Examining Race through Motherhood
Mother: A mother is the female parent of a child. Mothers are women who inhabit or perform the role of bearing some relation to their children, who may or may not be their biological offspring.
Why Mothers Matter?
It matters because while motherhood is so intense and so intimate, it is also wildly universal; after all, even if we’ve not all given birth, we have all been born. Motherhood is, in this very simple way, naturally inclusive, which is why it’s all the more important to make sure that the books on the subject are too. For the more perspectives we read, the more empathy we might have towards mothers of all backgrounds, all colors. The more we might even come to understand what this immense, magnificent thing called motherhood really is.
- Huma Qureshi, Writer
Motherhood, the joys, the pains, the life-changing moments, the nightly-feedings, the running around, the wiping of tears, the long talks, the cuddles, the raising of a human being; becoming a new mother is one of the most profound experiences a woman can have. As you plan, prepare, or get tossed into motherhood, you start to realize the importance, commitment, and the fact that it is an indescribable learning experience about yourself, the world, and the role of being a guide. As I have watched friends become mothers and desire to become mothers, the one thing for sure is that no one knows what to expect when it happens. On television and social media, you think that becoming a mother will make you unique, filled with love, and fulfilled but, the reality that I learned when it happened to me is that everyone felt to some degree like they got hit by a bus. The dreams of what motherhood will look like and the actual day in and day out that women face is shocking, leaving many women to question themselves if they are doing the right thing, if they should have become a mother, or who they are now.
The shock of motherhood is brushed over in society with people saying that delivery is not that bad or painful, you will feel instant love once the baby arrives, it is not about you now, and of course, you should hurry to have another one. This lack of acknowledgment has silenced many women until recently. Women are now getting comfortable with discussing and exploring the truths of becoming a mother.
As talks have increased among women, Black women are left out of the conversation for various reasons. This month, I am choosing to focus on black women for several reasons; it’s Black History Month, Black women face high maternal death rates, Black women in history have experienced the most conflicted association with motherhood, and to hear a different perspective on motherhood.
As I prepared for this month’s interview, I thought about how unique every woman’s journey to motherhood is from getting pregnant, giving birth, adopting, or another avenue. During this unique journey to motherhood, Black mothers have additional social layers placed upon them. To explore these layers, I reached out to Tomi Akitunde, an award-winning journalist, content creator, and the founder and editor-in-chief of Mater Mea, an online community for Black mothers and women on the journey to Black motherhood. Ms. Akitunde showcases the full spectrum of Black women’s journey to motherhood and the complex issues they face placed in a refreshing format on Mater Mea.
Black Motherhood
When you hear the term “Black Motherhood,” it often has negative connotations in American society. Even if you Google the phrase, you get information about the Black maternal death rate, Black motherhood’s grief, and a legacy of poor outcomes. The history of Black motherhood in America has been emotionally arduous from the beginning of slavery when a Black woman’s newborn child could be ripped away from her shortly after birth, and in modern-day America shot and killed as a young child.
My Conversation with Tomi Akitunde
What makes being a mother and Black different than being a white mother?
“You do not have to go far to see beautiful pictures of Black women with their families and black moms talking about juggling work, life, and mothering. Mater Mea’s audience is invested in conversations around intentional parenting, mindful parenting, conscientious parenting, and ending generational trauma through their own parenting tactics.
Generational traumas exist in everyone’s family, and to get the necessary support when you go into these spaces that are focused on intentional or conscious parenting, you might not see a lot of Black people in that space. It may make you think that these are conversations that are not happening in the Black community, but they are.
I think about the conversation I had with Dr. Stacey Patton, who is a children’s advocate and wrote a book about the use of corporal punishment in the Black community, and something she said that sticks with me every time I think about this question is, What would Black Parenting look like without the specter of white violence?
What would Black Parenting look like without the knowledge of white supremacy effects on every aspect of life? She said something to the effect that in black families, black women were not their children’s mothers until quite recently like it is a recent phenomenon, that’s the history of America and enslavement. Black people were chattel and not seen as people. They were property.
And so, the children that were being born were equipment. Black women’s children were not afforded humanity. Then you get into reconstruction. You have the sharecropping system where you know you are having children work a farm, and fear Jim Crow and racialized violence. It is hard to separate your experience as a Black parent in this country with the understanding that white supremacy is in the educational system and it's why Black children are disciplined more frequently than their white counterparts for making mistakes or viewed as being disruptive when someone else might be viewed as free-spirited or high-energy. It is read as disrespectful or violent. It is always having that kind of double consciousness that your child is not seen as a child. I was speaking to a friend recently who does a lot of work addressing police violence and offers supports to the families affected by police violence, and she told me a story of a black boy who was shot in Mississippi, thankfully he survived the shooting but, he was 14 years old and the police officer identified him as a man, and it’s the same thing that happened with Tamir Rice a 12-year-old playing with a toy gun in a park. I do not believe that a white boy would be killed after playing with a toy gun in a park. I do not think that it is a stretch given what we saw with the insurrection.
I say that Black people are America’s foremost historians because of this history; this knowledge is at the forefront of all the choices you make as a mother. So, while Black mothers have the same concerns as other mothers, like, is my baby hitting their milestones? There is an added layer of racialized trauma from being in a white supremacist country that I know black moms wish they didn’t have to think about but, they do not have that luxury.”
