Toni Morrison and Motherhood: A Politics of the Heart

Chapter One: A Politics of the Heart: Toni Morrison’s Theory of Motherhood as a Site of Power and Motherwork as Concerned with the Empowerment of Children

MOTHERHOOD IS A CENTRAL THEME in Morrison’s fiction and is a topic she returns to time and time again in her many interviews and articles. In her reflections on motherhood, both inside and outside her fiction, Morrison articulates a fully developed theory of African American mothering that is central to her larger political and philosophical stance on black womanhood. Building upon black women’s experiences of, and perspectives on motherhood, Morrison develops a view of black motherhood that is, in terms of both maternal identity and role, radically different than the motherhood practised and prescribed in the dominant culture. Morrison defines and positions maternal identity as a site of power for black women. From this position of power black mothers engage in a maternal practice that has as its explicit goal the empowerment of children. This chapter will introduce Morrison’s theory of motherhood , what I have termed “A Politics of the Heart.” Drawing upon Patricia Hill Collins’s standpoint theory, I will detail how the traditions and practices of black mothering give rise to a distinct black maternal perspective on motherhood . The chapter will then examine how Morrison, building from this standpoint on black motherhood, defines black motherhood as a site of power for women. Next, borrowing from Sara Ruddick’s model of maternal practice, I will explore how and in which ways Morrison defines motherwork as a political enterprise that assumes as its central aim the empowerment of children. Motherwork, in Morrison, is concerned with how mothers, raising black children in a racist and sexist world, can best protect their children, instruct them in how to protect themselves, challenge racism, and, for daughters, the sexism that seeks to harm them. 1 chapter one A Politics of the Heart Toni Morrison’s Theory of Motherhood as a Site of Power and Motherwork as Concerned with the Empowerment of Children PATRICIA HILL COLLINS’S STANDPOINT THEORY In Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment , Patricia Hill Collins writes, “[E]very culture has a worldview that it uses to order and evaluate its own experiences” (10). Black women, Collins goes on to explain, fashioned an independent standpoint about the meaning of Black womanhood . These self definitions enabled Black women to use African-derived conceptions of self and community to resist negative evaluations of Black womanhood advanced by dominant groups. In all, Black women’s grounding in traditional African-American culture fostered the development of a distinctive African American women’s culture. (11) The black female standpoint develops in opposition to and in resistance against the dominant view or what Collins calls the controlling images of black womanhood. Collins argues that “the dominant ideology of the slave era fostered the creation of four interrelated, socially constructed controlling images of Black womanhood, each reflecting the dominant group’s interest in maintaining Black women’s subordination ” (71). The four controlling images that Collins examines include the mammy, the matriarch, the welfare mother, and the Jezebel. By way of controlling images, as Collins explains, “certain assumed qualities are attached to Black women and [then] used to justify [that] oppression” (7). “From the mammies, Jezebels, and breeder women of slavery,” Collins writes, “to the smiling Aunt Jemimas on pancake mix boxes, ubiquitous Black prostitutes, and ever-present welfare mothers of contemporary popular culture, the nexus of negative stereotypical images applied to African-American women has been fundamental to Black women’s oppression” (7). Black women, according to Collins, may resist these derogatory stereotypes through the creation of a distinct black female standpoint that is based on black women’s own experiences and meanings of womanhood. The black female standpoint, Collins argues, develops through an interplay between two discourses of knowledge: “the commonplace taken-for granted knowledge” and the “everyday ideas” of black women that are clarified and rearticulated by black women intellectuals or theorists to form a specialized black feminist thought. In turn, as Collins explains, “the consciousness of Black women may be transformed by [this] thought” (20). She elaborates: Through the process of rearticulation, Black women intellectuals offer African-American women a different view of themselves and their world from that forwarded by the dominant group. . . . By taking the core themes of a Black women’s standpoint and infusing them with new meaning, Black women intellectuals can stimulate a new consciousness that utilizes Black’s women’s everyday, taken-for granted knowledge. Rather than raising consciousness , Black feminist thought affirms and rearticulates a consciousness that already exists. More, important, this rearticulated...