African American Mammies

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To begin, a matriarch is a woman who dominates her family, often correlated with mammies. The racial caricature of mammies started in the Antebellum era, it was a black slave woman portrayed as being happy, even overzealous to be a slave. She takes care of the masters kids although she has children of her own that is often neglected. Images of her were often portrayed with a wide smile, overweight, and dark complexion. Catherine Clinton, a professor of American History at the University of Texas stated, “The Mammy was created by white Southerners to redeem the relationship between black women and white men within slave society in response to the anti-slavery attack from the North during the antebellum period.” This stereotype moved to the big …show more content…

These mammies often has their heads covered or wrapped, over religious, irrational, has greasy faces and has an oversized bodley figure such as giant breast. The first mammie to appear in front of an audience was in the 1914 short film, entitled Coon Town Suffragettes a blackface version of “Lysistrata”. That opened the door for actresses like Hattie Mcdaniel known for Gone with the Wind (1939). In our contemporary moment, African American men are taking over the mammy roles. From Martin Lawrence’s “Big Mama” to Tyler Perry’s “Madea”, women have let go of the mammie character. Currently, African American women in pop culture are playing the roles of a matriarchs, such as within the film Claudine (1974) starring Diahann Carroll, and James Earl Jones. A single mother of six kids who clashes with the welfare system as she hides her job as a maid working for a wealthy white family. Which did not make things any better, especially with the claims the Moynihan’s report made about African Americans on welfare. Moynihan’s report also named “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action” was published in 1965 written by Daniel

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