How Michelle Obama changed the dress code for White House butlers because she didn't want Malia and Sasha growing up thinking 'African American men serve them in tuxedos'
Michelle Obama told the White House butlers to change their uniform because she didn't want her daughters 'thinking that grown African American men serve them in tuxedos'.
The former First Lady said the tuxedos sent the wrong message to Malia and Sasha, who were 10 and seven years old when they moved into the White House.
Obama said that she also 'begged' the maids to let the girls clean their own rooms because they wouldn't live in the White House forever.
She told the housekeepers: 'I'm not raising a girl who doesn't know how to make their own bed!'
Obama spoke out in a major new Netflix documentary about her called 'Becoming', which airs on Wednesday.
The 90 minute program follows her on the tour to promote her book of the same name, which came out last year.
Michelle Obama changed the White House dress codes for butlers and also insisted Malia and Sasha clean their own rooms and not let maids do it
The former First Lady said the tuxedos sent the wrong message to Malia and Sasha, who were 10 and seven years old when they moved into the White House (pictured is Barack Obama with White House Butler Von Everett)
In the film Obama, 54, says that on the day she and Barack left the White House for the last time she broke down in tears in Air Force One.
Obama said it was 'just the release of eight years of trying to do everything perfectly'.
The intense scrutiny played its part too and the Obamas were accused of, among other things, supporting terrorism over a fist bump that they did together.
Her critics dubbed her an 'angry black woman' and she had to dial back her personality when in public.
Obama says: 'I had to be much more scripted. I was just waking up to the truth of who we can be, so ready to assume the worst in people.
'The only thing I can do is share that that does hurt...that changes the shape of a person's soul'
Describing election night in 2008, Obama said that 'the world changed for us' when they won and it was like being 'shot out of a canon'.
Adjusting to life in the White House was hard and political dynasties like the Bushes have an 'idea' about what being there is like but 'we were not those people'.
Obama said that when she visited Laura Bush for the handover she was butlers fully dressed in tuxedos, most of them older African American or Latino men.
Obama says that she spent 'a lot of time' trying to figure out 'how do I make this mansion with butlers and staff a home for two little girls?'
She says: 'I didn't want them thinking that grown African American men serve them in tuxedos.
'The truth was that some of those men were uncles, they were the Pullman porters.
'We had to change the dress code, you can't walk around every day in a full tuxedo. Girls would have pool parties and play dates and little kids over and that just doesn't even look right to me'.
She goes on: 'I had to beg the housekeepers, these girls have to learn how to clean their own rooms and make their beds and do their laundry because they will not live here forever and.
'I'm not raising a girl who doesn't know how to make their own bed. Of course they're (mimics daughter): ''They make your bed''. Because I'm the First Lady and I have a degree!'
Obama spoke out in a major new Netflix documentary about her called 'Becoming' - named after her book - which airs on Wednesday
The former First Lady told the housekeepers: 'I'm not raising a girl who doesn't know how to make their own bed!'
In a powerful part of the documentary Obama suggests she is angrier at Democrats who didn't vote while her husband was in office than those who voted for Donald Trump.
Obama describes 'how painful it was' because 'a lot of our folks didn't vote, so it was almost like a slap in the face'.
She says: 'I understand the people who voted for Trump. The people who didn't vote at all, the young people, the women, that's when you think man, people think this is a game. It wasn't just in this election but every midterm.
'Every time Barack didn't get the Congress he needed, our folks didn't show up. After all that work, they just couldn't be bothered to vote at all. That's my trauma'.
Obama says that she and her husband knew that they were a 'provocation' for some parts of America who couldn't accept them.
She says: 'How were these people dealing with the fact that a black family was in what they perceived as their White House?'
In the film Obama takes a trip back to the home she grew up in on the South Side of Chicago and speaks movingly about her father, Fraser C. Robinson III.
He died in 1991 from complications related to MS and Obama says she still misses him deeply.
She says: 'I can't help but think of that time right before his death about that time he struggled to get out that back door, just to get to work. Not giving up, not in the least.
'While his death was sudden, it was always looming. The pain of losing him is an emptiness I still haven't gotten over. I think about all he gave us and all he wasn't able to see'.
The 90 minute program follows her on the tour to promote her book of the same name, which came out last year
The film then cuts to a photo of Obama's wedding day and a shot of her with Barack and their daughters.
Among the humorous moments that Obama describes is how on the way to the campaign event on election night in 2008, Malia looked out of the window to see the streets shut down and nobody around.
The area had been cleared for Barack because he had just won the Presidency but Malia didn't realize that.
According to her mother she said: 'No one's coming to your party, dad. I feel bad for you'.
The night of the handover to the Trumps in 2017 Obama's daughters' friends had insisted on doing a final sleepover.
The next morning Obama said she woke them all up by saying: 'Wake up, the Trumps are coming!'
How Michelle Obama changed the dress code for White House butlers because she didn't want Malia and Sasha growing up thinking 'African American men serve them in tuxedos'
![How Michelle Obama changed the dress code for White House butlers because she didn't want Malia and Sasha growing up thinking 'African American men serve them in tuxedos']()
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May 06, 2020
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