written by Anti-Racist Parenting columnist Liz Dwyer; originally published at Los Angelista’s Guide to the Pursuit of Happiness
Wednesday night when I was flying out of O’Hare — or rather, when I was WAITING for hours to fly out of O’Hare — I got to witness another mom “interacting” with her child.
Of course, I captured it on my Twitter feed:
1) Another mom here at the gate has been yelling at her kid a LOT & has slapped this girl like 4x. Would u intervene?The little girl is like 4 or 5 years old. The mom has yelled stuff like, “if u don’t shut up, I’m gonna strangle u!”Airport security just rolled up & they r threatening to arrest this mom if she hits her child again. WOWZERS!OK, no arrest, cops walked away. Good Lord, that was some drama. Poor little girl.
Now, I know parents get stressed out at airports, especially when they are traveling alone with a child, but the little girl was actually being pretty quiet and behaving normally for a child that age. I’ll go ahead and say it: I think the mom was being abusive. I mean, is it really necessary to slap your child just because she stood up to get a doll she dropped? I was clearly not the only one who thought so because the security showed up. I was not the one who alerted them to what was going down.They are FLOORED when I tell them the mom in this situation was white with a ginormous diamond on her finger and super long blond hair. Her child was also white with blond hair.This has really raised some red flags for me around how we view black mothers and black parenting. Why do we think black mothers are hard, abusive, rough, and ready to beat their child’s ass if he or she ever steps out of line?Is your mom white?“Do I need to make a t-shirt that says, “Not All Black Mothers Abuse Their Kids”?
Why have we bought the racist stereotype that white, Asian and Latino folks don’t abuse their kids and black moms do? Really, folks need to stop acting like black moms are the only ones who beat, verbally threaten or emotionally abuse their children. It’s racist to keep acting like cursing at, verbally demeaning, spanking, slapping or beating a child is contingent on skin color, and that black mothers are the biggest offenders.I’ve always believed that if you beat your children, you are killing a part of their soul, and you’re teaching them that violence is an option. Do I really need to slap my son just because he rolled his eyes at me? No, I don’t. I can’t hit another adult just because I don’t like the way he or she looks at me, so why would I hit my child who I supposedly love?
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But what has been infinitely interesting (and sad) to me in the two days since I witnessed this is that almost all of the black people I have told this story to have assumed that the mother and the child were also black.
A typical comment from black folks I know has been like, “Well, you know we don’t play that “Oh honey, sit down pretty please,” crap when our kids act up in public.”
Black people aren’t alone in their assumption that the parent and child are black. When I’ve shared these details with white folks I know, their response has been a shocked, “Oh, the mom was WHITE???”
I’m tired of getting the “Good Luck With That” eye roll from other black people when I tell them I don’t beat my sons.
I’m tired of white women confusedly asking, “So you don’t spank?” — the unsaid comment being, “But, but, I thought all black moms spank!”
I’m tired of being told, “That must be the white side in you coming out because we all know white moms don’t beat their kids.
Black mothers are not the only abusive mothers. If you need proof, pick up a copy of Mommie Dearest, mmkay?
This is not to say that different backgrounds of people don’t have somewhat culturally different ways of raising their kids. But I think a collective “Check Yourself” needs to happen in regards to our racist thinking about black motherhood and parenting. There are plenty of black moms who know how to use conflict resolution and non-violent techniques on their kids. There are plenty of black moms who have never threatened to strangle their child. And there are plenty of black moms who could’ve taught that mom at O’Hare thing or to about parenting.
Stereotypes usually have some truth to them or they wouldn’t be stereotypes. Black parents and people from the South in general are more likely to spank. That doesn’t mean all Southerners or blacks spank, but there’s something of a shared culture there that makes that kind of discipline more common than among other groups.
