# How offensive is the Mammy stereotype? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 11, 2004, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723 "2004-10-11T22:17:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/41 "2004-10-14T00:33:09Z")
I’m a middle aged white guy, anti Affirnative Action (preferences), anti identity politics in general, and I find the stereotype offensive. Sure it has its place in a historical context, but not in contemporary America. In fact, I find just the name “Aunt Jemima” to be offensive, as it harkens back to when higher ranking household slaves were called “aunt” or “uncle”. But as an aside, I never got the name as a kid, since to me it was “Anjamima”. Being from Boston, “aunt” was always pronounced “ah-nt”, not “ant”, so the “ant” in front of Jemima never registered as “aunt”. We heard it pronounced on TV long before we could read. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Niceguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mr.Niceguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Niceguy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/42 "2004-10-14T01:43:19Z")
> [@you with the face](#): > > This will be the third time this[link](http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/mammies/more/120.htm) will be provided. Look at it and tell me if this is a respectful depiction of another person… I know some people who look very similar to that caricature. Check out this link:[Index of Narratives](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/index.html) How about Emma Crocket. That is a real person. A real slave. Really wearing a doo rag. Really “comically” black, as you say. How about Charity Anderson on that page ? A real life house slave. You know, the kind that your afro-centric cite claims didn’t exist. I know black women today who look alot like mammy. Are you saying these women are ugly ? That is your own standard of beauty. Keep it. > [@you with the face](#): > > It doesn’t matter what the swastika symbolized centuries ago by various peoples. My question was what does it represent to _you_. If the first idea that popped in your head when you read “swastika” was good luck, then no wonder you’re having such a understanding my perspective. You don’t understand a lot of things… The first thing that pops into my head when I see a swastika is : “Gee, wonder who is using the swastika as a symbol and I wonder what they are about”. I am not a prejudice person. I try to make concrete judgements before jumping to conclusions based on a symbol. > [@you with the face](#): > > To most Americans, al Qaeda represents Bush’s favorite word: terrorism… Got a cite for “most Americans” representative thought of al Qaeda ? > [@you with the face](#): > > If you don’t get that the swastika is a symbol for anti-semitism, then I’m not surprised the symbol of the abortion movement escapes your awareness as well. The swastika has been around for three thousand years. It is a symbol for antisemitism among many other things. I don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. And I am supposed to know that a bloody coat hanger is a symbol for an abortion group ? Why on earth would you let these symbols pervade your thought process so ? Symbols mean different things to different people and if you can’t see that then you are likely to to pre judge people based on a symbol ? That’s just not smart. > [@you with the face](#): > > And you have to be really desperate to demand a cite to support the rather reasonable claim that the swastika represents anti-semitism to most people. A simple google search of the word “swastika anti-semitism” would tell you that… I am soooo shocked. A Google on “swastika antisemitic” will bring up antisemitic cites ? What a revelation. Why don’t you try googling “swastika”. Yeah, just swastika. Maybe you could learn a thing or two about how diverse the perception of the symbol is. > [@you with the face](#): > > No, but they should be prepared to deal with people being offended. Demanding them to stop being offended because “look, it represents good luck and prosperity, see?” is futile. Not to mention, stupid. Stupid ? That is a direct personal insult. Three thousand years as a symbol of good luck and prosperity, used by countless cultures and civilization and think pointing that out is stupid of me ? I think your take is really stupid. > [@you with the face](#): > > I never said everyone should find Mammy offensive. I said some people may not find it so, but I do. And then I explained why. You, on the other hand, have implied that it is unreasonable to find Mammy offensive. And in a way that makes no sense. I said that somer people are too easily offended. You are. I see no need to take offense at a caricature that depicts a happy black woman that can cook and clean. No more than the need to get offended when “Bubba” is depisted as an illiterate, beer drinking, inbred embasil. It happens. > [@you with the face](#): > > And no, I’m not too easily offended. You’re too easily offended by other people getting offended, though… That is just too damn funny. 