I Am Not Your Mammy, Bitch

Mam·my /ˈmamē/ : the most well known and enduring racial caricature of African American women

Rick James says it best...Never mind who you thought I was! And I feel like this is the defensive stance we live in every day when battling the “mammy designation” in corporate amerikkka.

Just today a lil Indian boy who gives a fake white name in public told me that my way of managing products was incorrect, because he felt like he was having to facilitate too much where I should be facilitating.

Sir. Have 10,000 seats.

I’m a quiet leader. I don’t out talk anyone trying to peacock and I don’t engage in back and forth. I steer when things go awry and I make sure my team reaches the finish line without over exerting myself. And most importantly I operate with enough emotional intelligence to help those around me become leaders too. That doesn’t require soap boxing or running myself ragged facilitating all the things so you can sit back and listen to Drake.

Without having even reached the legal age to rent a car, he already feels entirely comfortable telling me that I need to pull his weight and mine too. That I need to step up and be the martyr, the workhouse, the carbon copy without the white privilege.

Surprised? No.

They learn it early and often from their peers, white, “brown” or other.

The Little Black Book of Success says it perfectly, “Everything is not your responsibility”. I’m not the office mother hen. I’m a specialist. I have a particular set of skills very different than what he’s most likely encountered from mediocre white men. When I speak, it’s because there is something valuable that needs to be said. When I act, it’s because the viability of my product is being strategically orchestrated. I work smarter not harder. And I’ll be a fool to jeopardize my path to executive presence by drowning in tactics at the expense operating in vision.

Never mind who you thought I was...I’m Mrs. Jackson. Bitch.

Author: Mrs. Jackson