politics: she worries that she is starting to be viewed only in relation to her husband, and is frustrated by the critiques from another professional woman, writing for the New York Times, who criticizes her for speaking about her husband in everyday ways.
Themes
Rumors swirl around Barack as well: that he had been “schooled in a radical Muslim madrassa and sworn into the Senate on a Koran”; that he didn’t recite the Pledge of Allegiance or that he didn’t put his hand over his heart during the national anthem. Michelle worries about his safety, but reminds herself that he could be shot “just going to the gas station” as a black man in America.
Barack also experiences his own biased form of criticisms, as so many are founded on xenophobia and racism—playing into a harmful belief that he is not American and that he is unpatriotic. Once again, people are finding ways to view him as being outside his own community.
Themes
Despite the ups and downs, Michelle remembers that first year of the campaign fondly, particularly when they are able to travel as a whole family—getting to go to a state fair or drive around in an RV the campaign had rented. Through most of the year, Barack is still significantly behind both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Yet Michelle’s instincts tell her the polls are wrong, particularly because their campaign has so much youth on its side, energetically and idealistically connecting to voters.
Despite the changes and the challenges that the Obamas face over the first year of the campaign, they are still able to find ways to be a family together. As they enter a new phase of their lives, they continue to grow as a family and find fulfillment with one another.
Themes
Barack has one final chance to change up the race in Iowa at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner. Every candidate gives a speech and brings as many supporters as possible. For Barack, that means about three thousand people who have driven in from all over the state—more than anyone thought. Barack is the last to speak, delivering a rousing defense of the idea that America can move beyond polarized politics and move into the future together. The auditorium thunders.
Despite Barack’s underdog status, his policies and his ideals speak to people in a way that inspires. His desire to move past divisiveness and to find common ground and progress throughout the country starts to resonate with many people, regardless of their socioeconomic or ethnic background.
Themes
About eight weeks later, in January, Barack wins the Iowa caucuses. Michelle is overjoyed, and starts to believe that perhaps everything that Barack had hoped for is really possible. Many new people had turned out for the caucuses—now, they hoped, the same could be true of the rest of the country.
Barack’s win in Iowa becomes the first affirmation that he has the ability to defeat much larger political opponents, largely by capitalizing on a new, hopeful young energy that he himself is carrying.
Themes
