Tamara Winfrey Harris

I think this proves my point[s] again regarding the fact that Beyonce’s pregnancy & birth were applauded, while overall Black motherhood is degraded. Mainly because Black motherhood is stereotyped. Black mothers are seen as vile, crude, loud-mouthed ghetto bitches and ho’s , welfare queens, unmarried womyn who have children out of wedlock. They are seen as violent towards their children and their children’s father, as birthing the unwanted, the excess. However, when someone like Beyonce, who falls well within the politics of respectability, who’s rich, light skinned, thin, with no visible disabilities, and married, has a child; folks use her as a example of what black mothers SHOULD be, how they SHOULD rear a child. Essentially, they are using her body to uphold standards of respectabiltiy and white supremacy, simultaneously degrading those “regular” black womyn while not examining the privileges that Beyonce has. Once again, this is also true because Blue Ivy’s birth is within the confines of a heterosexual marriage, which assumed monogamous dating preceeded. Blue Ivy is not the excess or the unwanted, ze’s the prized because hir mother “did it the right way.” She reproduced into a capitalist, heteronormative familial structure. That’s when its all good, that’s when its ok & cool to be a Black mother, when you’re Beyonce.

Hmph.

(via hiphopcheerleader)

(Source: afrafemme)