From this week’s issue of The Nation:
Bad black mothers are everywhere these days.
With Michelle Obama in the White House, consciously and conspicuously serving as mom-in-chief, I expected (even somewhat dreaded) a resurgence of Claire Huxtable images of black motherhood: effortless glamour, professional success, measured wit, firm guidance, loving partnership, and the calm reassurance that American women can, in fact, have it all.
Instead the news is currently dominated by horrifying images of African American mothers.
Most ubiquitous is the near universally celebrated performance of Mo’Nique in the new film Precious. Critically and popularly acclaimed Precious is the film adaption of the novel Push. It is the story of an illiterate, obese, dark-skinned, teenager who is pregnant, for the second time, with her rapist father’s child. (Think The Color Purple in a 1980s inner-city rather than 1930s rural Georgia)
At the core of the film is Precious’ unimaginably brutal mother. She is an unredeemed monster who brutalizes her daughter verbally, emotionally, physically and sexually. This mother pimps both her daughter and the government. Stealing her daughter’s childhood and her welfare payments.
Just as Precious was opening to national audiences a real-life corollary emerged in the news cycle, when 5-year-old Shaniya Davis was found dead along a roadside in North Carolina. Her mother, a 25-year-old woman with a history of drug abuse, has been arrested on charges of child trafficking. The charges allege that this mother offered her 5-year-old daughter for sex with adult men.
Yet another black mother made headlines in the past week, when U.S. soldier, Alexis Hutchinson, refused to report for deployment to Afghanistan. Hutchinson is a single mother of an infant, and was unable to find suitable care for her son before she was deployed. She had initially turned to her own mother who found it impossible to care for the child because of prior caregiver commitments. Stuck without reasonable accommodations, Hutchinson chose not to deploy. Hutchinson’s son was temporally placed in foster care. She faces charges and possible jail time.
These stories are a reminder, that for African American women, reproduction has never been an entirely private matter. Read more…
Whatever you do, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!
I really enjoyed this article, but damn, the comments were infuriating!
I ALMOST read the comments…but I stopped myself.
This is an interesting read for me, as I am examining my own internal racism and how it effects my perception of my in-law’s treatment of my son over the Thanksgiving weekend. I know many people are irritated by things that their in-laws do, but I worry that my viewpoint of how my in-laws parent is coded by racist norms of parenting behavior. Whether a parenting practice is praised or denigrated has a lot to do with how the woman doing the parenting looks. IMHO, her race is first and foremost what people think about when deciding how to interpret her parenting decisions. For example, A. Hutchinson’s story…I was appalled that she would even be put in that position! I thought the military would never send someone out if they were a single parent? I can’t believe that she is being held in jail and I also can’t believe that there isn’t a bigger public outcry in her behalf. If I was in her position I would have done the same. In the article I read about her (in my parent’s conservative magazine), the quoted military personnel feigned ignorance about why she would have thought she would be deployed with a baby at home. Um….really? Why did you call her up in the first place if you knew she had a baby and was single (on her forms)? Anyway, the whole thing makes me sick. Another family destroyed by our military. Congrats.
The coverage I’ve seen of Alexis Hutchinson’s story was actually very sympathetic and made the military out to be the bad guys for deploying a single mother with an infant. I don’t think she has been presented as a bad mother at all or that race was even regarded as particularly relevant in the coverage of this story.
As for the other real life example of the woman who allegedly sold her 5-year-old into prostitution, well, she IS a terrible mother if that’s true. How else are they supposed to report a terrible incident? The father of the child is white. I wouldn’t have known the race of either parent or of the child if I hadn’t seen pictures. Race wasn’t mentioned by any of the news reports.
I’ve also seen numerous pictures of Michelle Obama on the covers of women’s magazines, usually as a depiction of the great mother and wife.
Well, I wouldn’t jump to conclusions on the Hutchinson story – a quick google pulled up a story in which an Army rep was saying that they wouldn’t have forced her to go, so something more likely went wrong with the process. More importantly, all the articles I could find put her in a positive light.