As I did my own research about Black motherhood preparing to speak with Ms. Akitunde, I found that from Wikipedia to top university research journals, Black women and mothers are often characterized as being strong and having to fight for what is right to keep their families together and going. In the recent racial riots of 2020 and on the cover of the July 2020 Rolling Stones magazine, Black women are defined as leading the charge against racial injustice. I asked Ms. Akitunde if this vigilance is needed.
Do you think Black mothers have to be vigilant about raising their children, or should they relax more?
“I think that vigilance is a learned response. If we did not need to be vigilant, we wouldn’t be vigilant. It’s something that we have passed down as a survival tactic for generations.”
Akitunde simple response about the need for vigilance is echoed by many. This generational trauma and need for vigilance is explained in author Nefertiti Austin’s book called Motherhood So White, where she notes, “Our kids are perceived as behavioral problems. They are considered aggressive, but their white counterpart is considered rambunctious. And our girls are sexualized at an early age. They are thought to have attitudes. But if another girl, a white girl, says the same thing or responds in a like manner, it’s, ‘Oh well, she was annoyed,’ or it’s excused. And so many of our actions have a negative attachment to it that isn’t our doing. Then we’re stuck with having to explain, ‘Well, this is how the person was feeling or this is why they responded in that way.’ It’s like I feel like we spend so much time explaining, ‘Oh, this is how I felt. This is what I was thinking,’ because it is assumed that I’m coming from a negative place just because my skin is black.”
This vigilance Black mothers have is not only for protecting their children but also themselves. Accord to Mothers as ‘trauma surgeons:’ the anguish of raising black boys in America, an article on Reuters online, Black mothers are also often stereotyped as deficient and pathological, leading many to feel like they are not only parenting under a microscope, but they are also falling short as parents.
Although many parents in 2020 experienced the pressures of talking about racism, Black families had to confront and reexamine this ongoing burdensome subject on a different level when people in America and around the world jumped on the bandwagon to engross themselves into learning what it meant to be Black. I asked Akitunde how she would suggest people talk to their children about race.
How would you talk to children about race and are books the answers to learning about race?
“I am originally from Kansas City, Missouri, and went to a majority-Black elementary, middle, and high school. We had a mandatory Black history class, and I always felt once I left my high school and went to college, which are predominantly white institutions, I felt my high school classmates were just more knowledgeable because of the Black history class, but the older that I got, the more I realized that it had everything to do with the fact that they were socialized around Black people. They have Black people as friends and that a Black person was not a stereotype for them or a theoretical idea of a Black person like, oh I’ve seen that on TV or oh I’ve seen that on Tik Tok, they knew Black people.
And so, I think this rush to buy books is like a super capitalist solution. These books skyrocketed to the top of a New York Times bestseller list, but we are still having the same conversation that we did before George Floyd. The margins in which the Democrats are in power are incredibly slim. If it were that easy, it would have been fixed by now.
So, I think that there is a level of education necessary, but you still have this very American idea of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, and we all have the same choices and opportunities. That’s where education comes in, making it necessary to understand redlining, housing covenants, and loan rates, and all those things.
A big part of this is the socialization element. I have been in so many weddings where I was the only Black bridesmaid, or I’ve been to many parties and events where I’m the only Black person. There’s a level of discomfort that non-Black people have with you as a Black person. Instead of diversifying their life and reckoning with what it means that they live in a predominantly white neighborhood and send their kids to predominantly white schools; they balk at the idea of putting their kids in a public school system that would have them in the minority. They can understand all these concepts in a book but, when you ask people to make choices that reflect these politics that they agree with it's like … So how about White Fragility? Can I count that as doing the work?”
Race and Racism
“I’ve had to make the distinction between race and racism. There is a tendency to conflict the two. We can talk about being Black, which does not mean that we need to have a Negro spiritual playing in the background. I’m trying to say the Black History Month version of Blackness where it was like, you know, slave men and Jim Crow and everything is terrible and were being killed. That is very negative. That is very ugly that makes you feel yucky on the inside. You can talk about race in a way that celebratory. Like, oh, look how fly we are, look how we are culture shapers, and this is happening, and that is happening and look at our magic. Look what we do to counteract the experience of racism.
When I was growing up, I started reading early, and I would read Jet, my parents’ old Jet magazines, and Ebony and The KKK was my boogeyman. Like I knew those stories and the racist traumatic stuff that was happening in this country. And that’s what I knew about Blackness. I did not know the fun stuff, the things worth celebrating, the things that would make me proud to be Black. I knew that people would not like me because of my skin color, but I didn’t know that the color of my skin was okay.
I think a big part for Black parents talking about race versus racism is making that distinction processing your own feelings about race and racism so that you don’t unintentionally pass on that kind of trauma to your kids; so that they can have their own experiences separate from the ones that you’ve had. I think it’s being a safe space for your kids to come to you to say, someone said that they didn’t want to play with me today because I’m brown, and instead of being like, you know what, let me get my shoes to go over to that school and talk to some people.
Ask them how did that make you feel? And why did you feel that way? Addressing your kids’ feelings first and then pointing out what might help and saying sometimes people feel this way about people who look like us, but we are not the problem. They are the problem, their ignorance is the problem, and what can you do to feel good about yourself if that happens again — advocating for your kids by teaching them how to advocate for themselves.”
Join Mater Mea
To find out more about Tomi Akitunde and to become part of the Mater Mea community go to www.matermea.com