It’s also more common among some sub-groups of evangelical Christians who believe the Bible requires them to spank children with a “rod,” such as a paint stirring stick from the hardware store. A few years ago a local homeschooling family (white, Southern transplants, evangelical) had their kids taken away by Child Services for a few days when it turned out they were spanking them with objects. The judge gave them back because there is no law against reasonable corporal punishment. Social Services’ definition and the state code apparently differ on “reasonable.”
The last time I saw a mother spank her child in public, it was at a mall, the kid was acting silly, and mom took her into the changing area and administered three or four light slaps. Both mom and the child were white. . I once summoned a mall cop because I overheard an abusive parent verbally abusing and slapping her son. They were white too. I tend to associate the kind of out of control, verbally abusive, slap-happy parent with lower classes since I’ve heard poor grammar during the parental tirades, but that’s probably a stereotype too. I wouldn’t necessarily have assumed the parent and child you overheard were black, but I don’t know enough blacks to automatically have that stereotype. I was spanked as a child, but it was usually only a few slaps and I never had reason to fear my parents were out of control or were going to harm me. I think most parents who do spank usually spank like that.
I’m tired of getting the “Good Luck With That” eye roll from other black people when I tell them I don’t beat my sons
lol, I have given this eyeroll!!
i was a spanked child, but my mom decided to try a different tack with my younger brother, so he did not get spanked (or only very rarely). *jealousy!!*
however, that does speak to the existence of black moms who don’t spank.
I should rephrase. I don’t mean that if I did more blacks that I’d have that stereotype. The people I know who are black all tend to be professionals: doctors, like my internist who comes from Africa; college students from Africa who speak English with a gorgeous lilt; Air Force officers, high achieving kids who dance in ballet productions or win elections at Girls State. I’d be surprised to see any of them hitting a kid in public or being verbally abusive.
Maybe it is because I live deep in the Bible Belt, and people who physically punish their kids (in public even) are all too common… But I wasn’t even AWARE that there was a stereotype that Black Mothers are somehow more harsh than mothers of other races.
I don’t know about stereotypes here. I am in the south, have worked at a children’s hospital the last 19 years and I have found that not so many AA or Latino kids end up there for abuse, it is most often caucasian kids and usually the perpetrator is mom’s “boyfriend” and she is at work. The stereotype you mentioned might be a common public perception but clinically I can’t see where it comes from. I am caucasian and my mother was too, I wish someone had told her that only AA moms spank. Ha
I suspect if you did a study it would find that African-American parents, in general, TALK about spanking more, and are more open about spanking in public. I don’t know if actual incidence of spanking is that much higher than for other groups.
The internal discourse around spanking sounds like a really important element and it’s illuminating how you outlined it here.
This was a HUGE issue in our foster licensing training courses. Our class was about 2/3 black, with a minority of those being from the Caribbean, the rest white, and then me. The trainer was African-American but she was from California and it seemed like she was experiencing some cultural disconnect with the Georgian African-Americans.
According to state foster care rules there is no spanking allowed whatsoever. Spanking is grounds for immediate removal of foster children. There were hours of debate over physical discipline in class… it was really interesting to see how the lines became drawn.
I didn’t think it was a stereotype about black mothers in particular. I’ve thought about it the complete opposite way, actually – that white parents stereotypically don’t discipline their children and most POC do. But I *do* know a lot of white parents that spank their kids. Living in the South, I think spanking is more common, regardless of race.
And I think there are lines drawn because of how differently people view discipline styles. Some parents are horrified at the idea of hitting their children – ever – while others are very firm in their belief of using a hand, belt, or paddle. Because I was raised with spankings [only with a hand], I tend to view it as a legitimate style of discipline – and call it that. Others might call that abuse, and attribute it to race, perhaps. But I got spankings both from my white mother and my black father…
I’m with me2. My family is originally from the South, where the culture is pretty much “spare the rod…” regardless of ethnic or socio-economic background. That may explain why, when I read your story, I assumed the mom was white. Having lived all over the country, I can’t say that I’ve noticed any one ethnicity more likely to hit their children than any other.