😃 > [@you with the face](#): > > Cite for when I even talked about Esther Rolle, let alone called her “comically black”… I didn’t say you ever mentioned Ms. Rolle. I just gave her as an example. You say that people don’t look like mammy. Some do. Have someone draw a caricature of Esther Rolle and voila ! Mammy. > [@you with the face](#): > > For cryin’ out loud, Mammy is not a real person. She couldn’t help it? Ha! The people who invented her certainly could. Black folks do not look like caricatures. They do not look like bug-eyed, fat-lipped, button-nosed (very true, \*\* capacitator\*\*!) subhumans. I can’t even believe I’m having to explain this. Mammy is just as real as “Bubba” and “soccer mom” Look again:[Index of Narratives](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/index.html) Emma Crocket is just the type of woman mammy was modeled after. If you deny that, you are just blind. I can find you many more real potos of real, “comically” black, doo rag wearing and flour sack dress wearing, large house servants. > [@you with the face](#): > > At any rate, please don’t call them Mammy to their face. They may sock you in the face for it and then sock you again when you tell them they are too easily offended. Implications of violence are not needed. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Niceguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mr.Niceguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Niceguy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/43 "2004-10-14T01:57:15Z")
It has been said here that the depiction of the happy “mammy” house servant was just made up by white folks. That is not true. This is a bit of what Charity Anderson had to say when reflecting on her days as a slave house servant in Alabama. Note the description of her clothing. > [@](#): > > the skirt, and her black and white checked apron, white head rag, be-spectaled eyes, sitting in a rocking chair before a fire, sorting and folding clean rags, carried one back to the days of long ago, when she told of her happy life before the Civil War. > She said "Missy, peoples don’t live now, and niggers ain’t got no manners, and don’t know nothin’ about waitin’ on white folks. I kin remember de days when I was one of de house servants. Dere was six of us in de ol’ marster’s house, me, Sarai, Lou, Hester, Jerry and Joe. Us didn’t know nothin’ but good times den. My job was lookin’ a’ter de corner table whar nothin’ but de desserts sat. Jo and Jerry were de table boys, and dey ne’ber touched nothin’ wid dere hans’, dey used de waiter to pass things wid. My! dem was good ol’ days. > > "My old Marster was a good man, he treated all his slaves kind, and took care of dem, he wanted to leave dem hisn chillun. It sho’ was hard for us older uns to keep de little cullered chillun out ob de dinin’ room whar ol marster ate, cause when dey would slip in and stan’ by his cheer, when he finished eatin’ he would fix a plate and gib dem and dey would set on de hearth and eat. But honey chile, all white folks warn ‘t good to dere slaves, cause I’se seen pore niggers almos’ tore up by dogs, and whipped unmercifully, when dey did’nt do lack de white folks say . But thank God I had good white folks, dey sho’ did trus’ me to, I had charge of all de keys in the house and I waited on de Missy and de chillun. I laid out all dey clos’ on The contention that house servants were not happy is based purely on modern ideas of happiness. Even though Charity herself speaks unmistakably well of how happy she was as a house servant, modern historians ignore this in favor of their own belief that Charity just couldn’t have been happy, after all who could be happy like that. This is a real person. She really lived and loved and spoke well of her life as a “mammy” type house servant. Is it possible that real life people like Charity had something to do with the perception of the happy “mammy” or do you still insist this is all a figment of them mean ol’ white folks imagination ? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Niceguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mr.Niceguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Niceguy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/44 "2004-10-14T02:14:12Z")
[http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/durham1.html](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/durham1.html) > [@](#): > > I was glad when de was stopped kaze den me an’ Exter could be together all de time ‘stead of Saturday an’ Sunday. After we was free we lived right on at Marse George’s plantation a long time. We rented de lan’ for a fo’th of what we made, den after while we bought a farm. We paid three hundred dollars we done saved. We had a hoss, a steer, a cow an’ two pigs, ‘sides some chickens an’ fo’ geese. Mis’ Betsy went up in de attic an’ give us enough goose feathers to make two pillows, den she give us a table an’ some chairs. She give us some dishes too. Marse George give Exter a bushel of seed cawn and some seed wheat, den he tole him to go down to de barn an’ get a bag of cotton seed. We got all dis den we hitched up de wagon an’ th’owed in de passel of chillun an’ moved to our new farm, an’ de chillun was put to work in de fiel’; dey growed up in