What is the theme of Ta Nehisi-Coates’s profile?

Growing up black in South Side. How blackness is a social construct.

Is there an overarching narrative?

Though the article speaks largely of Michelle Obama, it is also about all black residents of south side that grew up like Obama. It takes the idea that all black people grew up impoverished with both parents working and struggling and presents us with an alternative truth, black people growing up in “normal” homes, with a working father and stay at home mother. It presents us with a break in the stereotype.

What surprises Coates about Michelle Obama?

Coates says the he “took her as white” when he saw her in person.

How does Coates contextualize Michelle in the context of his own background growing up in Baltimore?

Michelle grew up in an area where blackness wasn’t a culture, whereas he did. The part of Chicago that Obama is from was mainly black. Many households had one working father and a stay at home mother. They never felt “blackness” until later in life, when they left South Side. Coates grew up in Baltimore, an area that was more integrated between black and white, which made him and others in the area aware of their race and black was viewed more as a culture.