I have to admit: guilty as charged. I did assume the mother was black. And there is absolutely no good excuse–except a nice case of social programming and unexamined assumptions–for that. Apologies to Liz and black mothers everywhere.
This post made me think about the part of the book “I’m Chocolate, You’re Vanilla,” where the author talks about corporal punishment in the black community as a legacy of slavery. I thought she made a very good case. So if–as Andrea says–there is some truth to the idea that black parents tend to use corporal punishment more than white parents (I’m dubious), there’s a good reason why that has nothing to do with any inherent deficiency in black parents. Just for the record.
You are right, of course, that this is a fairly pervasive stereotype. While I have no sense of whether it has any basis in truth (due to Christian fundamentalism and the other reasons others have mentioned), I do think this image is rooted in white racist culture also, and it has a long history, as you probably know. Whites during slavery and for a very long time after often described black mothers as unloving and abusive to their own kids and gentle and overindulgent with the white children they were paid (or not) to watch. Perhaps one way to justify in their own minds white supremacy??
@Andrea;
“Stereotypes usually have some truth to them or they wouldn’t be stereotypes.”
The common truth to stereotypes is that no matter where or when, there is someone bigotted enough to come up with a sweeping generalization about “Them” and “Those people”.
Well documented factors associated with child abuse include alcohol abuse, lower SES, and other kinds of dysfunctional family dynamics – such as history of abuse. These factors tend to be elevated disproportionately in poor people, who tend disproportionately to be POC. However, abuse knows no color lines. But I’ll bet my last $$ that a Parent of Color will be subjected to harsher judgement or treatment than a white parent in the same circumstances would be, both by onlookers and by any authorities who get involved.
As for spanking, there may well be cultural contributors that lead to it being more or less common depending on background. But I wonder how much of this is an observational thing – we notice incidents that “fit’ our preconceptions. I bet this is a hard thing to really get a handle on, as social mores may vary widely as to whether corporal punishment is ok, is it ok in public vs at home, and so forth.
Stereotypes DO NOT have a ring of truth to them, Andrea. They are made up interpretations in order for one group to “analyze” another because they don’t know anything about said group. Stereotypes are untrue statements—period. Oh, and ALL groups of people are subject to stereotypes.
Another stereotype is about people in the south. **rolls eyes** I live in the Biblebelt, and yes, there are people who abuse their kids, as in everywhere in the world. I have worked in social services for years. Most kids are taken away for physical and sexual abuse, and yes, the majority that are abused here are White. But I still don’t think all White people do it.
I guess since I have been stereotyped my entire life as a woman of color, I tend not to stereotype other people.
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I do agree that this is a prevalent and tired stereotype. I’ve actually seen enough comedians do a piece on this that it started to bug me. You know, the whole “white moms just whisper to their kids, but black moms will whoop your ass” schtick. I remember Dave Chappelle talking about it, and then Steve Harvey, and just recently we saw Tommy Davidson doing the same bit and it was more heartbreaking and disturbing than actually funny. What sticks out to me (aside from the fact that I am watching Comedy Central too much) is that while people find it funny, it’s also engraining in white people’s minds (who have limited experience with AA people) that this is a “societal truth”, when that is certainly not the case.
I don’t think it’s helpful to say either that stereotypes are true or that stereotypes are false.
That’s just not what they’re about. They fall all over the truth spectrum, but have very little to do with truth. Some stereotypes align with statistics, some don’t.
They’re a shortcut to making sense of the world, a kind of generalization, that happens to be harmful to certain groups of people and harmful to developing real knowledge.
Not all generalizations are inherently harmful, but the subset of “stereotype” is harmful…. the harm comes through its links to value judgments and power differentials between groups.
Corporal punishment is still legal in schools primarily in Southern states and there are surveys that have been done indicating that spanking/paddling, etc. is more widely accepted there and is an accepted part of black culture.
