By now, you have probably heard about the Baltimore Uprising, unless you’ve been purposely living under rock for the past week or so avoiding the situation. What I discuss here in this blog is a video of a black mother hitting her son during the Baltimore protest. I decided to blog about this after a class discussion from last night and a Facebook group discussion. I must inform you that I am looking at this from a personal, but also professional perspective, as someone going into the field of forensic mental health.
Since this video has gone viral, it serves as reinforcement for stereotypes and is extremely counterproductive to the entire movement. We have this black mother going upside her son’s head for the world to see. I don’t think the response would’ve been the same if white Becky was going upside little white Jimmy’s head. People always make the argument that black kids are wild because they’re parents are absent or negligent. However, here we see this parent who cares about her son, so she feels she must hit him. To me that reinforces the belief that black kids need especially harsh discipline. They only know violence, in the streets, in their schools, and even in their homes. So policemen observe things like this and able to assume, well if this is how their parents discipline him, then why shouldn’t the justice system be punitive in a similar fashion? So it serves as modeling for police, suggesting that the black population is uniquely different. Violence is what they’re used to and all they respond to. So many cops fearfully interact with black people with the mentality to use force as a first precaution. That is why we see the chokeholds, the neck/ spine snaps, and the fatal shootings and hear these cops say they feared for their lives when dealing with blacks. It’s almost systematically ingrained into training, that “these thugs are dangerous” just look at their communities, you can’t reason with them, protect yourself with aggression, violence, and anything and everything else at all cost.
Furthermore, the mother can be viewed as playing two detrimental stereotypes for the black woman. She serves as the “mammy” and “sapphire”. It’s so disturbing to me that black women are only celebrated on a grand scale when we serve one of three roles, the mammy, the sapphire, or the jezebel. All of these stereotypical roles originate out of slavery. The mammy, ever nurturing, cooking, cleaning, and caring for all. The sapphire, aggressive, possessing a bit more masculine qualities, and just mad at the world. And the jezebel, a seductive woman possessing many desirable physical qualities but is seen as nothing more than a sexual object for Massa, i.e. men. In the video the woman is praised for fulfilling the mammy and stereotype that black women are angry, aggressive, combative, and violent. Many times during slavery the black mother would be especially harsh on her children to please Massa. That is what can be observed in the viral video.
Additionally, historically we have seen white people put black people in a position to police other black people. Historical example: Massa puts a black overseer in charge and makes him be extremely harsh on his own people, by encouraging whippings and beatings. Today: America praises this black woman for hitting her child upside the head instead of perhaps talking to him or engaging in some other form of punishment for him disobeying her. Again I ask, would the public response be the same if mother and son were melanin deficient?
Now I’m not saying the mother should’t discipline her son, by all means that’s her responsibility as a parent. What I’m saying is that the due to the circumstances of the situation it is problematic. I do not know what the boy was doing. Was he there protesting? Was he there rioting? Was he agitating the already fragile situation? I don’t know. The video I saw started with the mother going ham. So simply going off what I saw, I’d say it probably would’ve been best for the mom to not reprimand her son in such a manner with so many observers and cameras around.
Lastly, I am just greatly disturbed by the response of praise, celebration, talk show interviews, etc. for the mother for her actions. It’s not so much I’m mad at the mother for discipling her son, I’m more upset with America’s applause and praise of it. Especially with everything that is going on in Baltimore, the video that goes viral is a mother violently hitting her son, who is there against the violence that was committed against Freddy Gray.
Praising this violence and ignoring the violence of the police killing yet another black man is problematic.
Uplifting violence in the name/ midst of violence is problematic.
For one to see good and praise this black mother for hitting her black son on camera in a movement against violence is problematic.
Moreover, It distracts the public away from the real issues. It magnifies the uprising and protest and distracts people away from the cause of the uprising.
Victoria Renee 