Also, some in this very thread have stated that Mammys image is not sad and depressing. Some associate Mammy with a good cook. That is the whole idea to begin with. Do you seriously believe that any company would choose a marketing tool that was know to be sad and depressing ? And what can you tell me about any lack of respect for Mammy ? The reality is that the Mammy types in slave days were generally the most respected people on the plantation. In one of the interviews the Mammy speaks of how much she loved her white folks and how much they trusted her, giving her charge of all the keys to the home. That sound like someone with no respect to you ?
Sorry, I meant sad and depressing to only a specific chunk of the population. It’s warm and reassuring to whites who like to think that these people exist soley to please them, and those are the only people the Aunt Jemima marketers had in mind when they used the old-fashioned logo. Now companies know that their customer base isn’t that limited, so a servile black woman dedicates her life to her white masters doesn’t make an attractive mascot anymore.
I would agree. Fewer people see Mammy as a positive figure now. I am sure there are lots of factors that contribute to this. I wonder when the National Association of Lumber Jacks will start slandering Paul Bunyan. “Hey there are small guys that make good lumber jacks too !! And we don’t use axes anymore either !! Paul Bunyan is just a tool used by those damn tree huggers to keep us lumberjacks down and paint an unfair portrait of us !! I want Paul Bunyan off my can of Baked Beans now !!”
We don’t need a cite to be suspicious.
For what it’s worth, I do not believe that every slave was unhappy and every slaveowner was cruel. I do not believe every slave welcomed anticipation (some regularly thwarted rebellion). I believe some people actually had it much better as slaves than they did as free people.
However, I view those slave narratives with a critical eye. For one thing, most of the interviewees were children when they were enslaved. Child slaves had it much better, on average, than adults. So their memories would tend to be slightly more favorable than those of an older person.
Secondly, as pizzabrat astutely noted, the interviewees were being interviewed by whites. In the Deep South. During Jim Crow. Now, I’m sure those white interviewers were do-gooder types, but imagine how candid you’d be around people who you know have more power than you, and you’re talking to them about the institution that, as far as you’re concerned, these people ran and operated. People who have the power to rally the racist government and extra-government entities (i.e., KKK) in case those “uppity” negroes start complaining. How loose would your tongue be?
In Jim Crow South, black people enjoyed knowing that whites could kill them with virtual impunity. I’ll say it again: How candid would you be in a situation like that?
Finally, all of the ex-slaves were mired in poverty. These interviews were conducted during the Depression, in some of the poorest parts of the country. I learned in a history course I took that the interviewees were given compensation for their time in the form of clothing and food. We’re talking about hungry people with absolutely no political or social power who were offered tangible rewards by representatives of the Oppressor. The very act of charity could affect a person’s “recollection”, especially if this person thought there could be more rewards if he told the interviewer what he believed they wanted to hear.
It’s perfectly valid to think about these factors when reading those slave narratives.
I’d like for you to get some perspective. It would be one thing if mammies during slavery had a choice in the matter. It’s not like Massa went up to slaves and gave them a questionarre on the kinds of jobs they’d like to have. Mammy was Mammy because Massa made her one. And if Mammy wanted to stay out of the hot fields or away from the auctioneer, she had to don that smile, shuck that jive, boil dem potatoes, don that smile, haul that water, rip off the curtains for Missy’s dress, empty dem slop-buckets, don that smile, make dem biscuits, fry up that lard, don that smile, laugh at Massa’s jokes, comfort the crying baby, help Missy get the meal out on the table, don that smile, yell at the field negroes while slipping them some corn bread through the window, empty the slop buckets, wash the house linen, help Old Massa up the stairs while he rambles on about the nigras, don that smile…
It’s called survival, not love.
I like how you give a singular voice to hundreds of thousands of women. There is no “Mammy”. Just like there isn’t a Uncle Tom, Sambo or a Jezebel, or Buck.
