Unsung Warriors - Black Women
The most disrespected person in America is
the Black woman. The most un-protected person in America is the Black woman.
The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.
Black women are often not considered normal, typical, or worthy
of our attention. Because of the misperceptions, misrepresentations,
stereotypes, and outright racialized sexism, they are least likely to be
viewed as worthy of our attention. They are, therefore, "often overlooked
when we discuss racism and sexism; even then, they are most likely to be
discriminated against. (Coles
and Pasek 2020) In many ways, Black women are the epitome of what can only
be termed "Unsung Warriors."
Warrick Dunn
constantly praises his late mother, Betty Smothers, a single mother who worked
as a police officer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to raise six children. But
unfortunately, her life was cut short on January 7, 1993, when two robbers
ambushed her while she was working off-duty to escort a businesswoman to make a
night deposit. And at 18, Dunn was left to raise his five younger siblings. In
1997 Warrick Dunn signed a multimillion-dollar contract to play professional
football with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but he never forgot the mother who got
him there.
Mothers like Betty Smothers are not some rare breed but part
of the success stories of millions of kids. Kids without these unsung warriors
would not have had a chance. It is no accident that Black mothers have been
forced to bear the brunt of parenting from the beginning of the African's
presence in America as the Black family and black men have been constantly
attacked. The system of slavery required slaves, and it was created to break
the spirit, the foundation, and the community of the Africans. And while the
Africans were enslaved, the family distorted, and the community displaced -they
never became a slave, the family survived, and the community endured. Through all
these assaults, one figure -the Black matriarch stands tall. She provided the
spiritual glue, the grit, and the love that uplifted the child and the man,
encouraged the community, and sustained the family.
Jacqueline Jones (1982) recounts the story told
by Zora
Neale Hurston by her grandmother. "Ah was born back due in slavery,"
Nanny tells her granddaughter, "so it wasn't for me to fulfill my dreams
of whut a woman oughta be and to do." Nanna consistently articulated her
desires to be a good mother, love her family, and endure. She never embraced
nor denied the harsh realities of slavery and being denigrated. "Ah didn't
want to be used for a work-ox and a brood-sow, and Ah didn't want mah daughter
used dat way neigher. It sho wasn't mah will for things to happen like they did".
She persisted and held on to her faith silently while wearing the bondage of
slavery. "Ah wanted to preach a great sermon about colored women sittin'
on high, but they weren't no pulpit for me." (Hurston, 1938:31-32 quoted
by Jones 1982). So while outwardly, the enslaved Black woman was a fieldworker
with her head held down, she was a rebellious servant, physically powerful, and
a devoted mother and wife. (Jones ibid)
The myth of Black women being docile, controlled, and always
smiling is one of the most prevailing myths within the racial state. Such ideas
are comforting and do not challenge the presumed liberalness of some Whites. To
preserve this myth, Blacks are punished when they are not "kind and nice."
Therefore to preserve White comfort, Blacks must conform. Hence was born, and
still maintained, the Mammy. (Thompson 2020)
As pointed out by Patricia Hill Collins, the Mammy is one of
several "controlling images" that help maintain the racial order.
These controlling images reflect socially constructed myths of Black womanhood
that originated in slavery. Thus, the Mammy, Jezebel, Saphire, and the welfare
mother were all created to control how Black women were perceived within
western institutions. The Mammy is often depicted as a heavyset Black female
maid who is overly loyal to their White masters. We have the Sapphire, who is
the standard angry black woman. And, of course, Jezebel, who has an insatiable
need for sex. These images have been part of our stylized imagination for over
a hundred years. The first Mammy appears as Aunt Chloe in Uncle tom's Cabin
(1852). It is in the almost hundred-year history of the recently retired Aunt
Jemima. She was embraced in songs like "Mammy's Little Coal black rose
(1916), which resulted in the first Black woman, Hattie Mcdaniel, receiving an
Oscar in her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939). Mammy is most
recently portrayed in the Help (2011). (Thompson 2020)
Select enslaved Black men were often forced to have sex with multiple
Black women, much like the breeding of animals, to produce prized slaves. Sex
was, therefore, a reward to those Black men and women deemed worthy of such
rewards. But, like other animal stock, the fathers were not needed and were
often sold as quickly as the pregnancies were confirmed. Black men, therefore,
became disposable in this system. (Davis citing Clarke 1971) Although
discarded, that did not mean that Black fathers and mothers did not do their
utmost to preserve contact. Records demonstrate that one of the most pressing
needs of Black mothers and fathers during reconstruction was to reconstruct
their families. (see, for example, Williams, 2012) Records also indicate that
absent this, the extended family of grandparents (mothers and fathers) and a
whole system of what has been called "fictive kinship" came into
being to preserve and maintain fully functioning families in the Black
community. The system survived
reconstruction but was almost immediately under attack in the next wave of
anti-black racism. Even today, the myth of a matriarchal Black family and the
domineering Black woman survives.
Ironically, this iconic figure has historically and in
contemporary times been criticized and shamed for being a very strong
warrior. In the past, she has been many
things from Mammy, Jezebel, and Safire. However, more recently, she has been
labeled the welfare queen, the domineering matriarch driving off the black man,
or simply the black angry bitch. These terms and designations are part of the
anti-black response to the 'Black WarriorQueens' success, courage, and
deliberate refusal to accept defeat for herself, her kids, and her family. We
must redeem the black matriarch from the historical myths of being the center
of our oppression. According to Moynihan et al., the African woman embraced her
oppression while denouncing the Black man. The depiction infers that the Black
mother collaborated with the enslaver class.
