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Social media is in a frenzy over the mammy stereotype.

Where did the term mammy even come from?

And why is it always associated with black women?

The truth is, a true mammy isn't what most think it is.

This is too-minute black history.

What you didn't learn in school.

Most people think a mammy is an obese, middle-aged, enslaved black woman who happily spends her time busing over white people and their children.

She neglects her family's needs and her own to endear herself to the white people she works for. But that's not who Mammy was originally. Historians suggest such a woman didn't even exist.

The women, we most associate with Mammy's, would have been field hands who were kept away from white families.

However, there were enslaved women who were forced to serve white families and care for white children.

The real mammy was likely biracial and thin with soft textured hair.

Harriet Beatrice Stowe, a liberal white abolitionist and author of Uncle Tom's cabin,

is responsible for creating the image of Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Tom and Jerry, and even Aunt Jamima.

Stowe's recreation of Mamie was powerful.

It shamed black women and it was profitable.

The Black Mamie's image solidify the narrative that it's black women's role to obediently and eagerly serve white society,

even if it's against their best interests.

The idea that black women owe society their time, labor, talents, care, or allegiance is nasty work.

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