An old Salon article where it is discussed by a black mother, who muses on some of the reasons behind that tradition:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1998/10/cov_07featurea.html
I stand by what I said about stereotypes. When something is more common among a particular group of people, it can lead to a stereotype and expectations when you meet people, which need to be acknowledged and then firmly put back in a drawer so you can deal with people as individuals with their own beliefs, practices, and quirks. A stereotype is not true of all representatives of that group and may well not be of a particular individual, which is why you can’t make assumptions or judgments of individuals based on that stereotype.
@Tyhitia: Well, here’s a definition of the word (from dictionary.com):
“A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.”
So, in a sense, to say that “Black folks (POC, whatever term doesn’t offend you) have darker skin than white” is a stereotype. Totally agree that they’re generally used in a bad way, just being didactic about the definition I guess.
For the record: against spanking, Mom broke a wooden spoon on my rear end in the South once, but I don’t think it really affected how I turned out.
Kristen,
I’m sorry, but I don’t agree. Jeff Foxworthy and his comedian friends are always making redneck jokes, so should one think that all Whites are rednecks? I don’t think that is ingrained in the minds of all people of color. The problem is that people don’t try to get to know people of another group. That’s why segregation was so successful. Scare tactics and lies are easy to believe.
Dersk, thanks I have a dictionary.
I responded to someone saying that stereotypes are true, which they are not. It’s a way for one group to feel better about how they treat another group. It speaks to social mores and anyhting negative about “the other.” Whatever term does not offend me? LOL. That statement alone was impolite. 
Andrea,
That’s fine that you stand behind your argument, as I stand behind mine. Surveys? Given to whom? In what region? I live in the south. In my state, you beat a kid at school, you go to jail—period. My mother works for the state department of education and it is illegal here.
And because one purported Black woman wrote an article concerning spanking does not represent the whole. Therein lies the stereotype that she must represent ALL of Black womanhood in some way. **sigh**
Racism seems to be more common among White people, so does that mean all White people are racist? No, it does not.
Apparently I am beating a dead horse here.
Tyhitia — corporal punishment is currently legal in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas, though some individual school districts there do not use it and others may use it with less frequency than in the past. I would guess that most or all school districts that practice it now require parental permission before they use corporal punishment.
The mother who wrote the Salon article also quoted a study that had been in the 1990s about attitudes toward corporal punishment that seemed to show a more positive effect when it was used on black boys than on white kids. I think they speculated that the difference might have been due to differences in cultural practices. That’s one of the surveys/studies I was talking about. I’ve seen others. It doesn’t mean it’s true of everyone or a specific individual from the South, just that it IS more common. I think I’ve seen other articles that talk about the general similarities between black American culture and Southern culture such as food preferences. That wouldn’t be that surprising.
@Tyhitia, I think we are coming from the same place. That’s my concern, too. White people don’t take the effort to get to know POC around them, but then are willing to sit and laugh at stereotypes that aren’t being balanced with knowledge of ACTUAL people of color, who do not meet these stereotypes. I have the same concerns with rural redneck kids listening to gangsta rap and then assuming all Black people are walking around cursing and talking about the thug life.
OMG I sound like my mother with the music thing . . .
Tyhitia, if I said to you that my ex-brother-in-law was the stereotypical cop, what would be your first thought of the type of behavior he displays and personality type he was? And quiet frankly I doubt anyone on this board would disagree with negative stereotyping of cops. Does that mean that ALL cops are like that? No! but the generalization are there and not far from wrong.
You are right though that it is most often negative however, groups often laugh at their own stereotypes and admit to them. They will be offended if anyone else comes along and uses those stereotypes especially someone using it as a negative or as an “othering.” Irish drunk jokes are VERY prevalent among the Irish. Foxworthy got lots of his jokes from Southern people sending them to him.