You say for yourself that not all Mammies were miserable and unhappy about their lives. Fine. But think how you’d feel if you were Mammy’s child. Not the white kids she spent most of her time raising. But her child. The child that watched snot-nosed white kids call your proud mother “Auntie” because she was deemed unworthy for the proper title. The child who could see the vast gulf between Mama and Mammy. The child who would watch your mother heap praises upon her white kids, but who was only strict and harsh with you, the one who could be sold from her in a hot minute. Why would anyone have a problem with people having a problem with this?
Aren’t all caricatures based on real people? So your point would be…
So a person is automatically prejudiced if they interpret a symbol before doing an interview of the person displaying it? Am I prejudiced if I choose to stay away from a place displaying a noose and a Confederate flag? What about if I go to a foreign country and I see someone angrily burning the American Flag. Should I go up to said person and ask who their anger is directed towards?
** Mr. Niceguy **
She’s a caricature of black women, as I’ve said repeatedly.
What is a “fake” caricature? I’ve already told you that the common depictions of Mammy were purposefully stylized to exaggerate and “uglify” blacks, just like most of the black protrayals in the pre-Jim Crow era. It is a rare thing to see a drawing from those days that showed blacks as dignified, attractive, and human. Most depictions are rather cartoonish. I’ve provided plenty of examples to show you, but you seem to gloss over them in your insistence to prove that “Mammy” is not offensive.
You would like to believe that, wouldn’t you?
For every one stereotypical “Mammy” you can find, there were plenty of other black women who weren’t fat, assexual, grinning from ear to ear, and worshipful of whites, with a red hankerchief on her head. Black women–black people–were just as diverse as any other group. Some might have been happy with their oppression because that was all they knew. That doesn’t make that oppression any less wrong. You seem to think it does.
The only images of black folks that were popularized in the pre-Jim Crow were those showing happy servitude. For some mystifying reason, the presentation of black women that whites seemed to most prefer was that of a self-deprecating clown who only existed to serve them.
The Mammy stereotype and caricature is offensive to many people because it is a symbol of black subjugation. It is not any more complex than that. We are not grappling with astrophysics here!
And Mr. Niceguy, please respond to this hypothetical:
Let’s say there’s a company. The company grows and sells cotton. The company goes by the name “Buck John”. Its logo is of a grinning slave. Looks sort of like this .
Would you find it unreasonable to find this logo offensive?
You said this:
That is not true. Again and again I have posted photographs and interviews that demonstate and depict “Mammy”. Mammy is what the head house woman was traditionally called. She is not a figment of racist ideology. She is a caricature of what black female house servants dressed, looked and acted like. Racist ideology certainly exist but mammy is not part of it. She is a reflection of real people who lived in the past.
Then you posted to a revisionist cite that resulted in this :
Your rhetoric and revisionist cite actually convinced someone that Mammy types didn’t even exist. The spreading of ignorance is not a good thing.
You say it again:
After all the cites, photos, real live interviews with real life people who talk about Mammy, you still deny her existence. That is pretty thick.
Then you flip (or flop):
So which is it ? Were they a figment of imagination or were there real life people after whom she was modeled ?
The women who worked in the house and the kitchen all wore similar things. Yes those other black women didn’t walk around in an apron a doo rag but the Mammy types did. Practically all of them that I can find photos of. It is also a fact that the house servants ate much better than the feild hands so it stands to reason that Mammy was more likely to have a few extra pounds. And I have never attempted to justify the oppression of anyone. You have expressed your disdain with the fact that mammy was depicted with a smile. I only try to point out to you that despite oppression, beleive it or not, lots of these people were happy with their lot in life. It is all written in black and white. If I could go back in time and make them sad for you i would but I can’t. They smiled. I don’t know why they smiled but they did.
People who knew and remembered their Mammy I am sure did not think of her as anything but the person who loved and cared and fed them. The woman who delivered their children and nursed them. I am sure they did not look upon her like you do. It disturbs me that you have such a low opinion of these women who did so much for so many no matter the circumstances under which they were done.
Maybe that’s what it is to you. To me Mammy is a beloved portrait of the best of human and feminine qualities.