That’s sort of the problem with articles like this – they assert that there’s a trend without giving statistical data, so have to rely on anecdotes. And anecdotes are pretty easy to pick apart (or find counter-anecdotes, like the one comment that mentioned Michelle Obama as a positively portrayed mother).
Also quite surprised that the article didn’t mention Regan’s invention of the welfare queen meme.
By the way, if think those comments were bad – check out pretty much any thread on freerepublic.com. I was especially appalled at the comments on the article about the Swiss minaret ban…
We can debate the stories used as examples all we want, but I don’t think that is the point. The point is expressed here:
“As free citizens black women’s reproduction was no longer directly tied to profits. In this new context, black mothers became the object of fierce eugenics efforts. Black women, depicted as sexually insatiable breeders, are adaptive for a slave holding society but not for the new context of freedom. Black women’s assumed lasciviousness and rampant reproduction became threatening.”
The article goes on to describe the many ways in which black motherhood has been pathologized.
That this claim hits a defensive nerve in white readers is evident in the ugliness of the comments that follow the articles.
dersk and Andrea, you may not agree that these particular news stories fit this pathologizing trend, but I hope you will be open to the possibility that such a trend exists and that plenty of black mothers in the US may FEEL pathologized. I hope you don’t seek to invalidate their experience.
Terrible journalism. The only thing worse than pandering to myths and a boldface lying stereotype is endlessly refuting them .
Embarrassing that this was printed in the Nation.
Okay, I didn’t read the comments (on the other site), so I can’t and won’t say anything about that.
My first two reactions to the article were, honestly, I don’t think we are going through a “cycle” of seeing negative representations of black mothers in the media, because a cycle implies that there has been times when we weren’t exposed to this.
Also, I hadn’t heard of Alexis Hutchinson before this, and don’t have first-hand knowledge of the media portrayals of her story, but it sounds like really good parenting, she took huge risks to make sure her son would be safe. That her baby was put in foster care is so awful! It makes me want to puke.
Also, the army deploys single mothers all the time. Fucked up, but true. These kinds of stories make the news sometimes, I even read in some type of news-type place an article about single mothers in the army who are able to sort out childcare (usually the moms sister or mother), and how hard it still is on both the moms and kids when a mom is deployed and can’t see her kid(s) for a year (or more). People who risk their lives for our country (and their families) should really be treated a lot better than they are.
Oh also, I thought this article provided ALOT of factual data to back-up their assertion that Black mothers in the US are pathologized, I’m going on memory here, but they mentioned the Monyihan report (which was written a while ago- but people still talk about it) and cites several BOOKS which I’m sure provide more in-depth information for those who want to seek it out.
Also, eugenics was officially practised in the US until the 70′s- forced sterilization went on alot longer. I’m pretty sure some states still do force mothers who are recieving public assistance to take birth control, which I guess (atleast in theory) discriminates against poor moms of any race, although I would be suprised if these kind of “requirements” aren’t enforced in a racist way.
The worst part of this piece is that the author holds characters in a fictional book/film responsible for directing world opinions. Beauty standards may be one thing but a film like Precious is not responsible for black crime statistics and how they are used as bogus science by white supremacists. Once POC and anti-racist advocates stop relentlessly scrutinizing POC who make films and start advocating that people support their work then these alternative filmmakers and artists will have serious capital to create more varied films.
eg: Blaxploitaion films are now prized gems of unrivaled 70′s camp featuring multi-racial casts (with natural features and hair) in over the top , usually hilarious situations. Whomever owns the distribution and rental rights to many of these films is still making great money off them yet the NAACP successfully fought to shut the industry down!
I don’t think an industry of blaxpolitaion films is ultimately the answer to but it was start so POC could create their own indie film industry which has yet to happen until Tyler Perry has emerged. If the author is made so uncomfortable by watching Precious than too bad, I don’t particularly like seeing Spike Lee’s endless parade of racist self hating Italian Americans but its his art and there is truth in it just as there is in Precious.
