Obama Takes a Selfie at Mandela Memorial. By Peter Grier.

President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron pose for a picture with Denmark’s Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt next to First Lady Michelle Obama during the memorial service of South African former president Nelson Mandela at the FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on December 10, 2013. (Photo: ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images.)

Obama takes selfie at Mandela memorial. Inappropriate? By Peter Grier. The Christian Science Monitor, December 10, 2013.

President Obama poses for a funeral selfie and gets chummy with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt but Michelle does not look impressed. By Leslie Larson. New York Daily News, December 10, 2013.

President Obama snaps a selfie at Mandela’s memorial service. By Caitlin Dewey. Washington Post, December 10, 2013. Also here.

Obama Takes Selfie with World Leaders at Mandela Memorial, and Michelle Is Having None of It. By Paige Lavender. The Huffington Post, December 10, 2013.

The media’s Michelle Obama problem: What a selfie says about our biases. By Roxane Gay. Salon, December 10, 2013.

Gay:

The overanalysis of the first lady’s expression speaks volumes about America’s expectations of black women. . . .

 

More than anything, the response to these latest images of Michelle Obama speaks volumes about the expectations placed on black women in the public eye and how a black woman’s default emotional state is perceived as angry. The black woman is ever at the ready to aggressively defend her territory. She is making her disapproval known. She never gets to simply be.


Michelle Obama was not unhappy during Nelson Mandela “selfie,” photographer insists. By Natasha Clark. The Telegraph, December 11, 2013.

Mandela funeral selfie adds to image problem for Denmark’s prime minister. By Andrew Anthony. The Guardian, December 14, 2013.

The Great Mandela Selfie. Cartoon by Chip Bok. Bokbluster, December 13, 2013. Also at Real Clear Politics.

Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt of Denmark: Bilateral Meeting with President Obama (2012). Video. The Film Archive, May 20, 2012. YouTube.