At the Pennsylvania Conference for Women on Tuesday, Shonda Rhimes interviewed former First Lady Michelle Obama, who discussed the barriers women and minorities face in the United States. She compared these to the lax standards applied to other groups and individuals, but, ever the picture of grace, she didn’t name any names, so who knows whom she was talking about.
We as women feel like we have to be perfect all of the time. We worry too much about that. Women, minorities, the bars are different. We experienced that over the last eight years. The bar just kept moving. We’re seeing that now, quite frankly. The bar is just — [slowly lowers hand].
Sure, a lowered bar could be the Trump family coat of arms (that, or a pile of dead safari animals), but Michelle Obama is far too sophisticated to say that. Plus, she had more important points to make.
“I’ve been at so many tables and met so many fools who are imposters, but shame on us if we just let an imposter put us down,” she said. “When you know what’s right and you don’t say anything, you see wrong happening and you sit quietly, that’s what I want women to challenge to be, to speak up. We don’t get to the right answers without raising our voices.”
Michelle Obama has certainly faced a fool or two in her day, so who knows to what imposters she could be referring. Could be anyone.