In which our heroine explains to Doctor Who fans about "Mammy" in Britain

[spiralsheep]

http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/125536.html

Comments

[delux_vivens]

*cackles*

Esp #3!

[skywardprodigal]

*snickers*

Yeah.

I like this. But maybe I'm just an unpleasant could-be-white woman if not for the chip.

[delux_vivens]

you have a chip? like spike?! *interested*

[oyceter]

Oh thank you! Getting so irritated by the claims that racism does not exist outside the US!

[spiralsheep]

Srsly. Racism exists everywhere with cultural variations but the cultural variations of how racism manifests in Western societies aren't exactly deeply unfathomable to anyone who has experience of one of those societies if they're prepared to think about it for a few minutes or, y'know, google a few keywords.

Don't thank me yet though. I might've sort of accidentally-on-purpose launched the good ship Cultural Appropriation Debate in Doctor Who fandom yesterday and this'll be the rly fun version with discussion of the appropriation of the historical Atlantic slave trade.

[oyceter]

I might've sort of accidentally-on-purpose launched the good ship Cultural Appropriation Debate in Doctor Who fandom yesterday and this'll be the rly fun version with discussion of the appropriation of the historical Atlantic slave trade.

Fun times and drinks for all?

Seriously, though, I hope people don't get too stupid.... heh.

[spiralsheep]

I have every confidence that the dwellers in the river in Egypt will live down to my expectations. ::puts on flame-proof squee-harshing meanie-pants::

[bri_himself]

Apparently, when my Dad was small, he used to want a Mammy.

No, seriously. :(

[spiralsheep]

When I was child, golliwogs were considered perfectly acceptable dolls (and they're still on sale in Britain now).

I think one of the reasons I loved posh Elizabeth from The Tomorrow People so much was that she embodied all the positive aspects of the Mammy stereotype, e.g. that she was a mother figure and served society as a teacher, but without the negative implications of subservience (or sexlessness... apart from her general 1970s style children's programme girl-cooties). She's a problematic character in some ways, especially viewed through my current set of filters, but she was also a remarkably stereotype re-appropriating character for the 1970s in other ways.

[skywardprodigal]

When my voice teacher was a kid, he and his family would sit around the table cracking 'niggertoes' as an afternoon snack.

[spiralsheep]

And despite 25 years of educators trying to teach the alternative "catch a tiger" version, "Eeny, meeny miney mo, catch a nigger by his toe, if he hollers let him go, eeny meeny miney mo" is still in common usage over here.

I had to google "niggertoes" btw.

[delux_vivens]

The Mammy stereotype of black women certainly exists in Britain although it's often not called that except, of course, when it's called precisely that.

Minor details!!!

[spiralsheep]

Mary Seacole was voted the Greatest Black Briton in 2004 and there was a documentary about her on one of the four main national terrestrial television channels a couple of months ago... and the NHS is one of the most prominent features of contemporary Britain... and yet... all these non-white women are completely invisible to a significant number of white Britons... o_O

::goes back to 1970s skiffy when people of colour were actually acknowledged to exist by dominant white culture::

[skywardprodigal]

Thank you muchly for linking me to this.

*hugs*

[spiralsheep]

::clings::

[skywardprodigal]

*hugs*