Its interesting that the author references Shaniya Davis because I’ve never forgotten Sherrice Iverson who was brutally raped and murdered by a white teenage boy who’s white engineering major at Cal best friend saw it happening and did nothing to stop it and showed zero remorse. Iverson’s parents had brought her to a Nevada casino in the AM hours , had not been taking care of her and allowed her to roam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Strohmeyer
Both situations are not about race-both are obviously about very bad, disgraceful PARENTING on the part of almost everyone with the exception of Davis’ father.
Alexis Hutchinson is not about race either, it is about serving in the military. I found nothing in the media regarding these stories as some racial triumvirate against black mothers. Ironically two other African American mother both in the Bay Area did contribute to the brutal deaths of their children that same week, one losing her own life in the process to a paroled child killer. I saw now attempt in the mass media to create sensationalism regarding the tragedies. In turn, two white teenage girls, both 15, were arraigned for brutal murders that same week as well. One who slit the throat of a nine year old just to see what it felt like. This is not about race its about society breaking down and very bad parenting. All of the parents should have waited to have children but start talking family planning and the white racist right wing goes crazy as well as many in the AA community.
When one starts looking at ideas like family planning being readily available (including at public schools) and over hauling the education system instead of inexcusably sending 30,000 more troops off to a pointless unwinnable war. When our president who lied in his campaign speech about ending war starts putting the money in our schools and universities instead of bailing out big buisness, banks and doomed automakers then we’ll get somewhere. But this “batsh*t crazy ever single thing in the world is about race” is just going to continue to create a less intelligent debate while divisions get worse.
” I expected (even somewhat dreaded) a resurgence of Claire Huxtable images of black motherhood: effortless glamour, professional success, measured wit, firm guidance, loving partnership, and the calm reassurance that American women can, in fact, have it all.”
Why would you dread something so positive? What does she want? Does she even know?
No one believes Michelle Obama is a mythic woman who has it all but she is a truly successful woman who people everywhere admire and her race is just part of it. Once again the author failed to really take the mass media to task by neglecting mention the website Google’s all too slow movements to take down a racist picture of the first lady-THAT is negative stereotyping, not a fictional film.
Finally Sarah Palin is a universal joke, she has many right wing racist admirers but she has been relentlessly savaged, lampooned and blasted by the media. She along with Kate Gosselin no more represents white motherhood than Dan Quayle represents the Black Muslims.
Julia, I don’t doubt that there are any number of problems with the depictions of black mothers in newspaper articles and in the media as a whole, many of which are related to racism in individuals and problems with the culture as a whole, but I think this particular article does a poor job of presenting the topic. She uses a “throw everything but the kitchen sink at the wall and see what sticks” approach that detracts from her overall message. As a journalist I object to her use of those particular recent articles as examples and think she’s completely wrong in how she interprets the messages they may or may not present. They happened and they were presented in as unbiased a way as possible, as I would have if I were writing about them. Journalists are trained not to mention race unless it’s relevant to the topic at hand and, since race is not relevant, it was not mentioned in the articles I saw. I haven’t seen “Precious” or read the book and don’t plan to, so I can’t comment one way or the other on that fictional characterization.
SuperAmanda,
This is a blog about parenting and race. One of the assumptions here is that race and racism (and privilege) are always part of the equation. Your comments that suggest that race isn’t operative or valid, therefore, are not constructive. In addition, we’re not here to debate what kind of racism or race-related issue is more important than another–they are ALL important, but the issues raised by Melissa Lacewell Harris are the ones we are talking about on this thread. Your comments that suggest we talk about something else instead are derailing–that is, they take us off-topic. [They also suggest that you think you know more about race than Lacewell Harris, a black woman.]
Finally, I think most of us come here for dialogue. I don’t mean to pick on you but it’s hard to have dialogue with someone who contributes such long posts. I’d like to be able to really “talk” to you (as, I’m sure, would others here) but it would be easier for me to do that if you could write shorter responses and perhaps confine yourself to one comment at a time.
