Becoming
Back in the ancestral homeland of Michelle Obama, black women were rarely granted
the honorific Miss or Mrs., but were addressed by their first name, or simply as “gal” or
“auntie” or worse. This so openly demeaned them that many black women, long after they
had left the South, refused to answer if called by their first name. A mother and father in
1970s Texas named their newborn “Miss” so that white people would have no choice but
to address their daughter by that title. Black women were meant for the field or the kitchen,
or for use as they saw fit. They were, by definition, not ladies. The very idea of a black
woman as first lady of the land, well, that would have been unthinkable.
Disponível em: www.nytimes.com. Acesso em: 28 dez. 2018 (adaptado).
A crítica do livro de memórias de Michelle Obama, ex-primeira-dama dos EUA, aborda a
história das relações humanas na cidade natal da autora. Nesse contexto, o uso do
vocábulo “unthinkable” ressalta que