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Racism and the Image of GodSurrogacy and Survival: Delores S. Williams

Racism and the Image of God: Surrogacy and Survival: Delores S. Williams [Motherhood is fraught with expectations and stereotypes in the United States. Despite the positive historical association of strong nurturing abilities with black mothers, contemporary U.S. society and culture often vilifies African American women; movies, television, and music portray them as wantonly sexual. For example, national discussion about welfare policy has been highly racialized.1 Although more white families depend on welfare than black families, and the number of black teenagers on welfare is tiny, the stereotypical welfare mother has long been an irresponsible black teenager. Media coverage of welfare has declined and become less racialized in recent years, but it remains true that “when white Americans think about welfare, they are likely to think about black Americans.”2 Given the widespread negative stereotypes about welfare, this tendency reinforces negative stereotypes of black women. The assumption that poverty and laziness go together endures. White culture considers middle-class or wealthy women who stay home to raise children to be heroic, yet poor mothers who exercise this option, willingly or otherwise, risk being labeled lazy or worse, especially if they happen to be black. So much rhetoric swirls around black mothers that the reality that most are devoted, loving, hardworking parents—bearing responsibilities similar to and at least as weighty as those of most white mothers—can be obscured from white view.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

Racism and the Image of GodSurrogacy and Survival: Delores S. Williams

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan US
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2010
ISBN
978-1-349-38429-7
Pages
77 –98
DOI
10.1057/9780230114715_5
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Motherhood is fraught with expectations and stereotypes in the United States. Despite the positive historical association of strong nurturing abilities with black mothers, contemporary U.S. society and culture often vilifies African American women; movies, television, and music portray them as wantonly sexual. For example, national discussion about welfare policy has been highly racialized.1 Although more white families depend on welfare than black families, and the number of black teenagers on welfare is tiny, the stereotypical welfare mother has long been an irresponsible black teenager. Media coverage of welfare has declined and become less racialized in recent years, but it remains true that “when white Americans think about welfare, they are likely to think about black Americans.”2 Given the widespread negative stereotypes about welfare, this tendency reinforces negative stereotypes of black women. The assumption that poverty and laziness go together endures. White culture considers middle-class or wealthy women who stay home to raise children to be heroic, yet poor mothers who exercise this option, willingly or otherwise, risk being labeled lazy or worse, especially if they happen to be black. So much rhetoric swirls around black mothers that the reality that most are devoted, loving, hardworking parents—bearing responsibilities similar to and at least as weighty as those of most white mothers—can be obscured from white view.]

Published: Nov 5, 2015

Keywords: Black Woman; African American Woman; Black People; Korean Woman; White People

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