The Critical Role of Black Mothers -- and How to Support All Moms | Anna Malaika Tubbs | TED

Anna Malaika Tubbs: "The Three Mothers"

is about Alberta King, Berdis Baldwin and Louise Little,

the mothers of MLK Jr., James Baldwin and Malcolm X.

And I wrote this book

to not only celebrate these three incredible life stories

that we should have known for years and years before my book,

but to also think about what their stories could symbolize for Black women,

Black mothers, mothers more generally,

and what it could mean to save their stories

from being forgotten, from being erased,

and how it changes our understanding of where we are as a nation today,

how we have arrived here,

what are changes that we still need to make.

Whitney Pennington Rogers: That's great.

I think in reading it,

you can feel how really lovingly you put all of this together

and did this research and the attention that you put to this,

this really comes through in the finished product.

Well, we have we have a question from Jeff.

Jeff says that, "As a father, this talk changed my life.

I bought the book, a few copies, and was in the audience in December live,

and it generated this concern for me.

How much history was impacted with lack of mother's input,

especially Black mothers?”

And that's the question.

AMT: Oh, it's a big question.

First, thank you, Jeff, I really appreciate that.

So much of our history, we are missing these stories.

And the feeling that you felt in being in that audience

and that I felt in uncovering these stories

and every piece of the puzzle that I found

just really shocked me,

that we didn't know these things already and infuriated me.

And it really caused me some deep sadness,

because I realized how many more stories are --

I mean, we're missing so many,

and of course, not everybody is going to be famous

and not everyone’s going to have a book written about them.

But it's very, very unique, this erasure of Black women's contributions.

It is very intentional.

Like I said, with "Hidden Figures" as an example,

why would we not know that Black women were the mathematicians

called "the computers" behind a space launch?

That is critical information for our history.

And for me to think as a young Black woman,

when I was sitting in school,

when I was a young Black girl,

what that could have meant to me to know that.

That it was a part not only of --

I could not be the first Black woman to do something,

but that there was a history before me

of Black female mathematicians

and these brilliant brains.

And even as much as, you know,

my parents educated me on my Black history and my African history

because even I have a privilege that many Black Americans do not have.

I knew my connection to my lineage in Ghana, etc.

So much of this history has been robbed from us.

And it's a very strategic robbing.

It's not a mistake.

So that, just thinking from that perspective,

we want to continue to uncover more and more stories

of those who have been intentionally marginalized,

intentionally oppressed.

Because the more we can correct our telling of that story

and that history,

the better we'll do moving forward.

So these attacks on telling history right now, it's very strategic.

It’s not, again, a mistake.

It's not something that people are doing unconsciously.

It’s very: “We don’t want to tell the truth.”

And we all need to reckon with that,

and we need to fight against that.

WPR: I think that it's really interesting in the book

that you draw these parallels between what was happening

in the lives of these three women

and what we're seeing happening, you know,

play out in the news today

or have seen happen at other moments in history during their lives.

And you know, I'm curious to hear how you think

writing this book changed your perspective

on the experiences of mothers currently,

just how you think about motherhood today.

AMT: Yeah, this is something that I already knew was an issue.

Going back to my mom, she would always say,

in every place that we travel to pay attention

to how women are being treated in the society,

how mothers, very specifically, are being treated.

That is an indicator on how successful this community will be.

And so I always carry that in the back of my mind,

I was always aware that, when I moved back to the US, for instance,

that we weren’t really giving mothers the support that they deserved;

we certainly weren’t giving them the celebration that they deserve,

and therefore the support was lacking.

And there was this lack of understanding

around the critical importance of the role.

But in putting this book out there, and even doing the TED Talk

and speaking to so many different audiences around this,

it is a dire situation for mothers.

And whether that's on a personal level,

where those who have come up to me and said,

“I am the mom who feels unappreciated in my household right now.”

“I am the mom who feels unseen.”

To this national level of a crisis

where we are fighting for weeks of parental leave,

mere weeks.

