Dear Mama: A Counternarrative of Single Black Motherhood

• In Event: Know Thyself: Reflections of Emerging Black Female Scholars Through Critical Race Theory

Abstract

Even before the birth of my son, I was a mother. As a woman, I nurtured others, created, produced new thought, and worked to ensure that those around me were loved and protected. Now, as I work to ensure the best life possible for my own child, I consider how these responsibilities and privileges that I have as a mother also influence my work as a scholar.
Participating in a graduate course on critical race theory (CRT) allowed me to analyze how race is a focal point in many aspects of society. Additionally, it was within this course that I was able to further analyze the role that race plays within my own personal experience. Through an autoethnographic approach, I aim to examine the intersectionalities of race, gender, and parenthood.
With the CRT tenet of antiessentialism, we are able to examine how aspects of our identity intersect with race (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012). While motherhood is often associated with gender and sexuality, my experience is additionally influenced by race and racism. Regina Austin (1995) points out the consequences and discrimination that single Black mothers like myself often face. She notes, "At bottom, unmarried black women workers who have babies are being accused of carrying on like modern-day Jezebels when they should be acting like good revisionist Mammies" (p. 432). With “Jezebel” and “mammy” being opposites, but equally harmful stereotypes of Black women, Austin makes it clear that the position of single Black mothers is one that elicits vilification from nearly every angle.
As a single Black mother, I am aware that I face a very specific scrutiny. While the Eurocentric concept of family may seem like the ideal position for raising children, it is also important to remember that there are cultures and societies that operate differently than the nuclear family that has been envisioned by Western society. These other cultures are equally successful in creating nurturing, supportive communities that tend to the needs of their young. Single parenthood serves as a counternarrative to the exaltation of the traditional Western nuclear family.
As scholars, we are often admonished to remain neutral, to focus on our studies or research, without much consideration of our identities. There is an assumption that scholarship is an unbiased practice, that there is somehow a way to separate ourselves from our work. However, everything we do is informed by everything we are. By taking the time to reveal what is in ourselves, we uncover the many different ways that our perspective and our being can influence our work. Doing so not only has positive implications for us as researchers, but for those we serve as well. It helps us to advocate for and uplift the underrepresented ways of knowing within academia and within PK-12 schools. Valuing these epistemologies is crucial to the work being done within the field of education as it allows practitioners and scholars to be able to properly address the needs of all.

Author

• Cierra Presberry, Michigan State University