Nene Leakes: The Anti-Michelle Obama
September 23, 2009
By Guest Blogger Nadia Lewis
I am so tired of reading all the praises about this Nene Leakes.
She is far from alpha. Compared to First Lady Michelle, she meets all the media stereotypes of a loud, black woman who is clownish and laughable. It’s strange to me that Nene is getting all of this attention suddenly. Everytime there is a BW that meets what America is used to seeing and makes them comfortable, she gets all the spotlight. Remember, Omarosa? My point exactly.
Michelle is not considered an acceptable BW by mainstream and they criticize her and question her motives. Michelle is poised, opinionated, diplomatic and all around fab from hair to clothes. Whereas, Nene is the good time girl, and brings BW so far back.
I understand that not every woman can be Michelle, but can we at least have more positive role models, instead of a ridiculously, cartoonish BW who wants to attack all the time. I don’t have any friends that talk, look or act like her. It’s just another way to make people dislike or degrade BW even more.
Is there an alpha in Housewives of Atlanta? It’s Lisa in my opinion. If you read Lisa Hartwell’s story is far more interesting and complex than Nene’s.
Nadia Lewis is an avid watcher of reality shows and a nursing student in Lithonia, GA.
Email This Post
Loading ...
I agree with the writer in many ways. However, I think we do ourselves a disservice when try to categorize ourselves as black women, in general. We have a wide spectrum of personalities and to say that one…although a good one…defines the best in us (Michelle Obama), in effect leaves out all of those others who don’t meet that criteria for whatever reason. To have the opinion that Nene is stereotypical is one thing. To make a comparison of her to the first lady, whose experiences were entirely different, creates the same kind of hierachy of good vs. bad that society has been doing to us forever. – TMLG
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Corilyn Shropshire. Corilyn Shropshire said: RT @nukirk: Short rant… really short. RT @MaryannReid: Nene Leakes: The Anti-Michelle Obama http://bit.ly/i2cb0 [...]
@Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts, I cosign everything you just said. Even though I agree with parts of Nadia’s post, especially how white people tend to embrace black women who fit these self-destructive stereotypical molds they made for us (Nene, Tiffany “New York” Patterson, Karrine Stephans), bashing these women will only make things worse creating a Divide and Conquer scenario that has been happening in the Black Community forever.
Nene and those other broads are just trying to capitalize on their 15 minutes and make some money. They aren’t thinking about the long term impact their actions or image have an on how the world sees us. The only thing I like about Nene is that she shows that there are a lot of us living comfortable, luxurious lifestyles that I’m pretty sure some white folks assume we don’t.
IMO, as a collective we are either seen as classless turkey neck sapphires, mammy martyrs, stoic asexual church girls, venus hottentots or Type A controlling corporate types. We are hardly ever seen as just individual human beings with our own idiosyncrasies, issues, fears and dreams.
.
I also agree that a more varied view of what black women are really like as far as being portrayed in the media has a long way to go. Our personalities vary just as much as white women or any other ethnicity.