de fiel’ kaze dey was put to work time dey could walk good. > > Freedom is all right, but de niggers was better off befo’ surrender, kaze den dey was looked after an’ dey didn’ get in no trouble fightin’ an’ killin’ like dey do dese days. If a nigger cut up an’ got sassy in slavery times, his Ole Marse give him a good whippin’ an’ he went way back an’ set down an’ ‘haved hese’f. If he was sick, Marse an’ Mistis looked after him, an’ if he needed store medicine, it was bought an’ give to him; he didn’ have to pay nothin’. Dey didn’ even have to think ‘bout clothes nor nothin’ like dat, dey was wove an’ made an’ give to dem. Maybe everybody’s Marse and Mistis wuzn’ good as Marse George and Mis’ Betsy, but dey was de same as a mammy an’ pappy to us niggers." Check out this cite of actual interviews with actual former slaves if you want to know if the “mammy” stereo type was accurate or just made up. The truth speaks for itself. Of course, by todays standards the above words can be hard to swallow but these are the words of the people themselves at or near the ends of their lives after the end of slavery. Many of these people were happy with their lot in life. Just because you feel that you couldn’t be happy with that does not change the fact that they were happy. Rewriting this history is a big friggin sham. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/45 "2004-10-14T04:29:54Z")
\*\* Mr. Niceguy\*\*, what is your point? The OP asks if the mammy stereotype offensive. A few of us have said that it is. We’ve explained why it is offensive. \* To us \*. We haven’t said that everyone should find it offensive. We haven’t mandated a particular emotional response. We’ve expressed a view point that says why Mammy is not something we get all goose pimply (in a good way) about. You, on the other hand, seem to think this is irrational and unreasonable. You think we are too easily offended. At one time, you say Mammy is a caricature. The next time, you say Mammy is a real person and you actually know real live “mammies”. You point to Esther Rolle as evidence that “Mammy” looks like real black people. Guess what? I know someone who looks just like Scooby Doo. Condaleeza Rice looks like the [Chucky doll](http://store.yahoo.com/cmdstore/chmomase2fim.html). That doesn’t change the fact that these are fictional depictions. Yes, black women were called Mammy back in the day when they were servants. They fulfilled Mammy’s role as Beloved Maid for White Folks. Some even happened to fit some of the stereotype. Who has said otherwise? You keep giving history lessons where none are warranted. No one is in denial. In fact, if anyone is in denial it is you. You are denial of the fact that Mammy imagery was deliberately designed as a way to put down blacks. You think it was a honest protrayal of black women. And I say if you think [this](http://www.ferris.edu/news/jimcrow/mammies/more/120.htm) is a honest representation, then this is a matter of opinion that we will _never_ agree upon. So it is best if we let the argument die. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Niceguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mr.Niceguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Niceguy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/46 "2004-10-14T04:57:58Z")
**You with the face** , I got a big problem with you speading ignorance. **Ruby** , was convinced by your revisionist cite that Mammy types didn’t exist. It has been repeated that Mammy was just conjured up , pulled out of thin air if you will, by white people. It is a lie. Mammy was based on real people who really cooked and cleaned and raised the white kids. You have denied, or provided cites that deny, the very existence of such people. Not only do you disrespect them and their lives by the denial of their very existence, but you are offended by the symbol of their existence that survives to this day. Mammy represents real people, get it ? They lived and loved and suffered. You are offended by a symbol that very accurately depicts their lives and existence. You are by default offended by them. They did nothing to you. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Niceguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mr.Niceguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Niceguy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/47 "2004-10-14T05:24:09Z")
**Ruby** , If you get the chance visit here: > **[About this Collection  | Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the...](https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/about-this-collection/)** > > Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves.  These narratives were collected in the 1930s as... This is an archive of a federal project that interviewed hundreds of former slaves in 1936 - 1938. There are also hundreds of photographs. You will find Mammy there in many, many of photos. Have a look with with your own eyes and read some of the stories before you swallow that cock and bull **You with the face** directed you to. