Turkeys & kids you don't know: Why I'm still mad at Elizabeth Lauten

I’ve been trying to understand why, days later, Elizabeth Lauten’s dumbass Facebook post making fun of Sasha and Malia Obama is still pissing me off so much.

In case you missed it… President Obama dragged his teenage daughters to the annual turkey pardon before Thanksgiving. Sasha and Malia behaved exactly as I would’ve at that age. (Probably the way I would now. Because it’s a turkey.) They hung in the background while their dad performed the most awkward ritual of all the awkward rituals on his calendar. I watched the video, and I didn’t see either girl rolling her eyes or sighing or doing anything inappropriate.  

Apparently Lauten saw something else. Lauten is – or was, until she resigned today – a communication staffer for a Republican Congressman. On Friday, she posted to her personal Facebook page a screed that I’m sure at the time she thought was the height of I’m-the-cool-conservative wit, calling out the Obama girls for what she saw as their bad behavior during the turkey pardon. (Again… turkey pardon.) You can read her original post, and the apology she posted later, here.

There’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s take it line by line.

“Dear Sasha and Malia, I get that you’re both in those awful teen years, but you’re part of the First Family, try showing a little class.”

Dear Elizabeth, I get that you’re writing on Facebook, but you’re a professional communicator and punctuation is your friend. Okay, in all seriousness… Let’s skip the bitchy passive-aggressive concern-\ trolling tone, as if Lauten is the big sister just trying to help. Let’s focus on the concept of “showing a little class.” I don’t grant Lauten’s premise that Sasha and Malia were acting inappropriately. And I have serious problems with a grown woman who takes to social media to lecture someone else’s children presuming to lecture anyone about what constitutes “class.” I’ll come back to this.

“At least respect the part you play.”

What part is that? The part where they try to live normal lives in between getting trotted out for ceremonial appearances a few times a year? Unless the First Kids have some sort of official government role I don’t know about… OMG, you guys! President Obama TOTALLY appointed his daughters White House Kid Czars, probably with an unconstitutional Executive Order! #BENGHAZI!

“Then again your mother and father don’t respect their positions very much, or the nation for that matter, so I’m guessing you’re coming up a little short in the role model department.”

(Again, punctuation. Geez.) I think this is what bugs me the most. My blood pressure went up just retyping it. Lauten’s real reason for posting this was to dig at Barack and Michelle Obama, using their kids to do it. And I’m sorry, that’s chickenshit. (Before you say it – yes, I have thoughts on how this compares to times when other politicians’ children have been picked on publicly, specifically Sarah Palin’s family. I don’t think it’s the same, and I’ll try to expand on that if I have space.) Lauten isn’t just saying that the president and first lady “don’t respect” their jobs or America (which, what does that even mean???? Could you give me an example? One?). She’s going further and calling them shitty parents. Regardless of whether you approve of the president’s policies, I think anyone could agree that the Obamas have gotten parenting right. Their daughters have always shown remarkable poise under conditions of unprecedented scrutiny and security. They’re just fine.

“Nevertheless, stretch yourself. Rise to the occasion. Act like being in the White House matters to you.”

LOL whut. I say again, turkey pardon.

“Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar.”

WOW. She just said that to a 13 year old and a 16 year old. I have a 16-year-old nephew, and if someone said this to him I’d slap the taste out of their mouth. But, of course, no one would say that to him, because he’s a boy. A white boy. (More on that later, too.) So, let’s break this down. Aside from the fact that Lauten evidently frequents the world’s most uptight bar, this line can mean one of two things. The most charitable interpretation is that she thinks Sasha and Malia are dressed too old for their ages. Okay. Not true. They look like every other teenage girl in America. The less charitable interpretation is that Lauten thinks the girls are dressed too suggestively, like a woman in a bar, and that such suggestive dress is inherently bad. Again, a lot to unpack, but the long and short of it is that she thinks the girls look trampy. That’s an off-the-charts horrible thing to say about children. It’s not very nice to say about adult women who exercise their legal right to go to bars, either, but we’ll save that for the next time the GOP tries to convince women that they’re NOT the party of hypocritical, woman-shaming prudes. 

In her BS apology, Lauten said that she’d been judgmental. I’d go with “hostile,” or “bullying.” It’s telling that her apology doesn’t address Sasha and Malia directly, as her original post did. I guess it’s okay to big-sister them when you want to make them the butt of your joke, but when it’s time to consider them as actual human beings, it’s less icky to fall back on “to all I have hurt.” Hey, Elizabeth? Their names are Sasha and Malia. You’re a grown woman. You shouldn’t need “hours of prayer” to figure out how to act like it.

So, I’m trying to figure out why this has gotten under my skin so. Part of it is that Lauten deliberately criticized the girls’ appearance and ascribed to them an adult sexuality. That tactic’s been used to police women and girls forever. It’s particularly disgusting coming from another woman. But there’s more to it, for me. Maybe it was the proximity to the Ferguson grand jury’s decision last Monday. Obviously Mike Brown’s death is orders of magnitude more horrible than one idiot’s Facebook post.

But in both cases there’s an inability, or unwillingness, to treat black children as children. Just as Lauten implied that a girl wearing a short skirt is no different from an adult in an adult place like a bar, Mike Brown’s critics refuse to cast him as a teenager who acted like an idiot. TamirRice took a toy gun to a park and it took the Cleveland police exactly two seconds to shoot him dead. But if you’re a middle-aged white anarchist pointing a loaded gun at a federal agent, that’s A-ok.

There’s no dumb-kids-will-be-dumb-kids zone for black children. Black children are considered to be 100 percent responsible not just for who they are, but for what other people assume they are. And if you think I’m over-exaggerating this double-standard, I’ll just point out that when Elizabeth Lauten was 17, she was arrested for shoplifting – just like Mike Brown allegedly did. She got a deferred prosecution, and later a job in Congress. Good thing she’s not a black boy – she’d still be in jail. Or worse.

Furthermore, I don’t see Lauten or anyone else making these observations about the dress and manner of white men or boys. If I’m wrong, feel free to find me examples of white male political figures’ appearances being critiqued with the same language Lauten used, or that thepeople who bitched about the president’s summer suit used. (Other than Al Gore’s weird beard.) The presumptuousness blows my mind. Who the hell are you anyway, lady? Do you think the Obamas lost a wink of sleep fretting about what you think of their children? This is no different than when someone says “I don’t approve of homosexuality.” That’s nice. Is there some reason you think you get a vote here?

 

With Lauten’s resignation today from her job teaching people not to embarrass themselves on social media, this story’s cycle is probably over. And that’s okay – Elizabeth Lauten screwed up, and she paid for that screw up, and she deserves to get to slink away. But as a larger illustration of a serious problem our country has with race and gender, I hope this doesn’t die. We need to keep asking why some people are allowed to have more dignity than others.