@Ann,
I think there’s a BIG difference, though, between making a generalization (i.e., cops are dangerous) because that generalization might help you to survive and making a generalization from a place of power because you can and maybe it helps you perpetuate a sense of superiority etc. (This is a general “you”, I’m using, btw)
@ Andrea,
You can cite studies all you want, but that misses the point, in my opinion. Liz’s article is about PERCEPTIONS of who does more corporal punishment etc and how those perceptions are damaging. It really doesn’t matter what the “truth” is. It seems as though you’re trying to make the perception somehow rooted in “fact,” as if to avoid what seems unavoidable: that this perception is rooted in racism. Why such resistance?
i didn’t know either of this stereotype (grew up in CT and live in OR.) wouldn’t have even considered the race of the mom or child either (any) way…just that the child needed help. sad.
Julia, of course it matters what the truth is. Studies matter. Statistics matter. Shared cultural perceptions matter. They’re often why certain perceptions exist. Acknowledging that to yourself but then saying, “But logically, that can’t possibly apply to individuals since every person is different and comes with a different set of experiences, characteristics, quirks, so let’s put that thought away and not let this impact our interactions with different, individual people,” is one way to combat that.
THAT is why I am “resistant.”
Andrea,
If the idea is to actual individuals don’t match what the studies, statistics, and cultural perceptions say, WHY do you keep reiterating these very studies and statistics?
I don’t know that you mean to do it, but it reads like a derailing tactic that suggests that Liz (or anyone else) shouldn’t be angry about a reaction based on a negative stereotype because there is factual basis for that stereotype. It reminds me a bit of this: http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#opinion
I think that this may very well not be what you mean or intend, but it is the impression your insistence on the facts gives. At least to me. That is why I am reacting so strongly.
There’s a flip side to this stereotype, as I learned at a child abuse prevention seminar presented by a pediatrician, and that is that child abuse is far less likely to be reported if the child is white and lives with both (white) parents.
I’m sure this is also true for children in higher income families.
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That whole stereotype is nonsense. I have blond hair and blue eyes and my mom certainly did too, and she would flat out physically assault me and my brother., as in kick and punch us continuously when she was drunk. It has nothing to do with skin color. For my mom it was that she comes from a family in which this behavior has been going on for many generations-her father and mom were alcoholics who were offenders of domestic violence. The same is true with respect to money problems, my mom was saddled in debt and was broke; just because shes not “black” doesnt mean she cant beat the crap out of her kids. I myself am really sick and tired of that stereotype; my mom one time saw a black mom grab her kid and bang his head violently against the street and she turned to me and said she was sorry for having been that way when I was a kid.
I’m coming late to this conversation – from Tami’s latest post at her blog. I’m shocked people have the perception white parents don’t hit, abuse, coerce, manipulate, and employ with regularity emotional/verbal/physical abuse. As per @Rita’s comments, there’s a lot going on “underground”.
Many whites won’t own up to it and do lots of hairsplitting (that’s why they call it “spanking” instead of what it is – assault). And a lot of the time they save their blow-ups for at-home (if they can).
Also: where are the men in these conversations? We’re always mocking or vilifying black, white, brown, etc. women, while not acknowledging the fact that cultural pressures on children’s behavior are bourne out, predominantly, in their grownup female carers.
Not all black mothers abuse their children but a lot do. Physical and mental abuse is something that I witnessed in other homes and experienced in my own. Which made me grow into adulthood wondering what kind of women would do this to her own children. A cold unloving one that always put herself before her children, her crimes are so numerous it has left me with a deep resentment towards her which surfaces every now and again, in which i tell her exactly what i think of her, and her poor parenting skills. Her idea of good parenting was putting a cheap meal on the table and living on welfare, when she could have worked but chose not to. So I wholeheartedly believe there are a lot of women that should never have children, or have them left in their care because they lack the maternal instinct and are incapable of nurturing their children.