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/48 "2004-10-14T05:29:34Z")
> [@Mr.Niceguy](#): > > The contention that house servants were not happy is based purely on modern ideas of happiness. Even though Charity herself speaks unmistakably well of how happy she was as a house servant, modern historians ignore this in favor of their own belief that Charity just couldn’t have been happy, after all who could be happy like that. This is a real person. She really lived and loved and spoke well of her life as a “mammy” type house servant. Is it possible that real life people like Charity had something to do with the perception of the happy “mammy” or do you still insist this is all a figment of them mean ol’ white folks imagination ? What exactly is your point? Do you think that the mammy types in the 1800s were happy DIePITE their situation or BECAUSE OF their situation? If it’s the former, then so f\*\*\*ing what? If it’s the latter, then why do you think that is? The human spirit is very resiliant. That’s the only conclusions I would draw. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/49 "2004-10-14T05:30:36Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > DIePITE DESPITE how did that escape preview… ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Niceguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mr.Niceguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Niceguy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/50 "2004-10-14T05:43:45Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > What exactly is your point? Do you think that the mammy types in the 1800s were happy DIePITE their situation or BECAUSE OF their situation? If it’s the former, then so f\*\*\*ing what? If it’s the latter, then why do you think that is? The human spirit is very resiliant. That’s the only conclusions I would draw. Some seem to have been happy despite the situation others were happy because of the situation and others weren’t happy at all. Some were happy despite cruel masters and poor living conditions. Some were happy because of kind masters and good conditions. Some weren’t happy at all with anything. Some expressed that they were happier as “Mammy”. After slavery the south was in shambles and the living conditions were very poor for most everyone. It is all about perspective. Just because we know better now doesn’t mean that Mammy wasn’t happy then. She didn’t know better times. I think some would be delighted to go back in time and enlighten Mammy so she could lead a miserable existence with her new found knowledge. If one hundred years from now humans reach Utopia I really hope they don’t look back on me with pity or offense because I was so “unenlightened”. Don’t be offended by my existence or any reminder of it. Just be content to know that I was happy in my existence. Anything else would be disrespectful of my meager life time. It aint much but it’s all we get. Most of all I resent the implication that Mammy was a product of white peoples imagination. That is just a lie. She was real. Mammy should be acknowledged. It is disrespectful to sat that she was just invented. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/51 "2004-10-14T05:48:45Z")
**Niceguy** : I hope you enjoy your short and unremarkable tenure as a guest of this MB. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Niceguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mr.Niceguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Niceguy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/52 "2004-10-14T05:53:22Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > **Niceguy** : I hope you enjoy your short and unremarkable tenure as a guest of this MB. thanks. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/53 "2004-10-14T17:40:27Z")
Hey, **Rubystreak** , are you reading this? You think those people **Mr.Niceguy** quoted were [“reclaiming the term ‘nigger’”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=274769&page=2&pp=50)? Anyway, **Mr.Niceguy** , try to think a teensy bit harder about those quotes you just posted. Read up on that slave interview project a bit more. When was it conducted, and who were they talking to? Were they talking to the air, in a stream-of-consiousness, and just happened to have been eavesdropped on by a recording studio? Read (or better yet, listen. The transcriber who decided to write everything the ex-slaves said foh’inettiklee was an idiot) the interviews again, and notice how oddly forced their praise of slavery was. Just mull over the context of the entire project a bit more, then see if you still think its wise to take those interviews at face value. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Niceguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mr.Niceguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Niceguy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/54 "2004-10-14T18:27:04Z")
