Mammy Desexualize African American Culture

A mammy, as defined by Mirriam-Webster University, is “a black woman serving as a nurse to white children especially formerly in the southern United States.” However, in modern viewpoints, the title of “Mammy” is considered a racial slur.

According to the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, the Mammy caricature “portrayed an obese, coarse, maternal figure. She had great love for her white "family," but often treated her own family with disdain. Although she had children, sometimes many, she was completely desexualized. She "belonged" to the white family, though it was rarely stated. She had no black friends; the white family was her entire world.” She is also stereotypically uneducated, though good at managing the household and teaching the white children. However, historians Kimberly Wallace-Stevens and Cheryl Thurber argue that this image is a “one dimensional caricature” which “proslavery authors use as a symbol of racial harmony within the slave system”. In other words, most Mammy figures that exist within literature and movies are designed by white Americans to prove that African Americans preferred, rather than detested, being in servitude or enslavement.

Furthermore, the Jim Crow Museum explains how the Mammy concept was carefully constructed to desexualize African American women.. In most stereotypical images, the Mammy is depicted as

As an experienced maid who comes from generations of slaves and housemaids, she takes great pride in her job. She describes her life as “Taking care a white babies,” “along with all the cooking and the cleaning” (Stockett, 7). =, it seems as though Aibileen allows her job to take over her entire life. In order to compensate for a white mothers’ lack of care for her children, Aibileen is shown to be caring to her charges. She refers to Mae Mobley as “my special girl” and “Baby girl”, which shows a maternal affection for her employer’s