Defining the
“Black Mammy”
A mammy defined
by Merriam-Webster is a black woman serving as a nurse to white children,
especially formerly in the southern United States. It’s an alternation of
mamma, as the black domestics took the place of raising the white children. The
word Mammy has been associated with a slave woman taking care of white children
for centuries.
There are
various criteria in which a black mammy can be classified as.
1. A
Mammy has a signature wide grin, with large and white shining teeth. This shows
the false happiness that a black domestic truly feels.
2. A
Mammy usually has an obese or robust figure. Her body is usually exaggerated to
be found humorous, because of her extremely large breasts and buttocks. Which
is ironic, because these features on a woman are normally the physical
attributes that attract men.
3. A
Mammy is known to be illiterate, although intelligent in her own sense.
4. The
working atmosphere of a Mammy is less tiring and strenuous than those of other
servants, although her hours were extremely long. Because her hours were so
long, a Mammy had little to no time to spend time at her own leisure, or to
raise her own children back at home.
The
black Mammy has been used for such things as advertisements, even in today’s
society.
Aunt Jemima is an example of the image of a black Mammy being used for advertisement
Aibeleen, one of the main characters in The Help, taking care of a white child.
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