Higher Education Professional | DEIB Strategist | Research Scholar-Practitioner | Progressive Thought Leader | Change & Growth Consultant | Transformative Student Experience Design & Assessment | Public Speaker
🗣️🗣️🗣️ Let’s talk about it!! This needs to be addressed urgently and thoroughly!! There must be more attention and space dedicated to this issue. I wasn’t familiar with the specific term “Mammyfication” before, but it perfectly captures the historical, literary, and real-world dynamics at play. America has grown FAR TOO COMFORTABLE with this gendered and racially problematic practice. I’ve seen this happen repeatedly, especially to Black women in Student and Academic Affairs. This seems particularly evident for Black Women hired in DEIB roles, where they are often promised power, voice, and institutional support to drive meaningful change. However, these promises are rarely upheld in practice and only result in Black Women being held hostage or harmed in these “treasured” performative DEIB related roles. Black women are frequently placed in untenable situations; bamboozled and burdened with the poor pairing of uncommunciated, unclear expectations and furniture-type pictorial instructions without full context or truth. Ultimately, it leaves them to navigate without the tools or support required. They are hired or “appointed” to fix, save, or even rebuild failing systems, and once they’ve achieved the impossible—restoring, exceeding goals, or stabilizing the organization—they are dismissed, erased, removed, reassigned, or have their worth and worked contributions buried under the very once sinking-ship-organization it saved. Too often, Black women in leadership are not respectfully hired for their extensive and earned credentials or expertise but are instead brought in to serve as scapegoats and be knowingly sacrificed in unsalvageable situations. Meanwhile, executive leaders quietly search for “the right candidate” to step in once the crisis has either been resiliently and brilliant resolved by Black Women or the situation reaches its initial sole possibility. This violent, unethical, and dehumanizing cycle is unacceptable, and it is time to put an end to it. We MUST DO BETTER by Black women. Enough is enough!
Psychotherapist | Clinical Supervisor | Racial Equity Consultant | Speaker | Trainer | Mentor
Let’s talk about the ‘Mammyfication’ of Black women leaders… …because it is a very real phenomenon. My amazing sis DeLisha Tapscott, Ed.D defines ‘Mammyfication’ as the idea that Black women’s ‘place’ is to ‘save’ and ‘fix’ things in crisis mode. Instead of Black women being honoured for their skills, they are used in ways to ‘hold’ the organisation, but the organisation doesn’t honour these skills. DeLisha also looks at the concept of othermothering and how Black women often use tenets of community building to create culture and safety. When Black women are hired in these roles and asked to use these skills, they are often ‘boxed in’ and our power limited because it becomes ‘too much’ for those who seek to promote and upkeep ⚪️ supremacy. DeLisha’s book chapter ‘Beyond The Veil: The Black Girl I Could Be’ will be coming out in early 2025, where she explores the lack of agency that Black women have in these leadership roles from the perspective of DEI and People & Culture/HR roles - and I can’t wait to read it! Make sure that you follow her to stay tuned for further updates. Since DeLisha dropped the mic after her last sentence, I’m picking the mic back up to repeat it: 🎤”The bottom line is that the Mammyfication of Black women in leadership roles happens because they were never seen as true leaders equal to their counterparts - instead they are used, abused and dismissed until the next crisis”… …and the lowest line needs to be paid the HIGHEST attention. #BlackWomenLeaders #BlackWomenAtWork #Misogynoir #Mammyfication #SystemicChange