Monstro says,
First of all do you have any information that any or all or some of the interviewers were white ? Secondly, the interviewers allowed the use of psuedonyms to avoid backlash. Finally, if you actually take the time to read the damn interviews you will without a doubt find that they are very, very candid documents. When in the same interview an ex slave says “Master John was cruel and beat his niggers and he was never kind to us and his mistress was a wicked woman that I can think of nothing kind to say about but when we was sold to Master Jim he was a kind man and treated us all like his children, we were fed and clothed and given good care and if we were sick the doctor was summoned and medicine bought. Yes sir I did love Master Jim. And his mistress was a wonderful woman…” Where do you get that conclusion from ? Obviously you can not say that a person saying this was not being truthful or was afraid to criticize white people. Read the stuff man.
All I am saying is that Mammy was real. She was a real and nearly omnipresent part of pre and post civil war southerrn US. She can not be dismissed as a figment of imagination. She was a manifestation of real people.
The link goes to a shoe company advertisement that shows a black feild hand looking at a pair of shoes and smiling. It is labeled as racist. No. I don’t get it. Are people not allowed to draw caricatures of black people ? Is there something about black people and shoes ? What about that ad is racist ? What about that ad says “people A are better than people B” Expain please.
I did some more checking and thought you might like to know that the Federal Writers Project did have both white and black interviewers. Pizzabrat’s observation was not so astute. Just making an uniformed assumption.
These are just some of the more notable names on the FWP. There were many more black participants.
I’m ba-a-a-a-ck!
Actually, I was looking at a sack of flour featuring Ms Jemima’s current smiling countenance and remarked to myself that she looked more like an office manager than a cook. It was self-rising flour and I suppose office managers appreciate conveniences like that but I tend to not associate convenience with good food.
Now, on to business. Mr Niceguy, didn’t this one thread allow you a large enough canvas on which you could paint, that you had to start a whole 'nother thread? Refering to John Mace’s earlier comment, my guess is that starting a second thread when the discussion is still going in the first is likely to cause you MORE trouble, but I am not a moderator.
What have we determined? We have seen that people of color are often offended by the Mammy Stereotype, but we have also seen that such people did exist. We know from the records that, while many, MANY slaves were abused beyond “simply” being denied their freedom and being forced to work, some, especially house servants, had fond memories of those days when they were interviewed many years later. Old people often view their youths with rose-colored glasses but we must also recall that, whether you were working for yourself or your owner, while housework back then was tough work, farming was tougher. A truly miserable existence and there was little difference, beyond the whole slavery, lynchings, and beatings thing, between the life of a slave and the life of a white sharecropper. Both were short and brutal but, obviously, slaves had it worse. However, I would be interested in any information about how common murders of slaves by their master were. I mean, a mediocre field hand cost as much as a pretty good new car does today and I can’t imagine many people will wreck their Toyota Altimas on purpose.
The Mammy costume, as seen in many photos, was how slave women dressed. The do-rag protected her from the sun and soaked up her sweat, not because her “hair (was) so nappy it had to be covered,” as you with the face states. Her weight, of course, was a result of increased access to food. And yes, especially in her earliest incarnations she was an offensive caricature, all lips and bugged eyes and pitch black skin, but the clothes and weight were reasonably accurate. As for the “It’s good that I’m a slave. Real good!” smile, yeah, it was a “job requirement.” Unfortunate, but true and with real consequences if the requirement was not met.
Next, a discussion of Uncle Tom’s Cabin as well as, for you folks outside the US because the rest of us have to buy it because the copyright hasn’t expired here like it has in Australia, thank you Mr Eisner, (Do I have two clicks? Yep.)Gone With the Wind. Read these with an eye to the portrayals of Uncle Tom and Mammy. Was your preconception of these characters accurate?
Just for reference.
(taking Mr.Niceguy aside)
Buddy, I know you really aren’t that stupid. You should probably have skipped making that reply.
(wandering off muttering to myself)
Sorry about the other thread dropzone , thought I was kind of hi jacking yours. Doesn’t seem to be going anywhere though.
Help me out with the racist shoe ad. All I see is a black man with a straw hat and a shoe. Now if ol’ masser was over him with a shoe, it would be but don’t black people show up in shoe ads today ?