I want to really echo what Julia (#6) wrote above–the point of this piece seems to be to illuminate/illustrate the ways in which black mothers have been pathologized in American culture.
Popular culture and mass culture are HUGELY influential — they are part of how we make meaning in our world — in fact, they are so powerful because they are so nebulous and not tied to a specific power structure or single institution.
I should probably disclose that I’m a professor who researches on issues of race and anti-racism and who examines the effects of race and anti-racism in popular and mass culture (like blogs).
And I want to also say as an anti-racist blogger/educator/activist and a some-time guest contributor to this site, I think that there are some house rules that we need to respect when we come here and comment–namely, that race IS a factor. You may not believe that race is important–that’s your choice. But the people who write this blog and the person who moderates it works from an assumption that race is a guiding force in our world and that institutional racism and white privilege/white supremacy are part of that matrix and as parents/educators/activists we want to work on understanding this matrix and ending this particular kind of oppression in the next generation.
I come to LIE because I want to really hear and learn from my fellow anti-racist activists/parents/educators and be part of a rich dialogue. But I have felt, lately, that the comment threads devolve into people wanting to make the claim that race had nothing to do with “X.”
If you believe that, why are you here?
Andrea,
I hear you. But we are not here to debate journalistic practice. Could we please, instead, discuss the topic of Lacewell Harris’s article–i.e., the pathologizing of black mothers–ignoring how ineptly she may have made her case?
I’m here to talk about race and parenting. If you have something to contribute to a conversation about parenting and race in the context of this article, I would love to hear it. Otherwise, I’d really appreciate it if you’d sit on your hands so the rest of us can have that conversation.
@Julia: I understand what you wrote. I am a mother, I was a nanny for over ten years and I’m very concerned about race. I speak out vociferously to try to stop hatred and racism which is why I became interested in restoring the legacy Paul Robeson; a largely forgotten African American role model for children of all races who is very inspiring.
I feel I stayed right on topic, I think the misapplication of the label racism sometimes creates harsh division. I found the article very out dated and inadvertently hurtful to anti-racism activism.
I really just don’t see how someone could view the current media portrayal of black mothers and fail to see a racist bent. As for positive portrayals that do occur in the media…I’m sure you know that a few exceptions do not make a rule. It doesn’t matter whether race is explicitly mentioned by the author of an article (honestly what do you need to see to see a race bias? Something like “As you can see, the mother of this child is Black. Black women are bad mothers so it shouldn’t be a surprise that this mother has committed this atrocious act.” Is that what it would take?). If you know the race of the individuals mentioned in the article that is all it takes to make that association in your mind. Plus, choices are made when determining WHAT to report and HOW to report it…and I believe that the race of the persons discussed influences that decision and the portrayal. As Julia stated above, that is what we come here to discuss. On this cite, we assume race is a factor because…well, because it is.
@Super Amanda and Andrea: There are lots of forums on the internet where you can discuss how POC over do it with their perceptions of race-bias. This is not one of them. Many people “visit” here primarily to avoid these types of denials. I understand a respectful disagreement about how race factors in with regards to a particular issue, but denying that something is about race when race influences nearly 100% of our interactions…I don’t see why you would think this cite is for you…
I’m a little disturbed at the tone around LIE lately.
I meant that race was not relevant to the subject of those particular articles and it would have been completely inappropriate to give the race of any of the people mentioned in them. Race is only relevant to a news article if it is specifically about race. The stories involved were about a single mother being deployed and a 5-year-old child who was kidnapped and murdered.
I don’t disagree with the general point of the article, that there’s a problem with the way black mothers have been depicted or that it makes people feel bad. I do think it was a muddled article.
If you want to hear only a particular point of view, as seems to be the case, perhaps you should go to a registration format and ban people when they post something you don’t care for. I think you’ll get less diversity of opinion, but that may well be what you want.
@Montclair Mommy and Julia
“I don’t see why you would think this cite is for you…”
LIE is for me , I enjoy it and find it inspiring, please don’t stereotype me.
