Fuera de Serie, a Spanish magazine, has created an international uproar with its latest cover, in which it photoshops First Lady Michelle Obama into a French painting, and ends up portraying her as a slave woman, with her right breast exposed. If the cover had been published in America, it’s easy to imagine the quarters from which it might have come, and what the image would have been intended to convey. But the full context is much more complicated—and much more revealing—than that.

I don’t think the intention of the cover is to be racist, or to denigrate Mrs. Obama in any way. In the editor’s note introducing the issue in which the story appears, Fuera de Serie explains, roughly translated, that the author, “in order to understand the manner in which Michelle has seduced the American people, the journalist Pablo Scarpellini details the secrets of the woman who has not only conquered the heart of Barack Obama.” The title is “Michelle: Granddaughter of a Slave, Lady of America,” which suggests her as a powerful symbol of the American experience, though it’s off by a couple of generations. The article itself may turn out to be less positive, but that kind of language doesn’t indicate a desire to sell a vision of Michelle Obama as a slave. Marie-Guillemine Benoist, who painted the work Obama is photoshopped into as a commemoration of the French abolition of slavery, was explicitly a feminist, and her work, when it was first exhibited, was interpreted as humanist.

But while the generations between her enslaved ancestors and Michelle Obama may seem distant to the editors of Fuera de Serie, but I’d venture to guess that it is a nearer shadow to Michelle Obama herself, and to many, many Americans. The state of African-Americans is such that the prospect of being harassed or killed by representatives of the state, of facing major challenges to economic self-determination, is not something that seems so broadly outlandish that it can be invoked without conjuring up the specter of real and ongoing harm. This image of Michelle Obama could only be liberating in a world where there aren’t a lot of people who are vocal about their desire to put the first black First Lady back into what they believe to be her place. History’s ghosts are powerful. Those who dare summon them should be clear about what they want, and be prepared for the consequences.

The bridge is yours.

-Anti-Flag v. Springsteen.

-It’s too bad New Girl‘s ratings have cratered as the show’s gotten much more fun to watch.

-Which science fiction scenario is most likely to happen in the (reasonably) near future?

-I’d actually like Michelle Obama even more than I already do if I thought she was reading Mommy porn.

-Time traveling Aubrey Plaza!

If you’re not watching Key & Peele, the half-hour sketch-and-standup show that airs on Comedy Central at 10:30PM on Tuesdays, you’re doing yourself a disservice—particularly if you find yourself missing Chapelle’s Show, Dave Chapelle’s short-lived but legendary exploration of race in America. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, both biracial themselves, have nailed comedy for the age of Obama. It’s not just that Peele has the best Obama impression in the business. In their exploration of code-switching, whether it’s in conversations between black people and white people, men and woman, or people of different classes, Key and Peele have identified an essential element of our changing American landscape. I spoke with both men last week. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

One of the things I’ve found interesting about many of your jokes is the way they explore code-switching. It’s not just that you find the humor in the way that people of color adapt to white society, but a lot of these sketches suggest that white people need to learn to switch codes, too.

Keegan; It’s funny, we were just talking about that recently. I think that this climate we’re in nowadays, code-switching can be thought of as a positive. Being a hybrid is not necessarily something to hide, but something to celebrate. Code-switching, depending on the code, is something that happens in humanity. We shine a light on it in African-American culture more than anything else. But we have Caucasian friends who are from Arkansas or Alabama, and all of sudden, there was a twang explosion. And it’s a phenomenon that exist in the human condition…It’s very Pauline in a way. I’m a big fan of Paul in that regard. It doesn’t matter if you’re Sippian, or Greek, or Hebrew, I’m giong to speak to you where you’re at without judgement…One of our executive producers, he always says, we spend our existence as organisms trying to stay comfortable. And I thought that was very astute…The hardest thing in the world is to step out of our box or let our unique light shine.

You mentioned that you’re a fan of Paul. What are your religious backgrounds?