Taking a look at some of the other caricatures on You with the face’s cite, I see some very racist, out of porportion caricatures. Wonder why one of those wasn’t posted. Some of them are very obvious but the shoe ad doesn’t come across that way for me.
That is patently untrue. You have posted links to photos and interviews that demonstrate women whose dignity, labor and very identities were stolen from them and yet they continued on to do the best that they could with their lives despite the harsh and inhumane conditions they faced from the days of their births until the moments in which they drew their last breaths.
You keep attempting to equate these women with a despicable, racist stereotype built upon these women’s service and emphasizing the worst aspects of their bedraggled appearances and the proud features of their race. These women are not anything more or less than human beings who had every right to hold their heads up and claim their names. They were not “mammy,” that’s a label that has been imposed on them by the ignorant and dehumanizing.
They were no more “mammy” than my dog is Goofy from the Mickey Mouse cartoons.
The people you refer to have over and over again refered to the head house woman of the plantation as “Mammy”. Years after slavery. It may have been wrong and degrading but it was true. It may have been imposed by others, but it was true. It happened. It was sometimes a sorry site but it happened. Mammies existed in great numbers. They had names, real names, just like your moms name probably isn’t mom. I can not agree with you more that these women deserved to hold their heads up and be proud of their service. That is my entire purpose of this argument. There are those who have argued that these women did not even exist. There are those who say that the image of a house “mammy” is pure fiction. It is not. As I have said before, when I think of “mammy” I think of all that is good and maternal and feminine. I think of the strength of the human spirit that these women could still be kind and loving to those who have kept her freedom. I think of the incredible faith in God that they possessed. I apologize for anything I have said that in anyway has marginalized these women. I have nothing but respect for the people upon whose back this nation was built and whose sacrifices and servitude went unrewarded. I did not come here to degrade but to defend the history of the women whom Mammy represents. I have said enough in this debate. My apologies.
dropzone
Mammy was a house servant. How much sun was she planning on getting inside the kitchen? I suspect you are trying to put a more positive spin on Mammy’s headcover than is warranted by fact. There is plenty of evidence that the ruling class of the day absolutely despied the sight of black folk’s hair. Looking at black kinky afro puffs gave the mistresses vapors, I do declare!
Have we all agreed that “Mammy” is a stereotype, not a real person? We have no reason to believe that most house servants looked like this stereotype. Mulatto slaves, for example, were more likely to be embraced as servants than dark-skinned slaves were. How many racially mixed “Mammy” icons are there? Why is it that we always see the tar-baby drawings of black folks with the exaggerated features, but nothing else? The message in these caricature-like depictions is that blacks are the polar opposite of whites. Whites are depicted as dignified humans who experience a wide realm of emotions and thoughts. Blacks are depicted as cartoon characters, who only smile, smile, smile. “Lawdy mercy, I’s happy t’be a slave, yessuh Massah!”
Right. Lots of us are reminded of those consequences when we see that smile. It is not something most people want to think about as they eat their pancakes, you know what I’m sayin’?
(rubbing my forehead in frustration but admiring the fire in this thread’s participants)
TeaElle and you with the face, yes, stereotypes, good or bad, blind us to the actual people we are stereotyping, but a stereotype is, at first, generally based on an actuality. If it happens often enough and enough people see it that general assumptions develop then that actuality becomes a stereotype and people begin to assume that all people who match the stereotype in one or two particulars will match it in its entirety. That is the good ol’ human “pattern matching where there isn’t always a pattern” problem (see any “ghost voices” website for another example).
The original Mammy stereotype was based on real people. By the time it made it into popular entertainment white people who had never seen a black person accepted it as an actuality and all one had to do to trigger the “That’s Mammy!” response was to show a large black woman (or, for that matter, a white man in blackface 
) in that outfit. Cultural shorthand and most of us agree that it has negative conotations but my original point was that not all of those connotations are negative. As Mr.Niceguy said, “when I think of ‘mammy’ I think of all that is good and maternal and feminine. I think of the strength of the human spirit that these women could still be kind and loving to those who have kept her freedom. I think of the incredible faith in God that they possessed.” In addition, and in my ultimately shallow manner, I think of someone who can cook collards so they are good, not like how they are served at my wife’s favorite restaurant.
