Michelle Obama Watch

I watch with fascination each time First Lady Michelle Obama wears an up do, because inordinately those not familiar with the amazing versatility of Black hair will immediately crow that she “cut” her hair. So this happened last week as well.Well now the Chicago Tribune is weighing in with some CRACK investigative journalism regarding the First Lady’s hairstyle. James Oliphant makes fun of the media hub hub because the First Lady did not inform the media. Paging Erin Aubrey Kaplin!

FLOTUS stunned certain corners of America last week when she arrived at a country music event at the White House sporting what appeared to be a bob.

This set off an avalanche of speculation, including a story about and pictures of the “bob” right here in this space. Had Obama cut her hair without informing the media? Just where was all the transparency we were promised by this White House anyway? The Daily Beast speculated that Obama had been inspired by, of all people, Kate Gosselin. (What’s next? She’s going to ditch the layabout husband?)

At the country music event, Mrs. Obama had her hair pinned up. She did not have it cut,” Semonti Mustaphi, Obama’s deputy press secretary, said of the apparent faux bob. “Maybe this clarifies the confusion?”

With all due respect to Mustaphi, we’re really just at the beginning of this inquiry. We’re going to need all documents pertaining to hair-care products used, along with identification of the alleged pins involved. Chicago Tribune

This was not the first time reporters made this mistake. I can remember at least two prior occasions, once when she visited a federal agency and the night she hosted the first formal White House Dinner, reporters breathlessly gushed that the First Lady “cut her hair.”

A bobby pin is a type of hairpin. In British English it is known as a “hair grip”, or “kirby grip”. It is a small pin or clip, usually of metal or plastic, used in coiffure to hold hair in place. Typical bobby pins are plain and unobtrusively colored, but some are elaborately decorated or jeweled. A bobby pin is a double-pronged hair pin that slides into hair with the prongs open and then the flexible prongs close over the hair to hold it in place. Bobby pins became popular in the 1920s to hold the new bobbed hairstyles. Wikipedia

Its called an “Up Do” which is accomplished with a wonderful invention called the “Bobby Pin”. Now despite the fact that First Lady Obama has subsequently been seen with her hair down, people are still pondering whether she cut her hair?

She did not. She just pinned it up. I admit when I saw the first picture from the front, I wondered if she had cut her hair, but from the side, you could clearly see it was pinned. IF she ever did cut her hair to chin length, no Black hair dresser on planet Earth would let her leave their chair without also tapering aka, SHAVING, off the hair on the nape of her neck. I know this because my hair has been every length under the sun and “let me clean up you neck” are the famous last words you will receive before getting out of the chair with short hair. In fact you know that you no longer have short hair one you stop hearing the buzz of the clippers at the end of each visit.

The style was cute, but I doubt Mrs. Obama is going to cut her hair anytime soon because chin-length hair is WORK. Plus, she would have to give up her ponytail. I just don’t see that happening.

This now concludes the Michelle Obama Watch Word of the Day.

Posted by Gina.

PPS, if you are wondering where I’ve been, I went to Blogher09 this weekend in Chicago, right across the river from where the President was speaking