Called to be a Spiritual Mammy aka Mammism

I've been looking at pictures of mammies. According to Free Dictionary.com a mammy is, " A Black nursemaid, especially one formerly in the southern United States." I've been looking at pictures of mammies because recently I've understood that one of the ways white privilege expresses itself is the expectation that Black people, Brown people, Yellow people, and Red people will be their psychological and/or spiritual mammies.

Often when I've discussed a racist eruption with "progressive" whites they become confused by the very idea that their privilege somehow impacts their ability to perceive racism even when they are willing to acknowledge that racism exists. In the next breath I've been given the opportunity to "explain to them" about what I "think" happened. Intellectuals who will spend years studying the entrails of anteaters or Shakespeare, want to be fed a complete (and make it quick Mammy) analysis of racist acts that suits them. More than this, they've wanted me to gently take them in my psychic arms and feed them through my ample spiritual breasts, all the while rocking them and singing songs of their innocence.

I'm thinking about this in light of the events in my Sangha, in which once again POC are expected to protect our "sweet innocent white babies," even as like the historical mammy, to do this would mean we end up diverting the love and protection due to our own "children." Since we have decided not to don the head rag and the neck kerchief, there is a problem.

Refusal to be mammy provokes anger and frustration because we are supposed to take care of them. That at its core is, to my mind, where the frustration comes from. At this time the Sangha has made clear that we reserve the nourishment of our spiritual breasts for our own. That others think this strange is an indication of how much they need to practice.

A picture of the quintessential mammy in Gone with the Wind can be found at: http://www.gonemovies.com/WWW/Drama/Drama/GoneMammy1.asp