What Elizabeth Lauten's Criticism of Sasha and Malia Obama Tells Us About the Oversexualization of Black Girls

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston wrote that Black women are "the mule of the world."

Fast forward more than eighty years, and not only does Hurston's sentiment still ring true, but it has also expanded to include the grim reality that Black women are the butt of every joke, the victims intraracial discrimination, and most recently with the comments made by (former) congressional communications director Elizabeth Lauten, systematically denied the respect and creative freedom that non-minority women often take for granted.

This is not the first instance that the children of a sitting president have been the subject of public scrutiny. During the 1990s, Saturday Night Live featured a sketch that mocked the attractiveness of a then-twelve-year-old Chelsea Clinton, and Jenna Bush was heavily criticized during her college years for receiving a misdemeanor for underage drinking. However, Lauten's criticism of Sasha and Malia Obama is different, her sentiments reflecting a long tradition of American society and the Black community oversexualizing and devaluing the bodies of young African American women. From a disturbingly young age (usually ranging from the ages of 5-10), African American girls are labeled as being "fast" or "thots" by older relatives or family friends if their behavior deviates in any way from their perceived "norm" for sexual behavior. Imposing these demeaning sexual labels onto young Black girls essentially robs them of their childhood and the all too important rights to innocence and protection from adult social ills that society traditionally gives to children.

Young Black girls who are not protected from individuals like Elizabeth Lauten or other critics become vulnerable targets for rape, child molestation, and dysfunctional relationships, and when they do become victims of these types of circumstances, they are denied the empathy and help that they need because "she was a ho anyway" or because "she's been fast since she was a little girl." However, society ignores that these behaviors and negative situations are all too often the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy-- if a Black female child is constantly told from the time that she is in Kindergarten to the time that she begins puberty (and becomes sexually active) that she will never be anything other than a "slut" or a "baby mama" (and she is never able to access information or images that prove the contrary), then she may ultimately believe this lie and succumb to the cycle of sexual and romantic strife that has come to incorrectly socially define African American women.

It is clear, naturally, that Sasha and Malia Obama are in no danger of falling into this cycle-- they are respectful, intelligent, and humble young ladies with a supportive and loving family. However, for Sasha, Malia, and thousands of other young Black women (particularly adolescents) who are experimenting with their personal style and modes of creative expression, degrading and racially-charged comments like Lauten's can be devastating because of their ability to stifle creativity and the creation of a unique identity. I have already touched on the way that society labels White female creativity as "avant garde," whereas Black female creativity is labeled as "ratchet or "slutty," and Lauten's criticism of Sasha and Malia's attire-- in which she stated that the girls were dressed as if they deserved a "seat at a bar"-- is an example of that inequity.

Although the trend in modern female progressive thought is to dress for yourself or your female friends rather than for the pleasure of men, this right apparently does not apply to Black women who are interested in expressing themselves through their clothing. Because the Black female body has been labeled and coded as a object that exists solely for public sexual consumption or criticism, Black women have absolutely no right to claim their bodies as their own or to decide (like other women) when their sexuality is or is not off-limits to the public. The fact that Lauten, a low-ranking communications director, felt that she had every right to attack and condemn the teenage daughters of the President of the United States tells us just how vulnerable African American girls and women are in American society.

If even the daughters of the leader of the free world are not free from scrutiny of their attire, sexuality, and identity, then you can imagine how difficult it is for the rest of us.