I never insinuated that POC are over reacting either; probably half the people I meet think I am a POC and I know what it is like to uncomfortable simply just being.
I also never said that black mothers have not been stereotyped and blasted in the media which they have. I said the Hutchinson’s poorly written article displayed an amateur’s inability to articulate those stereotypes. If I ever have a mentally disabled child will that mean I made an “eye-brow raising reproductive choice” to the author? I’m very saddened she’s an associate professor in perhaps the most important subject in the world of academic history.
” If you know the race of the individuals mentioned in the article that is all it takes to make that association in your mind. ”
Really? Not my mind. Can you see inside everyone’s mind? Perhaps a white supremacist’s mind but not my mind and surprisingly not the minds of many young people I know. That type of assumption is regressive it assumes we can’t evolve and erase tapes. That’s why I cited many examples of news covered in that same week. Not to down play any potential racist element that could be leeched from it by Talk radio or Stromfront but to prove that there are those who ARE sensitive to where it could be exploited but who do have a different perspective from the one you are grasping onto.
I totally agree that there is a bias against Black mothers. A couple years ago, I read an article about several incidents in which children were left in cars and died from the heat. The Black mothers (and one Hispanic father) were demonized while the White couples were excused as stressed out parents juggling multiple responsibilities. The non-Whites were facing prison, while the White couples were already punished by guilt that they felt for child’s death. I was furious. A child was dead in all instances, but only the non-White parents were bad parents deserving of punishment.
Yes, there are bad parents of all races and classes, but the Black poor parents are painted as the worst of all even when the circumstances are similar. Anyone who can’t see that is in denial.
A little while ago, someone here–I forget who–coined the phrase “racism hall monitor”, i.e., those who seemingly post here to merely to declare what is and is not racism, regardless of the specifics of the topic at hand.
What hubris that twice now, in my observation, such behavior has been “justified” as actual anti-racist work, as somehow central to anti-racism efforts. GMAFB! As if to say, “Blah-blah-decrying the pathologizing of black mothers-blah…let me define racism for you…”
Being a racism hall monitor is no more anti-racist than standing outside of building and shooing away firefighters because you don’t smell smoke–and calling yourself a firefighter.
Even if you didn’t smell smoke, somebody did.
Even if you don’t see flames, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some on the 15th floor.
Somebody felt there was danger and cause for alarm.
Sure, there are false alarms, but consider the equivalent here. What exactly does anyone here have to gain by calling racism where it doesn’t exist? What does the author of the original article have to gain? What does The Nation have to gain? What kind of pathology–can I say that word???–or shenanigans are you suggesting are at work here? Speak plain. Don’t half step.
Are there race pimps/hustlers that profit from crying ‘racism’ at every turn? Of course. But are you really saying that’s what going on here? On this site? See, when you play racism hall monitor, that’s a serious accusation. Offensive, in fact. So if you’re going to toss around how this and that aren’t racism, appreciate the full measure of what you’re saying.
**But this “batsh*t crazy ever single thing in the world is about race” is just going to continue to create a less intelligent debate while divisions get worse.**
Divisions get worse when wolves show up in allies’ clothing.
Divisions get worse and debate less intelligent with comments to the effect of “You don’t see me complaining about negative portrayals of [insert white ethnic group here]…”
Divisions get worse and debate less intelligent when the extent of your contribution is that of racism hall monitor.
Divisions get worse and debate less intelligent when we’re subjected to an unimpressive list of alleged “anti-racist creds.” Paul Robeson is dead. There are living people with experiences and concerns that they bring to this site seeking support and education. Debate? Yes, but as I’ve pointed out here before, you don’t go to a breastfeeding support site and debate the merits of breastfeeding. Some fundamentals apply here as well. Humility and respect for others would lead you to accept those fundamentals. We all must, as this is not our site. In the absence of that acceptance, the arrogance is astounding.
