IN Pain is SHE!

older Black woman, Jo-Ani Johnson, 64.

Former First Lady Michelle Obama responded to the deepest wounds she was afflicted with and endured in the eight years of her work in the White House with bare honesty in public recently. Speaking at the Women’s Foundation of Colorado’s 30th anniversary celebration, she was asked during the event honoring her as the first Black First Lady by the president, Lauren Casteel: "What was the hardest thing about breaking this glass ceiling being the first Black First Lady?"  

Mrs. Obama said, "“The shards that cut me the deepest were the ones that intended to cut.” This was in reference to opponents calling her an ape and commenting about her bottom. She told the women in the audience to own their scars. She also asked them to encourage younger women who are having their first encounters with sexism or racism.

“Women, we endure those cuts in so many ways that we don’t even notice we’re cut,” said Mrs. Obama. “We are living with small tiny cuts, and we are bleeding every single day. And we’re still getting up.” 

Women need this encouragement during the transition away from the patriarch structures governing Life, as we know it, and boys without nurturing initiations, and without instruction into men need understand why!  

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories
July 30, 2017

Abuelita, at the plaza of Mani, Yucatan. Her name is Dońa Maria.

This photo by Teko Alejo was taken near Mérida, Mexico.