> [@pizzabrat](#): > > Hey, **Rubystreak** , are you reading this? You think those people **Mr.Niceguy** quoted were [“reclaiming the term ‘nigger’”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=274769&page=2&pp=50)? > Anyway, **Mr.Niceguy** , try to think a teensy bit harder about those quotes you just posted. Read up on that slave interview project a bit more. When was it conducted, and who were they talking to? Were they talking to the air, in a stream-of-consiousness, and just happened to have been eavesdropped on by a recording studio? Read (or better yet, listen. The transcriber who decided to write everything the ex-slaves said foh’inettiklee was an idiot) the interviews again, and notice how oddly forced their praise of slavery was. Just mull over the context of the entire project a bit more, then see if you still think its wise to take those interviews at face value. Many of the people interviewed had nothing good to say about their masters. Some described them as cruel. There are desriptions of horrible attrocities perpetrated on other human beings. People beaten, limbs cut off, rapes, children allowed to starve. So, just which interviews do you suggest I don’t take at face value ? Do we take the horror stories at face value and discount those who speak of happy moments ? At any rate, the point of all this is that Mammy was based on real people. It was said here many times that she was just an imagined object of white people. Whether the stories can be taken at face value is not the point in this debate. It is actually the photos of very Mammy like characters that prove the point. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Niceguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mr.Niceguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Niceguy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/55 "2004-10-14T19:55:22Z")
> [@pizzabrat](#): > > Hey, **Rubystreak** , are you reading this? You think those people **Mr.Niceguy** quoted were [“reclaiming the term ‘nigger’”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=274769&page=2&pp=50)? > Anyway, **Mr.Niceguy** , try to think a teensy bit harder about those quotes you just posted. Read up on that slave interview project a bit more. When was it conducted, and who were they talking to? Were they talking to the air, in a stream-of-consiousness, and just happened to have been eavesdropped on by a recording studio? Read (or better yet, listen. The transcriber who decided to write everything the ex-slaves said foh’inettiklee was an idiot) the interviews again, and notice how oddly forced their praise of slavery was. Just mull over the context of the entire project a bit more, then see if you still think its wise to take those interviews at face value. **Pizzabrat** , I took your advice and did some more checking on the Federal Writers project from 1936 to 1938. These studies and their on line contnent are regerded as definitive and exemplary. They are very thourough and well documented. Can you elaborate on any reason to discount anything contained in the cite ? Here is a cite dealing with the evaluation of online information. The Federal Writers Project archives are the hishest rated site. They are rated exemplary: > [@](#): > > This site features approximately 2,900 life histories, both in transcribed and image form, collected from 1936-1940. The documents represent the work of more than 300 writers from the Federal Writers’ Project of the U.S. Work Projects Administration. The histories appear as drafts and revisions, in various formats, from narrative to dialogue, report to case history. Topics include the informant’s family, education, income, occupation, political views, religion and mores, medical needs, and diet, as well as observations on society and culture. Interviewers often substituted pseudonyms for names of individuals and places. [http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/oral/online.html](http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/oral/online.html) ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/56 "2004-10-14T20:32:10Z")
> [@Mr.Niceguy](#): > > **Pizzabrat** , > > I took your advice and did some more checking on the Federal Writers project from 1936 to 1938. These studies and their on line contnent are regerded as definitive and exemplary. They are very thourough and well documented. Can you elaborate on any reason to discount anything contained in the cite ? > > Here is a cite dealing with the evaluation of online information. The Federal Writers Project archives are the hishest rated site. They are rated exemplary: > > [Oral History Online](http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/oral/online.html) I wasn’t doubting the esteem of the project itself, I was just asking you to consider the context. You provided a quote from an ex-slave - a person _actually born into slavery_, a life where she was forced by threat of violence and death to serve and revere whites, and like it, from birth until about thirty - who lives in _Mobile, Alabama_, an ex-slave state, and a state where she can still be arrested for sitting, eating, or peeing where white people sit eat or pee for about the next twenty years, and then make no attempt the question why she might be telling her white interviewer that she enjoyed serving whites other than that those were her genuine feelings. And maybe those were her genuine thoughts, but basic critical thinking skills and a high school grasp of US history should tell you not to jump to that conclusion right away. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Niceguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mr.Niceguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Niceguy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/57 "2004-10-14T20:49:34Z")
