Happy Birthday Malia Obama!
Dear Julia,
President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are celebrating the birthday of their oldest daughter, Malia Obama. She turned 11 years old today.
I would like to wish Malia a wonderful happy birthday and offer the following 11 birthday wishes for everyday of her life to this point:
1. I wish for you, like all brown and black girls, unconditional self-love and respect that comes from knowing who you are no matter what the rest of the world thinks or says about you.
2. I wish for you a life filled with joyful fulfillment that you define on your own terms free from the pressure to live up to other people’s expectations of you based on your highly successful famous parents.
3. I wish for you the continued privacy that your parents have carefully controlled and demanded so that you and your sister can grow up free from the greedy destructive invasive spectator sport of the media gaze who would like nothing more than to expose every single aspect of your life for people to comment on.
4. I wish for you that all of your dreams come true, including the ones you have yet to dream.
5. I wish for you to spend your time in the White House, as I suspect you will, with none of the stress or pressure of being a pre-teen let alone a pre-teen living in the White House, but instead enjoying every minute you get to love your dad who loves you more than anything in the world.
6. I wish for you, play dates with friends who love you not because you’re the girl who lives in the White House but because you’re kind, fun, generous, smart, and someone who loves to make everyone else laugh.
7. I wish for you that you will never deny parts of yourself as you grow up and your face and body changes. I wish that you always love what you see in the mirror and if you have trouble that you turn to your parents and fall in love with yourself every time they look at you.
8. I wish for you to never own other people’s stuff as there will always be those that will attempt to project their racial anxieties onto you.
9. I wish for you the wisdom, strength, and support to always ask for help or get your needs met especially when you don’t look like you need the help or support.
10. I wish for you the patience you’ll need with people who will invariably say stupid ignorant things like “I don’t think of your father as a color, but he’s White too and really articulate” or “I don’t like it when people act like your father isn’t white too.”
11. I wish for you nothing but happiness on your birthday and that you always know your power and that you’re a beautiful flower!:
