Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post is part of an ongoing pancocojams series about the words "Aunt" and "Auntie" ("Aunty") as referents for Black women or used with a Black woman's name or nickname.
This post provides an excerpt of a 2017 article by Stacie Evans entitled "Not Your Auntie". That article was written in response to the custom of some White people in 2017 who like Representative Waters referring to her as "Aunt Maxine".
The Addendum to this post provides three April 2021 tweets in which Representative Maxine Waters is called "auntie".
The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Rep. Maxine Waters for her role modeling, activism, and advocacy. Thanks also to Stacie Evans for writing this showcased article and thanks to all those who are quoted in this .
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Click the "calling Black women auntie" tag below for more pancocojams posts on this subject.
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INFORMATION ABOUT MAXINE WATERS
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxine_Waters
A member of the Democratic Party, Waters is currently in her 15th term in the House. She is the most senior of the twelve black women currently serving in Congress, and she chaired the Congressional Black Caucus from 1997 to 1999.[1] She is the second most senior member of the California congressional delegation after Nancy Pelosi. She is currently the chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee."....
ARTICLE EXCERPT: "NOT YOUR AUNTIE"
by Stacie Evans,
What I need is for white people to stop calling the Honorable Representative Maxine Waters “Auntie.” For real. It needs to stop.
Look, I get it. The white people who’ve jumped on the “Auntie” train like Waters. They like how smart and strong and unfuckwithable she is. They like that she’s out there speaking truth to power and refusing to back down. They like that she’s totally comfortable giving 21 second press conferences that are all attitude and no f--ks*. She is a light and a force. Yes. One hundred percent. Yes.
[...]
I’m glad people like her, glad she’s having fun and reaching a new audience in this spotlight, embracing the naming. All the same, it grates on me.
I’m guessing white folks heard Black people saying, “Auntie Maxine,” and thought that was sassy and clever and latched on. When Black folks call Waters “Auntie,” it doesn’t make me feel a way. But white folks need to get themselves together with this “Auntie” business. I’m asking white people to take that term out of their mouths and love on Representative Waters in some other fashion.
“Auntie Maxine” is one of those things Black people can say that white people can’t because there’s too much history behind “Auntie.” Way too damned much racist history. And white folks don’t get to bypass that because they like Representative Waters and think calling her “Auntie” is sassy and clever.
Yes, I’m thinking about Mammy. I’m thinking about the long story of white people calling Black women “Auntie”—first as owners of enslaved people and then “just” as white people luxuriating in their positions of dominance and power in a racist society.
The visual of that stereotype was the older, very dark-skinned Black woman, most often enormously fat, wearing a big smile for white people—and especially, obsequiously, for her white people—always ready to serve, to comfort, to please. This visual, this idea, is a lie, of course. “The Mammy was created by white Southerners to redeem the relationship between black women and white men within slave society in response to the anti-slavery attack from the North during the antebellum period” (Powell-Wright, 2010).
[...]
Calling Black women “Auntie” served multiple purposes. It gave “polite” white people something to say instead of “Miss,” “Mrs.,” or “Ma’am,” terms of respect that weren’t offered to Black women. Plenty of white folks felt no need to bother with such niceties, were entirely comfortable calling women “girl,” no matter the age or standing of the “girl” in question. “Auntie,” then, allowed “good” white folks to pretend to be less offensive. It couched their racism in gentle, familial terms, as if they shared kinship with whichever Black woman they were diminishing. At the same time, the Black woman so addressed knew exactly where she stood with that white person.
Generally speaking, white folks don’t call Black women “Auntie” in 2017. That insult’s heyday is, thankfully, in the past. And yet, my response to it remains visceral. This may be surprising, as I’m not old enough to have ever heard anyone call my mother, or aunt, or grandmothers “Auntie.” From where do I claim my indignation? But, in truth, my response isn’t surprising. After all, I’ve never been enslaved, either, and I feel plenty of indignation and rage and pain about that all-in-the-past state of affairs. And all of my foremothers were and are from the South, from places where the white people in their lives wouldn’t have hesitated to call them out of their names. Imagining that insult is as easy as breathing, as close to home as my own skin.
[...]
In the Black community there is a forever-long history of calling revered and dear elders “aunt” or “uncle” whether or not they are actually biological family. I have a number of aunts and a few uncles with whom I share no blood ties. And maybe that use predates the insult, but that use is also a “taking back” of the word.
There is a pull that feels natural, the desire to take on negative terms and make them over, to “reclaim our time” and create new meanings, magic away old ugliness. We’ve done it with “boy” and “girl,” with “ni-ger.” And perhaps this is why Black folks use “Auntie” and “Uncle” to honor beloved chosen family.
That use of “Auntie” is mostly what white people are hearing when they hear Black people call Waters “Auntie.”...And a history of racism and oppression is wrapped up in white folks’ use of the word. What isn’t in either use, old or new, is an invitation to white folks in 2017 to fix their mouths to call Representative Waters “Auntie.”