Ultimately, it’s not each of us who decides whether we’re derailing or not. It’s the site moderator. So if others are suggesting that you are treading on thin ice, perhaps your judgment of whether you’re derailing or not isn’t as accurate as you think it is *in this setting*–and you might want to listen and stop presuming you know.
@Julia / et. al. – Look, I’m interested in creating change, not just commiseration. To me, part of being effectively anti-racist means being able to present clear, cogent arguments. That’s why I criticise them, and maybe I should make it more clear that I’m not disagreeing with the thesis, I’m trying to help make it stronger.
I also don’t think you can understand or counter racism without looking at how it intersects with other biases (that’s what I was trying to get to in the whole Sosa thread).
So maybe I’m doing the typical male thing of trying to solve the problem rather than just being sympathetic, but that’s where I’m coming from.
@dersk,
I really appreciate you clarifying your position. And I think you’re right that making it more clear that you’re “not disagreeing with the thesis” would be helpful. But I have to tell you that I don’t think any of us are here to just commiserate, and that I actually find such a suggestion offensive.
Here’s where I’m coming from: there’s an article out there in the world about black mothers being pathologized. There are hundreds of places I can go to complain about the way the article is imperfect, flawed, etc. But how many places can I go to talk about the underlying issue presented in the article and what it means for my son? Not many. THAT is what I come here for, so it’s frustrating to me when the conversation is mostly about critique of how the article is written etc. I don’t disagree, by the way, that the article is flawed in some ways. BUT when I look at the WHOLE of the article and think about what this site is about, it doesn’t seem to me that the imperfections of the article are what’s most important or relevant. Does that make sense?
@Andrea,
As I have felt often in other conversations with you on this site, I don’t feel like you are listening. Could you please, please just put aside your need to be right and truly listen and reflect on what I, Jennifer, Deesha, and Montclair Mommy have written above. And I think you need to ask yourself “Am I willing to be changed by engaging in conversations on this site?” And if the answer is no, I’m not sure that I understand why you are here.
Dersk (#22),
I’ve sensed that you seem to feel that you can apply logic (stats/clear arguments) to racism. The insidious nature of racism is that it is so flexible and defies logic, or rather, it can use stats and logic to defend itself.
You may not see yourself with the badge of “Racism Hallmonitor” (thanks Deesha for resurrecting the term) but I look at the language you are using in this post — that you are here to “solve the problem,” “you don’t disagree “with the thesis,” and especially this last one:
“being effectively anti-racist means being able to present clear, cogent arguments”
This is a blog. It’s not an academic journal. The genre of blogs is that they are PRECISELY all about commiseration, and in some cases, like LIE, change. Change and commiseration are not mutually exclusive, of course. You clearly want to be here–and I don’t think anyone wants you go to away, but have you tried this exercise? Have you tried NOT commenting and just reading others’ and absorbing what they have to say? Part of being an ally is as much listening to others as it is insisting that you know the best way–in your term, the most “effective” way–to be an anti-racist ally.
I am now guilty of the thing I hate–taking away from the original thread. Again, I think that the history of how African American mothers have been portrayed in the media–from all the mammy figures in American literature and 20th C. film (can anyone say GONE WITH THE WIND or the more recent versions of this in films like CORRINA, CORRINA) to the pathologized visions of the single black mother of the Moynihan report, I think what we should be taking away from this is to ask ourselves about the counter-narratives and counter-images we can promote to de-pathologize this link–or as parents/educators/activists, to help our children understand the ways that popular culture and the media have inculcated us with these ideas/stereotypes, such that a woman who may seem to be “just a soldier” actually has a discourse circulating around her of “bad single-black mother” — that may be subconsious or unconcsious on the part of those who are reporting about her, but none-the-less, this is where and how these discourses get reinforced–some see her as only a soldier but others will see her as a bad black mother. I think part of our responsibility as anti-racist allies is to recognize that her story is up for grabs because of the ways in which black women have been pathologized throughout the last 2 centuries–the Civil Rights movement did not diminish this long history and Michele Obama is only one example (and an exceptional one)–we need many more.