Keegan: I’m actually quite a spiritual Christian. I’m fascinated by spiritual thought across the board. I was raised a Christian, and I studied a little Buddhism and maybe a dash of Hinduism, but i’m fascinated by Hebraic culture, and how our culture has been informed by Hebraic culture. I’m fascinated by the fact that we practice a Near-Eastern religion in a super-Western society, and how our faith has changed. There are volumes of books written about how if you met a Christian from first-century Palestine, you’d say, um, that’s not a Christian. I was raised Catholic, and then I spent a good deal of time in the Charismatic church, and now I’m in the Disciples of Christ.

Jordan: I am not [religious]. I feel just very devoted to comedy. And I believe that is the way that I’m meant to take in the world, and that’s the way I’m meant to affect the world as well.

Keegan: Do you think that your gift is something that is divine? Or do you think it’s something that just through life and evolution you’ve become the being you are through nurture.

Jordan: I think that when somebody laughs, genuinely laughs, that something is happening within them that is special. I think it’s a revelatory thing. If you can laugh despite yourself, you can get into a giggling fit at a funeral of a loved one for some reason. It’s something that needs to happen for our minds, or our souls, emotionally, it’s a release. it forges the conversation. When something happens in comedy that sort of strikes a chord, [people] talk about it. I’m a big fan of discussion. I think it’s the best thing that we have for ourselves. I think comedy is just a special, special thing. It’s our favorite thing to do in the world.
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It may not be the first time French fashion magazines have shown some bizarre racial attitudes — anyone remember the time Carine Roitfeld had Lara Stone do an editorial in blackface for French Vogue? But French Elle apparently decided it wasn’t totally over the line to publish a piece (since pulled) about how Michelle Obama has finally, at long last, turned black women into French-acceptable style icons. In the name of educating them, here are 10 black women with incredible high style, who were around long before FLOTUS made the national scene, elevating everyone from Jason Wu to White House Black Market:

1. Josephine Baker: The toast of Paris, Baker may have been more famous for the clothes she didn’t wear during some of her most famous performances, but she wore designer clothes off-stage, popularized a hairstyle and a hat style, and did it all while aiding the French resistance and aiding 12 adoptive children.

2. Billie Holiday: The flowers in her hair. The big necklaces and earrings. The comfort with her curves.

3. Coretta Scott King: In the midst of the civil rights movement, Mrs. King and her husband brought classic style to the fight for justice, including fashionable hats, mixed textures in the fabrics of her clothing, flower-shaped stud earrings, and classic silhouettes. One of the reasons French Elle’s article is so stupid is that it ignores the role that style’s played in the fight against racism in an attempt to assert dignity and poise in the face of white hate.

4. Diana Ross: She’s rocked everything from the conservative fashions of early Motown to an Afro. And while she’s worn designers ranging from Halston to Bob Mackie, Ross’s interest in fashion was initially professional. She’d wanted to be a designer, but ended up helping establish international trends instead.

5. Kathleen Cleaver: The former Black Panther was one of the radical women who helped popularize the Afro, and with her gorgeous earrings and signature sunglasses, she stood for the idea that you could be involved in the struggle for black liberation without playing by conservative and respectable style rules.

6. Alek Wek and Iman: Elle appears to have missed the fact that black women don’t just buy fashionable clothes, they represent the way they should be worn to the whole world. Both Wek and Iman were born in Africa and have become international style icons, walking for and inspiring everyone from Alexander McQueen to Yves Saint Laurent — and both do enormous amounts of charity work.

7. Condoleezza Rice: No matter how you feel about her politics or her tenure as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, Rice wore great jackets, killer boots, and turned pearls into an assertion of power rather than a representation of fustiness. And she could pose in a gown at the piano she loves to play, too.

8. Beyonce and Solange Knowles: High fashion and hipster queen, the Knowles sisters have very different senses of styles that compliment their music and personalities. Elle should know that black women aren’t just confined to street fashion, to one label, or to one set of trends.