Michelle Obama has hope in what she has seen and hope in what is still to come.
As the coronavirus pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement forge ahead simultaneously, “our foundation has been shaken,” the former First Lady told acclaimed TV producer Shonda Rhimes in an interview published in the Summer 2020 issue of Harper’s Bazaar.
In response to Rhimes’ question about what gives her hope for the future and whether these current times have revealed anything hopeful, Obama acknowledged, “With everything that’s gone on over these past few months, I know a lot of folks out there have been confused, or scared, or angry, or just plain overwhelmed. And I’ve got to be honest, I count myself among them. I think we’ve all been there. Our foundation has been shaken—not just by a pandemic that stole more than 100,000 of our loved ones and sent tens of millions into unemployment, but also by the rumbling of the age-old fault lines of race, class, and power that our country was built on.”
She continued, “The heartache and frustration that boiled over after the losses of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others has caused a lot of us to grapple with the very essence of who we are—the kind of people we want to be. But even in that, I find hope.”
