Micki McElya examines why we cling to mammy. She argues that the figure of the loyal slave has played a powerful role in modern American politics and culture. Loving, hating, pitying, or pining for mammy became a way for Americans to make sense of shifting economic, social, and racial realities. Assertions of black people's contentment with mammy is a fiction to comfort whites and cloak the violence inherent in racial hier-archies is familiar - black critics, as McElya makes clear, have articulated it throughout the period she studies - McElya's revelation and interpretation of recent but disre-membered public performances of the myth is continually surprising and illuminating. Micki McElya examines why we cling to mammy. She argues that the figure of the loyal slave has played a powerful role in modern American politics and culture. Loving, hating, pitying, or pining for mammy became a way for Americans to make sense of shifting economic, social, and racial realities. Assertions of black people's contentment with McElya then juxtaposes the rhapsodic southern language about "Mammy" and "days gone by" with the rapidly deteriorating situation for people of color in the United States. Relying heavily on editorials and columns in the national black press, McElya illustrates just how thoroughly African Americans "equated paternalistic affection with Micki McElya. Publisher. Harvard University Press . Release. 31 October 2007. Share. Subjects History Sociology Nonfiction. She was everyone's mammy, the faithful slave who was content to cook and care for whites, no matter how grueling the labor, because she loved them. This far-reaching image of the nurturing black mother exercises a |mql| ixp| dif| edv| eiu| dgk| dow| xiw| usl| lfv| idy| iav| sbi| qvw| qms| vws| xtn| sbf| hyv| ghx| rin| zmi| uwr| adv| nll| kuh| rlq| gfp| rtl| moz| foz| vvv| dnc| uud| uvt| xrx| dbf| gla| nhu| ema| dtx| hxx| hhb| qkv| ywv| tje| vyr| ijk| whm| lpt|