I’m used to debating with teenagers, extremists and vloggers on you tube which creates a fiery sometimes wild atmosphere and that was not my intention to bring that here and I apologize.
The spirit of Paul Robeson is not “dead” Deesha, at least not in spirit. Roy Wilkins and the NAACP as well as Hoover helped to bury him alive. Is that irony lost on you? It would have been nice to learn about him in school instead of Columbus…
I’m still not seeing how I disregarded the problem the author sought vainly to illuminate. As someone who has dealt with as much inexcusable racism from African Americans as from whites, it would be nice to walk into room, bring that experience and not have it invalidated because it does not fit a social straight jacket or because it does always not empathize with the racist. I DO believe that people can evolve to not be so ba*shit crazy about race, I’ve seen it happen in all communities, even in the current climate. I have a dream.
I’m not sure apart from antagonizing tone if anything I said was actually that far off the comment policy. When we were asked to express an opinion , say about Sosa’s skin bleaching which I felt did factor in race , an entire new thread was posted telling us how to think and/or how we are supposed to be perceived to be thinking:
” POC coveting whiteness is not okay or “just a preference”
so where is the actual room to express?
“Be an anti-racist parent, be an ally or be gone.” I agree and its hard to not get very defensive when one reads that. When my long term partner died before refining his estate and left the fledgling Bay Area Paul Robeson Committee that I was part of a large sum, as a suddenly single woman, I could have fought hard for that cash as most would have. Instead I carried on and made sure perhaps the United States greatest Renaissance man, civil rights forerunner and unparalleled role model for children and anti-racism would not be forgotten in my community and anywhere I went. A man who along with Du Bois founded the first anti-colonialist movement in the US (the CAA), anti-Lynching legislation, voting rights etc and who gave up his privileges and career to help those less fortunate. I saw that helping to build peaceful local and global community was bigger than me. I saw how after giving talks in schools that children who had nothing but rappers, sports stars and thugs to look up to suddenly realized the gold standard of scholar/athlete/artist/world citizen came from borderline poverty , a father who had been a slave and their OWN community. You can’t force that realization out of someone with comment policy. My alliance with anti-racism is not debatable, it has been literally my life.
[Mod note: Amanda, no one is doubting your work on behalf of an African American icon nor your desire to work on behalf of racial equality, but even the fiercest ally is not above reproach. We are all human and we all fail as allies sometimes. For instance, I am committed to GLBT equality, but I am not a member of any of those groups. I am heterosexual and cisgendered and carry the associated societal privileges. And those privileges will out sometimes no matter how hard I try. It would be arrogant to assume that any amount of work and education about GLBT issues could make me as much as expert as someone who lives with homophobia and transphobia every blessed day. I believe it is my job as an ally to listen to my GLBT friends, especially when they call me out on subconscious privilege that I know damned well I have (because every heterosexual, cisgendered person in this society does). I expect the same from allies in this space.]
Deesha, I love the fire analogy!
It is perfect.
No, no, please take your fire trucks and hoses away from here, I really can’t see how anyone has made a case for there being a fire here, we can’t just go around calling everything that is hot and smoky fire.
Thanks, I see your point. I have a few questions about comment moderation policy that I’ll post on the new thread. Having them answered would be very helpful.
Black on topic, I highly recommended this book if you have not yet read it as another view of African American mothers in the media and US history to accompany the one from The Nation. The author also references the Moynihan report extensively and punches huge holes in it regarding when the data was collected and how it was presented:
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Macho-Superwoman-Classics-Classsics/dp/1859842968
Michele Wallace is nothing less than a legend and she articulates my feelings about the article subject matter than I could
http://www.blackculturalstudies.org/wallace/wallace_index.html
*Back on topic*
@Jennifer / @Moderator – in a way, it really does feel like what you’re saying is unless you’re a person of color you can’t be anti-racist. I doubt that’s what you really mean to say, but that’s sure what it feels like.
So back to the topic:
Do folks here who are mothers feel like the article about Hutchinson (or others) feed into the bad black mother meme?
