Michelle Obama's Affirmative Action Style

Today's Los Angeles Times showcases Michelle Obama's fashion sense, which is described as reflecting "the American-led democratization of fashion..."

But what stood out in the photo gallery is this photo of a (ostensible) Secret Service officer escorting Mrs. Obama through the crowds:

I have no clue as to the bureaucratic decision-rules on the assignment of Secret Service personnel to the candidates and their wives. But given that Michelle Obama will be the most race-conscious first lady in American history, one can't dismiss the notion that she lobbied - even demanded - for black officers to dominate her security contingent.

As Linda Chavez pointed out last summer:

Michelle Obama’s life is a case study in affirmative action....

At every step of her career, race has been central to her own identification and upward mobility. Judging from the quality of thinking and writing exhibited in her Princeton thesis, Michelle would not likely have been admitted to Princeton (and later Harvard Law) had she been white. And of course affirmative action opened up jobs, first in a prestigious law firm and later as the vice president of community affairs at the University of Chicago medical center-earning $300,000 a year. She made it her first task at the hospital to steer more contracts to minority contractors. “She revised the contracting system, sending so much business to firms owned by women and other minorities that the hospital won awards,” the Times says.

Perhaps Mrs. Obama used her muscle (and her husband's electoral inevitability) to steer minority officers to her security detail, to add some street authenticity and send a message that race preferences will get an open house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

(Note: This could be a local police officer, so I have no idea as to the official position of the agent escorting Mrs. Obama. The post here simply assesses the logical implications of the situation in the photograph, considering Mrs. Obama's race-conscious ideology, and extrapolates to the future demographic composition of the First Lady-Elect's Secret Service detail).