> [@pizzabrat](#): > > I wasn’t doubting the esteem of the project itself, I was just asking you to consider the context. You provided a quote from an ex-slave - a person _actually born into slavery_, a life where she was forced by threat of violence and death to serve and revere whites, and like it, from birth until about thirty - who lives in _Mobile, Alabama_, an ex-slave state, and a state where she can still be arrested for sitting, eating, or peeing where white people sit eat or pee for about the next twenty years, and then make no attempt the question why she might be telling her white interviewer that she enjoyed serving whites other than that those were her genuine feelings. And maybe those were her genuine thoughts, but basic critical thinking skills and a high school grasp of US history should tell you not to jump to that conclusion right away. Again, I say that many of the people interviewed expressed great contempt for their white counter parts. Critical thinking skills ? Sure, those are the skills that help me understand that out of all these hundreds of interviews there is at least a shred of credibility to the hundreds of people who said they had good feelings towards their white owners. Consider the interviews where it was stated that one white master was cruel but another was a good man and in the same breath uttering that one particular white person was mean while expressing that she had great love for another. Critical thinking indeed. While some of these people may have veiled their true feelings, critical thinking reveals that others were simply telling the truth. What about the story quoted where after emancipation the white plantation master gave the newly freed blacks all of the beginings of a farm ? Gave them hogs, chickens, seed corn, cotton seed etc. Do you really think this person would be veiling her true feelings about what surely must have been seen as an extrodinary deed for her family ? Perspective. It is all in perspective. The entire spectrum of human emotion is displayed in these interviews and choose to discount only one: happiness. I am sure you embrace the sadness and contempt, but the thought of anyone that may have experienced even a resemblence of happiness escapes you. Try a little critical thinking of your own. ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/58 "2004-10-14T22:06:12Z")
Okay, now you’re just talking past me, as I don’t see what your last post has to do with anything. But why should a dim-witted woman who has decided to dedicate her life to people who don’t even respect her be celebrated on mass-produced food products. That’s not a warm, reassuring image - that’s a sad, depressing image. Nobody wants that on their pancake syrup. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Niceguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mr.Niceguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Niceguy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/59 "2004-10-14T22:22:41Z")
> [@pizzabrat](#): > > Okay, now you’re just talking past me, as I don’t see what your last post has to do with anything. > > But why should a dim-witted woman who has decided to dedicate her life to people who don’t even respect her be celebrated on mass-produced food products. That’s not a warm, reassuring image - that’s a sad, depressing image. Nobody wants that on their pancake syrup. My last post addresses your implication that the interviews can’t be taken at face value. Your suggestion that critical thinking should discount any claim of positive feelings expressed when in reality critical thinking results in the conclusion that the feelings expressed can not and should not be discounted. Aside from that, Mammy is a caricature based on real people. I am refuting the claims that she was just a fake caricature of what white people thought a black servant should look like and how they should act and think. The caricature of Mammy is an accurate depiction of what history shows was the normal dress, duty and attitude of the real people that mammy was modeled after. Mammy was not imagined. She was real. That is all I am getting at. She is as real as “soccer moms” and “Joe six pack”. These are all caricatures of real segments of people. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2004, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723/60 "2004-10-14T22:25:09Z")
I don’t find it very offensive because such images were from a bygone era by the time I was born. I see those images from time to time in antique stores and I can understand why they’d be offensive. My usual thought is “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe they could get away with this kind of stuff.” As a child it never occured to me that Aunt Jermima or other such images were negative. As an adult I know a bit different though I’m still not offended by Uncle Ben. Marc [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-offensive-is-the-mammy-stereotype/268723.md?page=4)