Well done Melissa!
And shout out to my momma who routinely preformed mini miracles with foods stamps, government cheese, and section 8.
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The Notion
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Unfiltered takes on politics, ideas and culture from Nation editors and contributors.
Bad Black Mothers
BY MELISSA HARRIS LACEWELL
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 the entire article here.
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 the entire article here.
- tags: racism, pathology, gender, media
I have been screaming about this all day it feels like... Not this movie... Not just the tragedy of Shaniya but the idea that black women are the cause of all that's wrong with the world. We pay no attention to the system of oppression that black women face, that rip black men from our homes... Just this black woman as if she has caused all of her problems by herself.
ReplyDeleteSometimes black women are unwittingly complicit in their woes but, we can't continue to look at the problems of black women without commentary on our oppression... I am thankful when we can stand up and say something and Dr. Harris Lacewell hit the nail on the head!
hi from italy
ReplyDelete@ abenadiva,
ReplyDeletecertainly complicity is part of the story. but that true for all of us and it doesnt even come close to dealing with the structures of domination.
@ guard runner,
hi from usa.