As the Democrat party continues to flounder in its quest for a new leader, former First Lady Michelle Obama is coming to the forefront as she promotes her new book, The Look. The book focuses on Obama’s uses of style to draw attention to her message and discusses some of the critical ways the public looks at the First Lady. She particularly draws on her perception as a black woman, claiming that much of the criticism she received came from an undercurrent of racism that felt a black family didn’t belong in the White House.

Sitting down for an interview with MS NOW’s Jonathan Capehart, Obama discussed two quotes from her book that have drawn particular interest. “You write this: ‘When you’re a woman in the public eye, you’re often reduced first and foremost to your physical appearance,’” quoted Capehart. “You also write: ‘If someone wants to take something away from a woman, they will try to rob her of her femininity, her beauty.’ We have current examples of this right now aimed at female reporters.” Capeheart then asked Obama what needs to be done to “stop” this problem.

“Look, we have to pick leaders that don’t do that, you know?” she said. “The question that we have to ask ourselves is … why are we OK with it? You know, people are who they are. So, in the present day situation, we’re here because either we did do something stupid or we didn’t do anything. And we’re all culpable in it.” Obama also pushed for men to be supportive of their women, possibly alluding to the fact that support for Donald Trump amongst the black community nearly doubled in the last election to 15%.

The Look focuses on how Obama’s looks were criticized to “otherize” her. “While I am certainly not the only First Lady to get scrutinized – Hillary was constantly dinged for her preference for pantsuits, and Nancy Reagan was lambasted for her love of haute couture – this felt different,” she wrote. “Barack and I were being portrayed as Black people who didn’t understand the ‘rules’ of the rarefied world we had found ourselves in and were not unequivocally welcomed into.”

Obama’s looks have often been a target of criticism, with some of her fiercest critics referring to her as “Big Mike” and accusing her of being a transgender woman. “Michelle Obama claims he’s proof black women can be smart, beautiful, and sexy, LMAO,” wrote one critic on X. “‘She’s’ just another dude pretending to be a woman.”