secret of Barack & Michelle Obama's Knuckle Bump & What the Media Missed

Martha Tucker
www.newimagewriters.com
marthatucker@newimagewriters.com
www.urbanclassicbooks.com



SECRET OF OBAMA’S KNUCKLE BUMP THE MEDIA MISSED


Walking out to thousands of cheering supporters in victory to declare the Democratic nomination, Barack and Michelle Obama shared a secret, an intimate moment the world media totally missed. The cute “knuckle bump” wasn't simply a gesture of their youthfulness, or a copycat hip-hop move. It represented a spilling of cultures, both an ode to their past and a symbol of their future, a new language, no less. In fact, it might have been the first anecdote of their intimacy played out on the world stage.

No, it wasn’t Barack who initiated the knuckle bump, which has been around in African American culture for some time, using many other names. But that one was different. It was an emerging of all that was that emerging couple. They were not like anyone who had come before them, but a fresh, new image. After Michelle wrapped her arms around her husband with the fluttering hand pat on the back, showing that she knew how to execute “just a hug.” She pulled back while lifting those beautiful, huge brown eyes and captured his gaze. Spontaneously, she called on something just between them—-“Baby, you did it. This is our moment.”

Barack, so attuned to Michelle cheering him over high hurdles, knuckled and gently touched her fist in return. In that split second, her eyes told him, “I’m so proud of you. I’m proud of Americans who have come to know the same great man I see and love every day.” She mouthed, “I love you.”

He mouthed back. “Thank you.” It was one of those divine moments like the first day they met in a Chicago law firm, the day each daughter was born, the day Michelle cheered him over the threshold of the Illinois state legislature. Michelle then gave him a thumb’s up and turned to walk away. Barack, realizing he had made history as the first African American nominee, gave that bigger-than-the-moon smile to the cheering crowd. While still engaging the masses, Barack reached out and almost imperceptibly touched her back, just below the waist, just above the butt. It was America’s moment of destiny at work in the young African American couple who had come to accept the Civil Rights Award from the people who cheered them.

That, I believe, is the depth of what went on and what the world media missed.

Martha Tucker was the wife of Compton, California’s mayor for his 12 year tenure. She is an author, “The Mayor’s Wife Wore Sapphires, an urban political thriller. She won Cush City’s “2007 Best New Author Award.” She founded the New Image Writer’s Network, an international advocate for positive images of African American people to replaces the negatives one that mostly dominate books and the media.

Martha Tucker
www.newimagewriters