This is ...

It’s upsetting,

and we should be embarrassed by that.

These are things that should have been established by now,

and I really do -- and I say this in the TED Talk --

I truly hope that within my lifetime,

we can usher in a shift that starts with first saying: “Mothers are essential.”

We need mothers to be supported

because they are holding so much of our lives together,

our society together.

Stay-at-home moms are performing some of the most important work in our country,

and we are devaluing them.

And not only that, we are making them feel bad about what they are doing.

This really is an issue that more of us need to take on.

Going back to that very first question,

why this is an issue for everybody to care about.

And it sounds obvious,

but we shouldn't have to say that if mothers are dying

in a maternal health crisis --

one that is exacerbated for Black women --

the Black maternal health crisis is alarming,

but generally the maternal health crisis in the US is terrible.

It shouldn't be this way.

Mothers of all races are dying more than they should be.

We need to pay attention to that.

That's not only bad for mothers, obviously.

It's not only bad for mothers

if they have to walk away from their job during the pandemic

because there were no supports in place to catch them.

It's not only bad for mothers

if they have to choose between being a mother

or making money for their family.

That shouldn't be put on their shoulders.

There should be supports in place.

We should have affordable child care.

We should have universal preschool.

All of these things that impact mothers have ripple effects for the rest of us.

So, yes, it opened my eyes to just how alarming

and how critical a situation we're currently in.

Even though, again, my mom raised me to know all of these things.

Through doing this work,

I’ve just now been kind of awoken to the need

for people to open their eyes right now.

WPR: M. Watson has a question that actually kind of piggybacks on this

more than just thinking about how we can gain access to these stories,

they want to know, you know,

what do you feel is the most effective way we can, as a people,

change the narrative around Black women?

You know, if you have any specific examples

which I know you share some in your talk,

They ask,

"How can I personally be involved in this work of changing this narrative?"

AMT: Great question, and there are levels to this.

I would say definitely understanding the history

of how Black women have been treated is very important.

So again, it's a shameless plug, but read the book.

I talk about not only these three women,

but again many of the goals that I had,

one of them also was to explain tropes

like the mammy and the matriarch trope

and the Jezebel trope

and the "welfare queen" and the strong Black woman trope.

What all of these have meant in American history

and what their intention was.

And that is to say that anything Black women were dealing with

was their own fault.

That, with the mammy trope, that we didn't deserve necessarily

to be compensated for work that we were doing,

that we deserved to stay within domestic work

and that we shouldn't necessarily be paid what that work was worth

because we liked it and we were happy to be the mammy.

The Aunt Jemima, who was smiling and wanted to do, you know,

wanted to serve her white family more than her own.

The matriarch trope that Black families have been separated from each other,

not because of systems that have made it so that --

you know, mass incarceration

or so many other things that I can mention,

but instead because Black women were emasculating their men.

Or the Jezebel trope that justified sexual violence against Black women

because that's what Black women wanted,

they were more promiscuous.

Even the "welfare queen,"

saying Black women are having children just to make money.

So you have to understand this is a very long,

ugly, painful history

that we are dealing with as Black women day in and day out.

And when people don’t get

that those are the burdens we are holding,

years and centuries of being told that everything that's happening to you,

the pain you're going through, is because of you

and not because of policies we've voted for

or the ways in which we kept you from being elected

or even being able to run for office

or even vote.

That's where it really begins.

Take the time as much as you can to know how we've gotten to where it is right now

and then to really have a moment where you fully appreciate

the incredible resistance of Black women

and the ways in which we've continued to create life,

despite the ways that people have tried to rob it from us.

And the vision behind what Black women have been able to accomplish,

what they have imagined for this world

because we can't accept the situation as it is right now

because that dehumanize us.

But we have pushed this nation forward to our vision in incredible ways.

It's not only Stacey Abrams in Georgia,

it's a long, long history of Black women saying,

"We don't agree with the system as it is now.

