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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsInterview - Chelsea Clinton: 'I've had vitriol flung at me for as long as I can remember'
By Decca Aitkenhead
The former first daughter on privilege, female leadership, dealing with critics, and how Trump degrades what it means to be American
Sat 26 May 2018 03.59 EDT Last modified on Sat 26 May 2018 13.51 EDT
When the American media describe Chelsea Clinton as royalty, they refer not to her popularity but to her ubiquity. Her very first home was the governors mansion in Little Rock, Arkansas; the family home she left for university 18 years later was the White House. Ordinarily, its only young royals who grow up in lavish official residences and the pitiless media spotlight, a permanent presence in our consciousness. It is a uniquely strange and unenviable version of celebrity that stole Clintons anonymity before she was old enough to spell it.
When we meet there is, therefore, a disconcerting sense of deja vu. Everything begins exactly as one might expect. On the previous day there had been the pre-interview call from one of her handlers, who was ostensibly warm and yet conveyed an impression of wary control, leaving me worried about how far Id be allowed to stray from the subject of Clintons new book. The interview takes place at the Clinton Foundation, a vast but discreetly unadvertised expanse of midtown Manhattan office space populated by serious-looking people and elegantly adorned by African-inspired artwork chosen by Clintons father. Clinton is waiting in the glass boardroom; the interview starts precisely on schedule, to the second.
The 38-year-old displays impressive fluency in British current affairs, knowing all about the NHSs missed mammogram test results, and praising David Lammys recent Windrush speech in the Commons. Her father once talked about the importance of really seeing people the person who opens his car door, or pours his coffee and Im struck that Clinton notices the medical support sleeve Im wearing, and asks about the origins of the name Decca. But any impression of intimacy is offset by a facial expression that remains glassily still, and a voice that never modulates. Clinton has inherited her mothers unnerving composure, and speaks in monotone paragraphs consisting almost entirely of language no human being I know ever uses. The choices that they made, for example, were fundamental to me feeling affirmed in charting my own journey, which is not how anyone else talks about their mum and dad.
Clinton has just published her third childrens book, and will be appearing at the Hay festival next weekend. She Persisted Around The World is a picture book in which she tells the stories of 13 extraordinary women through the ages, from Marie Curie to Malala Yousafzai, who persevered in the face of prejudice and changed history. Its the sequel to her New York Times bestseller She Persisted: 13 American Women Who Changed the World, the title inspired by Republican senator Mitch McConnells scathing attack on Senator Elizabeth Warren for trying to read aloud a letter from Martin Luther King Jrs widow in the senate. Warren was famously silenced, under an obscure senate rule that McConnell later defended with: She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted, only for his words to be swiftly converted into a feminist rallying cry.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/26/chelsea-clinton-vitriol-flung-at-me
JNelson6563
(28,151 posts)I admire her for it. I can only imagine how very proud her parents must be! Brava, Chelsea!