Black Mama Love
"An overwhelming majority of black folks will testify that they were first loved by a black woman. In African-American life, black women have been love's practitioner's. Amazingly, despite how easy it would have been or would be for black women to give up on love given the adversity we have had to confront on these shores, many of us have held to our hope in love because we believe in love's power to heal and renew, to reconcile and transform. It has not been easy for black women to maintain faith in love in a society that has systematically devalued our bodies and our beings. When we look back at the history of black women, from slavery to the present day, we see ourselves represented first and foremost as inferior beasts of burden, compelled by circumstance to serve the needs of others."
Today as we progress into the new millenium and attempt to believe that times have advanced where as black people, we are at a different point in time, in history, and awareness, reality jets us back to a place where we must recognize that still, after the decades since slavery, black women in general, and black mothers, in particular, remain at the bottom of the totem pole generally when we examine the ways in which we acknowledge, support and revere black motherhood.
As public caricatures, the black mother is usually of superhuman resiliency, one who has dominion over the household-- usually without male support--and is the comfort zone for the family without any really need for a zone of her own to collapse in. If she is not personified by the mammy image-- large, happy and non-sexual seeming a la Soul Food-- than she is ultra stern yet ultra beautiful and sleek model-type as personified by the Clair Huxtable character on the Cosby Show who is a prime-time superhuman-- mothering five children, running a legal practice, and remaining fresh and beautiful every day as she keeps her family in check. These are the woman that serve as examples of "real" mothering as we are given the option of either sacraficing everything for our children and becoming home-based, prim and proper beings or become unrelentless superhuman prototypes where if you maintain the super-job and your fantastic looks you will keep in place the perfect family-- complete with husband and child-- that will adore you forever and ever.
Among those of us who believe that we have stepped outside of the sterotype and created our own realistic measure, we still, from time to time, are confronted with the pressure of being more, giving more and accepting more in order to keep the peace and maintain our homes. How many of us consider at some point what it would feel like to just stop and exhale and run away from the pressure of maintaining this image of responsibility and retreat into a world where we can just be? I know I have. And, I recognize that it is in large part related to the fact that as a woman, and more specifically, a black woman, I hold on my shoulders the responsibility of not just my life and the care of my young daughter, but I hold on my shoulders the responsibility of the image that represents black motherhood.
Though my words defy it and my mind has examined it, my actions revere this unrealistic expectation that black women must be in either of the beforementioned categories. Because I consider myself too self-aware and sexually independent to be the mammy-image, I have fallen prey to this need to turn to Clair Huxtable-- become Clair Huxtable of the new millenium-- as proof that I am capable, worthy and on top of it. Raising a child, finishing school and holding a job isn't enough...those of us who are Clair Huxtable wanna-be's can't stop at simply being appreciative that we are raising our children safely and competently, we have to prove that we are also phenoms in the boardroom and the bedroom and worthy of simple acknowledgement from those around us. We recognize that the burden of parenting falls on our shoulders anyway, regardless of how "helpful" our partners/child's father/husband, etc. are, so we take the job seriously and almost manically, making sure that no paths have been untreaded as we stomp as able workhorses.
But how do we collapse, and where do we collapse when it becomes too much? What happens to those of us who are not able to conform so easily into one of the two "acceptable" areas of black motherhood? Because we have so few support systems created for and by ourselves that are truly open to all of us, those of us who don't conform are simply left by the wayside and considered to be anomalies by us. "She was on drugs," we whisper or "She is such a ho", we report when we acknowledge someone who has stepped outside the stereotype by either falling apart or deviating from the norm. Because, at the core, we are non-accepting of the varying dimensions of we are, when faced with a sister who defies the categories, we easily fall into "mama mode" and "help" her, creating this caste system of power and support or we demonize her and cast her out because she is not "one of us" anymore.
My belief is that we start, taking infant steps, to recognize in ourselves when we begin to go into "Clair Huxtable" mode and begin to fall into this stereotype of mothering that seeks to define what is and is not acceptable. With all of the challenges that we have already, being parents and women of color, it is heaping another portion of responsibility on our heads when we are forced to live within the stereotype defining parenthood as something that must look like "this" and "this". I am taking my infant steps by acknowledging when it is too much. Having Khari's dad take over while I run away from time to time to become acquainted with who I am again, I gain strength. Asking for help and admitting the need for help weakens my dependence on the Clair Huxtable image of perfection.
Ultimately, I am person with foibles, likes, wants and dislikes who just happens to be a parent. Once we as black mothers accept our right to be multi-dimensional and loved for our flaws and all, I believe that there will be a whole new world, indeed.
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Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_77375_40.html
Keywords: adversity, beasts of burden, bell hooks, black folks, black woman, black women, caricatures, circumstance, comfort zone, contradiction, different point, motherhood, new millenium, overwhelming majority, point in time, resiliency, revere, soul food, time in history, totem pole.