On the contrary, one of the chief tactics of the slavocracy was to
promote Black family formation as a means of increasing the profits of the
slaveholder (Davis 1971)
The next wave of anti-black racism, under the guise of
uplift and welfare, again targeted the Black family and the relationship
between Black parents and their children. Under the welfare system, the
presence of a Black man in the family meant either reduced or no subsidy
payment. Therefore, in a strange game of hide and seek, Black men were
noticeably absent when the social worker came to check on the family. These
Black men who were also being denied jobs and careers in a white-male-dominated
labor force became easy targets for the increasingly hostile, militarized
industrialized penal system that came into being. The cradle-to-prison
pipeline, fueled by a fierce war on drugs and crime, targeting Black men meant
that the prisons across America were soon filled with Black men, while in the
community, Black women were forced to take on both the roles of mother and
father.
As Black women stepped forward to preserve the family and
community and support her imprisoned partner -she was further vilified as the welfare
queen. The Black welfare queen, who chased her man away, had multiple babies by
multiple men to increase government subsidies. All the while, this mythological
welfare queen refused to work but continued to have unprotected sex producing
6,7, or 12 children. In the billions of dollars, the scam of the welfare system
is not the result of the "welfare queen" but doctors, lawyers, and
insurance companies. The "welfare queen" does not exist; she was a
myth created by politicians such as Ronald Reagan and the crazed drug dealers
for political gain.
Hip-hop has served to reinforce these narratives,
particularly the Jezebel and Sapphire. We see the overly sexualized Black
female in the most recent Super Bowl show of, Rihanna as her lead song was "Bitch
better have my money." As in the past, some Black feminists have long questioned
the song and her performance. And while some recognized that the performance legitimated
people engaged in "sex work and trade," they do not reflect the
authenticity of Black women. (Mock 2013) Others have argued that Rihanna glorified
violence against black women and gave vent to the "kidnapped female"
troupe. A third analysis suggests that Rihanna's work is situated within audre'Lorde's
theory of the practice of eroticism. Accordingly, Lorde (1978) asserts that the
erotic is "a source of power and information within our lives." (Lorde
quoted by Keigan, 2016). The debate lingers, but what is clear -the image of
the Black Jezebel is alive and well in America. What is clear is that these images,
while representing the lives of single women, do not represent the lives of
others. And even though Rihanna might embrace the sexual and the erotic in her
life and music, others have not adopted or, according to some, legitimized
their victimization, exploitation, and abuse.
Hip-hop, evolving in the early 1970s by Black and Latino
youth, began as a statement of protest, and culture has become saturated with
sex, violence, and drugs. Or as Hip-Hop artist Lauren Hill (1998)
observes, "started out in the heart. . . Now everybody tryin' to chart".
HipHop groups such as Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" (1989), N.W.A.'s
F Tha Police (1988), Queen Latifa (1993), U.N.I.T.Y., or TuPac 1992 Changed -a
strong message challenging institutional racism, police misconduct, and oppressive
poverty prevail. But soon after rocking our world, Hip-Hop swerved deeply into
the erotic, the sexual, and the violent as LLCool J talks about feeling "kind
of horny" and wanty to "Blow your socks off, make sure your G spots
off" in his 1995 track "Doin It. Or more recently in Kanye West's
2005 single "gold Digger" where he stereotypes women as only wanting
him for his money. This is followed by G-Easy's 2017 single "No Limit"
which describes black women as only engaging in sex for money, gifts, and other
objects of value. These activities are only legitimized by female artists such
as Cardi B in her top-selling song "No Limit" where she raps about
only engaging in sex for money. And so, while Rihana might be celebrated for
her endurance and authenticity, others see it as a justification for Chris
Brown's victimization and assault and helps preserve the patriarchal
exploitation of black women. (Crumpton 2020)
Today, the leading cause of the racial feminization of
poverty is systemic racism. Systemically, racial feminization is directly
associated with the over-criminalization of Black parents, the racial wealth gap, and a patriarchal system
that rewards males while penalizing females for bearing children. Systemic
racism accounts for the U.S. being ranked 34th on the list of 35 developed
countries when measuring the well-being of its children. (U.N.C.E.F. 2012)
A 2021 Sentencing Project report
concluded that Blacks at the national and state levels were significantly more
likely to be incarcerated than their White peers. Specifically, at the federal
level, Blacks were incarcerated at 1240 per 100,000 compared to 261
per 100,000 for Whites. (The
Sentencing Project 2021) The Bureau of Justice statistics (2016)
documents that 47 percent of state inmates and 58 percent of those at the
federal level had at least one minor child. The report also documented that in
12 states, over 50 percent of the prison population was Black. Race-gender
interactions also demonstrate that Black males were most likely to be fathers.
About 3 in 5 Black males (64%) and Hispanic males (64%), compared to 3 in 10
White males (34%), were fathers of minor children. This compares to about 3 in
5 White (60%) and Hispanic (62 %), close to 1 in 2 Black (50%) females.
Source: Out of Prison & Out of Work | Prison Policy Initiative
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