So here is how we're going to help you see the world

and the possibilities from our perspective."

And you look at American history from that angle,

and it is powerful.

There is nothing like it.

And therefore, you better understand why we should elect more Black women,

why we should vote for them

to help usher our country and continue to do it.

But with even more support and even more backing,

because without that backing, without that support,

when Black women have been erased and misrecognized, misrepresented,

we have still created incredible change.

So now we're asking that we be heard,

we be listened to,

and that our energy no longer be spent on explaining how we got here,

but instead on how we can do whatever is next and whatever is possible.

So it’s kind of a combination of try to learn our history,

support us as leaders,

put those tools in our hands as much as possible.

Trust us, hear us, believe us,

and also stop wasting our time on the need to explain the extra

when that's work that we can do on our own.

That kind of brings me full circle to my research

being around

I didn't reach out to the family until I'd done my part.

So, yeah, I mean, even attending a conversation like this

is part of doing your part, so kudos to you all.

We're all real starting today.

WPR: And that's doing your part to sort to educate yourself

on information that already exists out there, it sounds like.

Beyond what we could do individually to educate ourselves

and make change in this space,

what can we expect from our government

to do more on the national scale

and even thinking globally?

What are some things that you would like to see

so that we change the way that we, as a culture,

think about Black motherhood?

AMT: For this one,

because I'll give it quicker answer than I have in me,

because you can tell I like to talk, and I can go for a long time.

But in the book,

the concluding chapter is entirely about what we need to do as a world

and what are the lessons that Alberta,

Berdis and Louise’s lives are teaching us about our next steps forward

when it comes to policy, when it comes to --

actually even kind of the three-level layer

that I like to talk about,

which is the interpersonal level, is an important one.

The conversations that we're having with each other

and the stories that we're telling,

when I, you know, in the TED Talk, a little snippet,

where we have mothers who feel like they have to be selfless

and that we celebrate mothers for being selfless.

So even around Mother's Day, we say to moms,

"Thank you for sacrificing everything for me

and for putting yourself behind everybody."

And yes, a lot of mothers have done that,

and certainly if they have, we should thank them for that.

But what we can start to do is shift that story and that thank you,

and say, "Thank you for doing everything you could do for us.

And also thank you for still seeing yourself as a human being"

or "for representing yourself as a human with a full range of emotions,

and for teaching me about my first life lessons,

for being my first caretaker,

for being my first leader, for being my first teacher."

Those are things that I think more accurately represent mothering

in a way that is sustainable for mothers.

Where mothers aren't going to burn out,

where we're not putting all of it on moms

and then reiterating it by saying,

"Thank you for putting yourself behind everyone else."

So that's on like an interpersonal level.

I do think those conversations can make a huge difference

in terms of what mothers are even thinking is the goal

of what we're trying to achieve

and what we want to be thanked for.

The second level of that is, you know, in relationships,

even beyond our households ...

And I mean, like you said, in terms of Black motherhood,

very specifically,

this burden of putting our needs behind everyone,

I just did a piece for “New York” magazine on this

that that is further exacerbated for Black women

because we have been seen as "the mothers" of a movement.

We're always like mothers of something much larger

and not just, like, mothers of our own children,

but this weight of what's placed upon us.

And specifically in this article,

I'm focusing on mothers whose children have been killed,

whether by police officers or neighborhood vigilantes,

and how in these moments,

instead of giving these moms the space to grieve,

we're asking them to do something for our entire country.

You know, we ask them to speak to crowds,

they run for office, which can be a part of their personal healing as well,

but we interpret that as, look at what this Black woman is doing for all of us,

rather than us thinking about what is she going to do for her own healing,

for her own restoration?

So, that's kind of the extra layer to that.

And then thinking about it on a national level,

what we're voting for,

I think about what could have helped Alberta, Berdis and Louise

and what we still need to this day right now.

So to give a little bit more information on the women.

