RUTHFULLY YOURS

In time for Thanksgiving 2018, Michelle Obama’s memoir is due for release.  The book, which should be entitled Enjoying a Bigger Piece of Your Pie, will instead be titled Becoming.

According to the former FLOTUS, the “highly anticipated” tome details what Michelle O calls a “deeply personal experience.”  And well it should, because she and her world-renowned author husband reached a hefty $65-million two-book deal with Penguin Random House – a formidable amount of wealth that neither Shelly nor Barry is likely to be spreading around anytime soon.

Due to be published in 24 languages, rumor has it that Michelle’s book will have global appeal, which most certainly puts Becoming in the literature category of contenders for the next Nobel Peace Prize.

Speaking of Nobel Peace Prizes, husband Barack, whose half of the book deal is due out in 2019, will take Becoming on an international book tour, where he’ll use his wife’s book as an excuse to promote himself as the ultimate source of all wisdom and truth.

Just for the record, this is not Mrs. Obama’s first crack at authorship.  When the former first lady took up organic gardening on 1,500 square feet of White House lawn, that agricultural exploit resulted in a book titled American Grown: The Story of the White House Kitchen and Gardens Across America.

In a statement from the CEO of Penguin Random House, Markus Dohle, this new book “will stretch the confines of a traditional former first-lady memoir the same way Obama’s official portrait for the Smithsonian did.”  About the anticipated bestseller, Dohle elaborated, “‘Becoming’ is an unusually intimate reckoning from a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations – and whose story inspires us to do the same.”

Recently, it was Mrs. Obama who observed that in the movie Black Panther, “young people … finally [got to] see superheroes that look like them on the big screen.”  Therefore, if all goes according to plan, the cover jacket portrait of Becoming will accomplish a similar end.

In the meantime, while out and about bashing Donald Trump and lying about first lady Melania handing her a gift she didn’t know what to do with on Inauguration Day, Mrs. Obama has also mentioned that she anticipates the book being “inspirational.”

That’s why, just days after her passive-aggressive husband rebuked anyone on Twitter who disagreed with his position on gun control by publicly extolling everyone who did agree, in a statement about her upcoming autobiography, Mrs. Obama, said, “Writing Becoming has been a deeply personal experience.”

Michelle said penning a memoir “allowed [her] … space to honestly reflect on the unexpected trajectory of [her] life … how a little girl from the South Side of Chicago found her voice and developed the strength to use it to empower others.”

Forgetting that America has heard all that bootstrap-racial oppression malarkey before, of late, Michelle has given glimpses into the biographical vistas Becoming will explore.  Last year, for instance, for the 50,000th time, Michelle reiterated to the Hartford Courant that her “[p]arents weren’t wealthy.”  That was true until Mama Marian Robinson moved into the White House and received reparations in the form of four or more $4-million vacations a year – compliments of the U.S. taxpayer.

Comparing her former home to the $8.1-million mansion she currently occupies in the posh Kalorama section of Washington, D.C., Michelle poured it on when she told the Connecticut news site, “They weren’t fancy folks.  But we had a good childhood, living in a little, bitty apartment.”

Evidently unaware that self-doubt is something all humans grapple with, more recently, in Indianapolis, Michelle threw race in with gender, when she told a mostly female crowd of 12,000 attending a gender equity gathering that women of color tend to grow up with “doubts in their heads.”

Michelle spoke directly to girls in the audience, 300 of whom were Indianapolis Public Schools students who had received free tickets to the event.  After explaining that “women of color doubt themselves,” Michelle reminded women of color, “You’re just as capable, if not more capable than people who doubt you.”

After that, the former first lady intimated that people feared her when she was a kid because of the color of her skin, saying, “The vast majority of kids of color are not in gangs, not doing drugs, they’re not robbing or stealing.  They’re me.  I am the kid you’re afraid of.”

After eight years of “mediocre people … running stuff,” Michelle aptly pointed out something undoubtedly true about both herself and her husband when she confirmed, “There are very mediocre people out there running stuff.  But nobody’s told them they’re not good enough.”

Based on comments such as those, it’s easy to predict that the book is likely to become a platform where an increasingly unbecoming Michelle can rant on about racial prejudice, inequality, social injustice, and pay inequity and do it while being paid millions for a book she probably didn’t write.

Compliments of Penguin Random House publishers, Mrs. Obama can falsely insinuate that white Americans view black Americans as gang-banging, drug-addicted, dishonest, and dangerous.  She can also allude to mediocre white men being in positions only because no one informed them “they’re not good enough.”

In addition to “inspiring” insights such as those, the book will likely touch upon Michelle’s time living in that huge White House that “was built by slaves” with the “prisonlike elements” she was forced to endure for two terms.

At any rate, Becoming is unquestionably an appropriate title for this memoir, because while she was the first lady, Michelle became many things.

Take for instance Michelle becoming a world-class organic gardener, a master of the hula hoop, a connoisseur of haute couture, and a backup dancer for Bruno Mars.  During her eight years in office, Michelle was also becoming a dictatorial lunch lady, a pumped-up biceps icon, a jet fuel-guzzling Air Force One traveler, a Hollywood elbow-rubber, a fried fat cake eater, a Target shopper, and an advocate for breastfeeding and bringing home Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram.

While her husband was “fundamentally transforming” America, Michelle was busily becoming an advocate for redefining marriage and transgender bathrooms and, above all, becoming a public speaker in the style of female members of the old Black Panthers.

Even still, it’s hard to fathom that despite being the recipient of untold blessings, Michelle believes that “after eight years of working really hard for this country, there are still people who [don’t] see [her] for what [she is] because of [her] skin color.”  Based on those and similar delusional sentiments, “bitter clinger” Michelle Obama’s book Becoming will probably be anything but “inspirational.”