And..
To me, the most insidious of the bad black mother memes is the welfare queen idea, which I thought was dead but saw quoted again recently. I’ve read that the whole meme has always been a myth, and that for example Reagan invented lots of stories about driving Cadillacs to pick up their checks.
Anyone know of a good source for stats or refutations of the whole meme?
@dersk,
I’m having a hard time figuring out where you are getting this:
“in a way, it really does feel like what you’re saying is unless you’re a person of color you can’t be anti-racist. I doubt that’s what you really mean to say, but that’s sure what it feels like.”
Here, I think, is the crux of what Jennifer is asking:
“Part of being an ally is as much listening to others as it is insisting that you know the best way–in your term, the most “effective” way–to be an anti-racist ally.”
That is:
1. Listen to the experiences of others and be open to experiences that are not what you imagine/expect/would predict/have seen evidence for, etc.
2. Don’t presume that you know more about an issue affecting POC than POCs themselves.
3. Don’t give “facts” or statistics or other supposedly objective measures more weight than the experiences of POC.
So, can you, as a white person, be an anti-racist? Absolutely.
Can you, as a white person, be the expert? Not so much.
Can you, as a white person, have the last word on matters of race? No way.
Please don’t take this the wrong way, because I don’t intend it as an insult, but I sense that you may be a person who likes to be the expert and to have the last word. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that in general. But in matters of race, we white people just have to acknowledge and accept that we CANNOT know what it’s like to be a POC because we have not had that lived experience. And because we don’t have that experience or that personal knowledge, we look arrogant when we act like or talk like we know or know better. And, more importantly, if we don’t put aside our sense that we DO know, we just reenact the racist hierarchy of our society.
I hope that helps.
Julia, probably worth taking offline since this is offtopic – I’m on derek at vandivere dot net.
I’ll absolutely cop to being pretty egoistic about my brain – and I enjoy having semi-contentious discussions about topics, that all too often come off as just aggressive.
Anyway, to restate my last post: very often, it seems like people mean ‘parent of color’ or ‘parent of child of color’ when they say ‘anti-racist parent’, and ‘white person who agrees with us ARPs’ as ‘ally’.
I find that last paragraph really depressing, really: it seems to me that you’re saying that no person can ever really understand another person’s experience (surely if it goes for race, it must go for nationality, gender, occupation, and all the other things that go into a person’s experience). I think empathy and art are stronger than that.
Hey, I *tried* to take it back on topic with the last post… (:
I have to say, I don’t necessarily disagree with the author’s premise, but the article was embarrassing in how poorly the premise was supported. The bad mother in “Precious” dominated “the news?” Really? The military mother who was separated from her child was depicted as a victim of an uncaring military system in every online newspaper article I read, and her race wasn’t mentioned, either. The mother who is accused of pimping out her child was on the news yes,, but that one story hardly adds up to “bad black mothers are everywhere these days,” and news domination.
As a black mother, I don’t feel served by this article at all. It was ridiculous. It read like a rant posing as something more substantive.
I should add, that I DO think it’s important that the article be critiqued for its own value. This person is being paid to write, not just mention ideas. And I think it’s problematic to write so poorly about a real issue (demonization of black mothers/parents) that it actually undermines understanding of the issue – particularly by people who are being exposed to it for the first time. The author gets no kudos from me. And boo to the Nation editor who didn’t challenge the author to make a stronger case.
I know I am a little late to the argument but I must say I would be way more pissed if the media didn’t talk about Hutchinson. The entire story was based on a single mom against the evil establishment of the military. You know darn well that this is the type of story the media does all the time about single white moms. Had they ignored the same plight in a single black mom would have shown a very deep racist bent.
Does this make the media or the establishment anti-racist? Heck no! But I don’t think this story actually shows a racist slant that the author proposes.
I may also be reading different news articles from everyone else but I honestly didn’t know the North Carolina woman was black until I read it here. I thought she was a semi-toothless, stringy brown haired red-neck.
Just found this forum, I love it!