--- title: Michelle Obama Discusses Facing Racism as First Lady description: Michelle Obama spoke about the racism she faced as First Lady during a Colorado event, one of her first since leaving the White House canonical: https://time.com/4874387/michelle-obama-first-lady-racism/ author: Samantha Cooney article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-07-26T15:02:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T09:05:49.249Z og:title: Michelle Obama Reveals the Most Difficult Part of Her Time as First Lady og:description: The former First Lady was very candid og:url: https://time.com/4874387/michelle-obama-first-lady-racism/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf2eae928a4a41a5/6988d734cf40a8a694c48b57/michelle-obama-women-colorado.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: TogetHER with The Women's Foundation of Colorado and Former First Lady Michelle Obama og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Michelle Obama Reveals the Most Difficult Part of Her Time as First Lady twitter:description: The former First Lady was very candid twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf2eae928a4a41a5/6988d734cf40a8a694c48b57/michelle-obama-women-colorado.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Michelle Obama Reveals the Most Difficult Part of Her Time as First Lady > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays to 40,000 subscribers as of August 2026. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters.  by [Samantha Cooney](https://time.com/author/samantha-cooney/)  ## Samantha Cooney Jul 26, 2017 3:02 PM UTC  DENVER, CO - JULY 25: Former First Lady Michelle Obama speaks, emphasizing that women must celebrate their strength, during a live conversation with The Women's Foundation of Colorado President and CEO Lauren Y. Casteel at Pepsi Center on July 25, 2017 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Jason Bahr/Getty Images for The Women's Foundation of Colorado) DENVER, CO - JULY 25: Former First Lady Michelle Obama speaks, emphasizing that women must celebrate their strength, during a live conversation with The Women's Foundation of Colorado President and CEO Lauren Y. Casteel at Pepsi Center on July 25, 2017 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Jason Bahr/Getty Images for The Women's Foundation of Colorado) Jason Bahr—Getty Images for The Women's Fou  by [Samantha Cooney](https://time.com/author/samantha-cooney/)  ## Samantha Cooney Jul 26, 2017 3:02 PM UTC [Michelle Obama](http://motto.time.com/4639410/michelle-obama-best-quotes/) spoke candidly about the painful [racism](http://time.com/4573554/michelle-obama-racism-first-lady/) she endured as First Lady during one of her first public appearances since leaving the White House. The former First Lady appeared at the [Women’s Foundation of Colorado](https://www.wfco.org/)’s 30th anniversary event on Tuesday night, where she was interviewed by the organizations’ president and CEO [Lauren Casteel](https://www.wfco.org/about-us/lauren-casteel). Casteel noted that Obama shattered a [glass ceiling](http://motto.time.com/4564151/election-2016-female-victories-senate/) when she became the first woman of color to hold the title of First Lady, and asked which of the “falling glass shards” cut the deepest, according to the Denver _Post._ Obama mentioned the [racist attacks](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/16/22-times-michelle-obama-endured-rude-racist-sexist-or-plain-dumb-attacks/?utm%5Fterm=.1691a83465e7) she endured while in office, including being called an [“ape in heels”](http://time.com/4571315/west-virginia-michelle-obama-ape-heels/) by a former West Virginia official, who was later [fired](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/12/27/the-nonprofit-director-who-called-michelle-obama-an-ape-in-heels-has-lost-her-job-for-good/?utm%5Fterm=.3a8a642c8bcc) for the controversial comments. “The shards that cut me the deepest were the ones that intended to cut,” Obama said, according to the _Post_. “Knowing that after eight years of working really hard for this country, there are still people who won’t see me for what I am because of my skin color.” Obama, who also reiterated that she has [no plans to run for office](http://time.com/4758782/michelle-obama-run-for-office-elected/), said that it wasn’t productive to pretend that those attacks didn’t hurt. Instead, she said that it’s important that women embrace their scars and resilience. “Women, we endure those cuts in so many ways that we don’t even notice we’re cut,” she said. “We are living with small tiny cuts, and we are bleeding every single day. And we’re still getting up.” \[[The Denver _Post_\]](http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/25/michelle-obama-speech-womens-foundation-of-colorado-30th-anniversary-denver/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4874387/michelle-obama-first-lady-racism/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4874387/michelle-obama-first-lady-racism/"},"headline":"Michelle Obama Reveals the Most Difficult Part of Her Time as First Lady","datePublished":"2017-07-26T15:02:25.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T09:05:49.249Z","description":"The former First Lady was very candid","url":"https://time.com/4874387/michelle-obama-first-lady-racism/","keywords":["motto","Michelle Obama","Racism","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf2eae928a4a41a5/6988d734cf40a8a694c48b57/michelle-obama-women-colorado.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Cooney","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-cooney/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdf2eae928a4a41a5/6988d734cf40a8a694c48b57/michelle-obama-women-colorado.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TogetHER with The Women's Foundation of Colorado and Former First Lady Michelle Obama","caption":"TogetHER with The Women's Foundation of Colorado and Former First Lady Michelle Obama","creditText":"Jason Bahr—Getty Images for The Women's Fou","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/motto/","name":"motto"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4874387/michelle-obama-first-lady-racism/","name":"Michelle Obama Reveals the Most Difficult Part of Her Time as First Lady"}}]}] ```