Fictional Mammy roles served the nation as a salve for racism

Evidence

The loyal, loving Mammy in Gone with the Wind, one of the most adored characters in Hollywood history, was played by the actress Hattie McDaniel. “By enjoying her servitude, [Mammy] acts as a healing salve for a nation ruptured by the sins of racism,” political scientist Melissa Harris-Perry explained in a 2011 analysis of the film. McDaniel received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, a first for a Black person. After Hattie McDaniel, Hollywood producers loved to wrap bandanas around dark and hefty mammies in a parade of films in the mid-twentieth century. The stereotype masculinized Black femininity while emphasizing the ultra-femininity of their White counterparts on the screen. Light-skinned Black women saw either exotic or tragic mulattoes on movie screens. These characters failed to be assimilated into White womanhood, and failed to seduce White men. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 886

Categorization

• DEFINE: Mammy characterization is a textbook case of the assimilationist imagination — Black women defined by their devotion to white households, light-skinned figures defined by their failure to reach white womanhood.