Mammies, brute Negroes, and white femininity in teacher education

Abstract

In this article, we examine two stories about white femininity. The first, written by Danielle, was an assignment in a pre-service teacher education course. The second story is of the fictional Lily—the main character of an internationally best-selling novel. In our analyses, we pay special attention to how enduring racist images and caricatures of black people function in the complex social construction of white femininity. We conclude that teacher education efforts in the United States are undermined by the workings and power of enduring racist stereotypes in the thinking, feeling, and action of white teachers.

Keywords:

• White femininity
• racist images
• teacher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Obviously, Ellison did not deny this control function. For a powerful analysis of the central role that stereotypes play in the mass incarceration of black men in the U.S., see Michelle Alexander’s (2010) The New Jim Crow, where she argues that it is “difficult to imagine a [legal] system better designed to ensure that racial biases and stereotypes are given free rein” (p. 28).

2 For a description of the pedagogical and curricular contexts within which Danielle’s memoir was produced, as well as for a detailed account of the narrative research methodology employed in relation to Danielle’s and her classmates’ memoirs in an earlier study, see Miller (2018).