HunnyBeeTelltheTruth!

(Betye Saar- The Liberation of Aunt Jemima)

"The Truth about Mammy: Did she really exist?"

Round, Black, Buck Teeth, & Happy- these are thoughts that come to mind when one thinks of the Mammy stereotypes. The Mammy caricature was set in politics & social arenas to perpetuate thoughts that African American women were content and happy as slaves. The Mammy character beard white children as if they were their own, cooked, cleaned, and shuffled to a happy beat, for the masters/employers. They even rested under unlivable conditions singing at night humming all American tunes as happy as they could be.

These women were thoughts of the imagination, placed into society to make Northerners believe slaves were pleased with life in a "simple and controlled" Ante-bellum South.


For years, we have watched the Mammy caricature in movies such as “Imitation of Life”, on Syrup commercials and advertisements, and more presently, on TV shows like the 1990s hit TV show, “Thelma”. While these are the teachings folklore, history, and movies have taught, by digging further, you will notice that there was much more to Mammy than what was told. Historian Catherine Clinton of Queen's University notes in her book entitled, "The Plantation Mistress: Woman’s World in the Old South":


Records do acknowledge the presence of female slaves who served as the “right hand” of plantation mistresses. Yet documents from the planter class during the first fifty years following the American Revolution reveal only a handful of such examples. Not until after Emancipation did black women run white households or occupy in any significant number the special the special positions ascribed to them in folklore and fiction. The Mammy was created by white Southerners to redeem the relationship between black women and white men within slave society in response to the antislavery attack from the North during the ante-bellum period. In the primary records from before the Civil War, hard evidence for its existence simply does not appear.


So who gets the last laugh?

Actress Hattie McDaniel, starred in several movies between the 1930s-40s as the Mammy character. Although portraying such as degrading character on screen, in 1939 she won an Oscar for best supporting actress for “Gone With the Wind”. McDaniel is noted to be the first African American to win an Academy award. When asked about portraying such as character, she opened her mouth, stood straight, and responded, “Why should I complain about making seven thousand dollars a week playing a maid? If I didn’t, I’d be making seven dollars a week actually being one.”


While Ms. McDaniel’s did capitalize on making a fortune doing what other women had to do to make a living for their families, I believe just like the Mammy caricature imaged above, Hattie had the last laugh, and while white faces in the old South laughed at her, she had the shot gun in her left hand ready to point and shoot for the unimaginable- A successful Black Woman!



It's More than important you check this A Different World clip out as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3cGgr-Rz-w

And just because I'm in argument with myself (i.e. comments below) about Hattie McDaniels & if she's a "sell-out" or not....

Quote from Song of the Day -
"When we talk about black maybe
We talk about situations
Of people of color and because you are that color
You endure obstacles and opposition
And not all the time from...from other nationalities
Sometimes it come from your own kind
Or maybe even your own mind
You get judged..you get laughed at..you get looked at wrong
You get sighted for not being strong
The struggle of just being you
The struggle of just being us..black maybe"

Common- U, Black Maybe