Alberta King had to walk away from her job

because the law stated at the time

that married women were not allowed to teach,

and she'd always had this dream of being an educator.

She had a bachelor's degree, she had a teaching certificate,

but when she met her husband,

she made the decision to start a family

because this was like, she had to make a decision.

And even though that law, the marriage bar is not in place now,

what are the many ways in which we're pushing women and mothers

out of their jobs?

There are many that still exist, and we need to start addressing those.

These are just one example from each woman.

If we look at Berdis Baldwin,

she was the victim of an abusive husband for years, years and years.

And James Baldwin speaks about this often how abusive his stepfather was.

But she didn't have anyone she could really turn to

because, especially in Black communities,

we are so afraid of what might happen if we call a police officer

and we have multiple examples of this

where we really needed help and intervention

and then somebody ends up being shot when they're called,

when police officers are called to protect us.

So Berdis Baldwin was aware of this.

Her children had been harassed by police officers.

James Baldwin tells a story of when he was pushed into an alley

and he was maybe 11 years old and police officers searched him,

they were looking for someone,

and just left him there on his own, this little boy.

So she's not going to call them to help her in this situation.

So she just endures this abuse all on her own.

So what are systems we can think about

in terms of should there be other people we can call

who are not police officers?

Should there be, you know,

more support even for social workers that could come out?

That's something to think about and to reflect on.

And then as an example for Louise Little,

I mean, all three of them have these different painful traumas

that they experience.

And for Louise, one of the major ones

is that she is put in an institution against her will for 25 years of her life

because she was this activist, radical activist,

who spoke up against white supremacy,

who stands and faces-off with the KKK, literally.

And a white male physician was sent to her house to evaluate her

after her husband had been murdered.

And he concludes that she's experiencing dementia.

And in his doctor's note, he says that she is, quote,

"imagining being discriminated against."

"Imagining being discriminated against"

as a Black woman,

Black immigrant woman living in the Midwest,

and that is enough to put her away in an institution against her will.

So in terms of us thinking about the biases

that Black women are facing when they don't ask for help, even,

and people just decide they're going to come in and evaluate them,

especially even when they do, that they're going to be misunderstood,

that they're going to be told they're imagining things,

these are things we need to address.

So we also have to do an evaluation of our health care systems

and the biases that still exist.

So it's kind of like this endless list,

and I definitely don't want to end on such a heavy and hard note.

But in that concluding chapter,

it's called "Our Lives Will Not Be Erased,"

that's where I go with it, is policy,

and what we can do.

Kind of, some tangible next steps.

WPR: Well, I think that's so important and so valuable.

And to your point of not ending in such a heavy place, you know,

I guess, how do you feel, though, about the progress we are making?

M. Watson asks, do you feel

that the Black women narrative is progressing?

AMT: I am an optimist,

and I often say that my optimism lies in this incredible activism

that Black women have held for so long

and we continue to envision new realities for this world.

And that makes me really hopeful.

To study Alberta, Berdis and Louise, who again, it's not ancient history.

Berdis passed away in 1999,

Louise passed away in 1991.

So this isn't like ancient ancient history,

but they did face a lot of things that I no longer face

as a result of their work

and a result of what they were able to accomplish

and how they taught their children to accomplish these things

and change the world.

So I'm not the kind of person who thinks we are stuck

and there is no forward progress that we've made.

I feel like that would be really disrespectful to them if I felt that way

because they gave as much as they could to that progression,

and it's my turn to carry that forward as well.

But what I do hope is that more people join us in this

and that Black women are not continuing to have to do this on our own.

That more people will be aware of history,

I sound like a broken record,

but be aware of history so that we can move forward

and fight anything that tries to keep us from telling accurate

and full representations of our country's history.

Because I think if we're aware of it, then we won't want to repeat it.

And we have more people who will want to be allies in this fight.

And in my contribution to this,

I'm just hoping I'm giving more of us tools to join the conversation

and think about how we can carry it forward.

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