White people: stop. Waters ain’t your Auntie, in any sense of that word. Everything you hear a Black person say isn’t for you to say. I would have hoped you’d have learned this years ago with nigger, but you’re still messing with that, too.1
We take back these words—boy, girl, nigger, Auntie—we take them and de-shame them, take them and remake them. And it works—for us. It works—except that the terms still hold onto their old meanings when they fall out of the mouths of white people. Always. Always.
I want “Auntie” to be harmless. I want to give in to my own desire to call Representative Waters “Mother Maxine.” I love the alliteration, and it puts us in a different relationship than “Auntie.” My use of “Mother” is still loaded, but it’s also entirely different from white folks calling Waters “Auntie.” I will probably back up off of that usage to keep it out of white folks’ mouths. Instead, I’ll opt for “Queen Maxine,” which gives me a nice rhyme, as I lose the alliteration. And I won’t feel a way about white people calling Waters “Queen.” That sits just fine with me.
The negative, demeaning use of “Auntie” is old. Very. I’m sure some folks will say it’s time to forget all about that and let this fun and funny use of the word take over. And you know what? Sure. Why not? What would be the harm?
Yeah. The harm. That ugly use of “Auntie” is from long ago. But we haven’t actually passed it, have we? We are still in a country in which my whip-smart, Harvard-educated aunt was talked down to and belittled by hospital staff as she advocated for my care. We are still in a country in which a doctor's help for a sick airline passenger is rejected because flight attendants can’t bring themselves to believe a Black woman could be a “real” doctor. We still live in a country in which the powerful, intelligent words of a Black woman representing her state in Congress can be dismissed by on-air personalities who mock her hairstyle and say she looks like a man.
That old-time use of “Auntie” may be from the past, but the past hasn’t yet become past. And, thanks to THOTUS and those who voted for him, that past is now more present than ever.
So, no. We can’t just set racism aside and have a laugh. Would that anything could be so easy. No. We have to remember who we are and where we are and how much work there is still to do.
In "Black Women's History: From Mammy To Michelle Obama" Brittney Gathen quotes Dr. Zandria Robinson of the University of Memphis: “We still want Black women to mother us as a society. We still see Black women’s role as caregivers, and when they’re not caregivers, they become angry b——.” Waters is smart and funny and tough. She refuses to be cowed, refuses to be silenced or shamed. And when so many of our leaders pussyfoot around real criticism of and opposition to THOTUS and his masters and minions, Waters speaks her mind. She speaks to our beleaguered hearts, all the strong, on-point things we need to hear. And we want that, want her fire and sass, want to hear her reclaiming her time until the cows come home (or perhaps until the chickens come home to roost …). If ever we were in need of a tough-talking, tough-loving mom, it is now. And we want Waters to fill that role, to take on the evil that’s corroding our country. We want her to stand between us and THOTUS’s promise of “American carnage.” And we want her to make us laugh while she does it.
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But white people, Waters can’t be your mother, your mammy, your Auntie. Not everything is or can be for you. It’s a fact that that you’ve been able to live for centuries as if everything was for you, so I can imagine your confusion. But you should be okay stepping back and letting Black folks keep something to ourselves. Time to find a white savior to call your own and leave Queen Maxine for us."
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This author notes that "“THOTUS” is how I refer to the current occupant of the White House, as I refuse to attach the title to his name and try not to say his name if I can help it. The acronym stands for: Titular Head of These United States."
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*Some dashes that are found in this article were originally used to spell some "bad words". Some other dashes and the * indicate that that certain words that are considered profanity were fully spelled out in that article and I substituted that incomplete spelling.
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ADDENDUM
The 2017 article that is showcased in this pancocojams post is just one of many internet articles about the custom of calling Rep. Maxine Waters "Auntie". That custom continues in 2021 as shown in multiple April 15, 2021 tweets about Rep. Waters telling Rep. Jim Jordan to "Shut up".
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Here are three examples of tweets about this subject:
From https://twitter.com/search?q=%22Jim+Jordan%22
Darlene Williams
@gwwillie2248
[April 15, 2021]
Way to go Auntie Maxine!! [emoji of Smiling face with 3 hearts; emoji of Raising hands.]
Quote Tweet
Chip Franklin InsideTheBeltway.com
@chipfranklin
[April 15, 2021]
"You need to respect the chair and shut your mouth!"
@RepMaxineWaters to Jim Jordan
RT if you appreciate Maxine right now!”….
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Democracy 4 All [emoji with Face with medical mask; emoji of Yellow heart]
@goodbye56789
[April 15, 2021
You know it’s bad when Auntie Maxine is so done she tells you to shut your mouth like she would tell a child who is trying to talk nonsense in the adult space of the house. Everyone knows that space. Jim Jordan is as useless as a screen door in a submarine. #JimJordanIsUseless
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Click https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/15/politics/jim-jordan-anthony-fauci-hearing/index.html for an article excerpt about that portion of that April 15, 2021 Congressional hearing
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