Mr.Niceguy and I were raised aware of America’s dark history. I cannot speak for him but I am ashamed of it. But for me, in my subconscious, Mammy has lost the negatives of which you speak. She is colorblind. She is not subservient. She does not work for some stereotypical Massa but for herself. And she will “knock me upside the head” if I were to suggest otherwise. Perhaps in my head she has morphed into Big Mama in a do-rag*, but Big Mama is another stereotype and, as you noted, though it is a positive one we should avoid stereotyping people. Amen.
-
- A practical piece of headgear (I’ve been known to wear one, too, but backwards, pirate style
) that, indoors, will keep crap out of your hair when you are cleaning and your hair out of the soup when you are cooking, though I am aware of the stereotypical Missy’s aversion to hair. Anyway, female servants, white or black, free or slave, were usually expected to wear some form of hat.
- A practical piece of headgear (I’ve been known to wear one, too, but backwards, pirate style
Okay, it looks like we need a quick lesson in the “humorous” caricatures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Please note that I am only relating the attitudes of the time. I wish that were obvious but I have seen too many trainwrecks to assume that everybody will expect the best from people here.
“Otherness” was funny. From what I have found over the years there was little if any humor that was based on anything other than how funny people who did not match the WASP norm were. In order to speed the recognition of a person’s otherness visual cues were provided, to whit:
Jewish man - Tall, skinny, hooked nose, and, most telling, spectacles, squinty eyes, and stooped shoulders from poring over accounting books. He is wearing tails because he thinks he’s better than everybody else.
Irish man - Short and bowlegged (probably from rickets caused by malnutrtion during the Potato Famine), pug nose and peg teeth (from congenital syphillis), florid complexion and pugnacious attitude (from too much drink–a stereotype we still have). He wears a vest, coat (probably green), and a bowler hat tipped rakishly and carries a sheleighly.
Irish woman - Short, fat, and bowlegged. She is sweaty and her hair is coming undone. She wears short sleeves on her dress because, as a washerwoman, her arms are usually in soapy water up to the elbows.
Asian of any nationality, male or female - Short with enormous buck teeth and slits for eyes. Skin is a bright, jaundiced yellow. Wears loose “pajamas” and a conical straw hat. The only way you tell male from female is by the hair; men wear theirs in a long braid and women wear theirs loose but under the hat.
Italian man - Short, fat, round, red nose, and a big handlebar moustache. White shirt and colored vest. Usually works as an organ grinder with his monkey. Cartoons used this one well into the 50s.
And, finally, (Mr.Niceguy, please pay attention):
Black man - Pug nose, big pink lips and big white teeth (making for a BIG “watermelon grin” :rolleyes: ), eyes are bugged out making him look psychopathic, skin is shiny black, not brown, with white highlights. Clothes, usually overalls and a shirt, are ragged, feet are bare (which would be why that guy in the ad wants those shoes), and he is wearing a ragged straw hat.
Black woman - Morbidly obese, and otherwise same appearance as the male except not crazy looking. Clothing is a gingham dress, white apron, do-rag. You know, Mammy.
Black child - So black all you can see is her eyes and teeth. The hair is in pigtails but it and the skin blend together because they are simply drawn with a black pen or brush. Ragged dress and bare feet. Always playing without a care in the world.
There are others (see the Katzenjammer Kids for the German stereotypes from 1897 that are STILL IN SYNDICATION! :eek: ) but you get the point. That fellow in the soap ad is a stereotypical black man from that period, just as Mammy is a stereotypical black woman from back then. Unlike the others, for some (many? MOST?) people Mammy has outgrown her stereotypical roots because her qualities were mostly admirable.
However, if you memorize there descriptions I provided and go back in time 100 years you can get a job as a cartoonist. :smack:
Would you be able to smile so fondly upon the image of an obese, sexless, dimwitted white woman who pours her heart out for her adoptive black family and neglects her own?