r/BlackPeopleofReddit • u/numbmillenial • 1d ago
Women "Black women have nursed a nation of strangers. For hundreds of years, they literally nursed babies at their breast, who they knew when they grew up, would rape their daughters and kill their sons." -Maya Angelou
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u/syncere13 1d ago edited 23h ago
She was a gift in the way she thought, challenged and unapologetically inspired. Miss Maya Angelo.. THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING YOU GAVE 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🙌🏾♈️
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u/Ambitious-Pirate-505 23h ago
More more more of the great Maya Angelou.
My favorite quote of hers:
"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. People know themselves much better than you do. That's why it's important to stop expecting them to be something other than who they are."
This is her full quote, not just the abbreviated one we are used to.
RIP Queen
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u/Dulcette 1d ago
Love her. I watched a PBS documentary today called Driving While Black: Race, Space, and Mobility in America. It's worth a watch, but please be advised it's heavy and a tear jerker, especially at the end.
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u/Naryanope 17h ago
Not just that - but to even be able to nurse another baby, it meant they would not be nursing their own. Pretty sure I read that often their own babies would be fed gruel or nutrient poor alternatives instead and be denied that contact with their mothers.
Could you imagine the torment of that situation? These were likely not willing wet nurses a lot of the time.
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u/ellefleming 13h ago
Wild they nursed, cooked, laundered, cleaned for whites yet couldn't use the same bathroom or water fountain.
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u/Naryanope 11h ago
It’s interesting, because you would think that black women being subjugated into a nurturing role would result in a level of cultural and psychological warmth towards them, which would have reduced racism. Rather it’s the opposite.
Wonder what it is, psychological compartmentalisation, entitlement, just seeing black people as object utilities…maybe all those things.
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u/trahilcal01 20h ago
Nursed a nation of strangers..good God! Who would rape their daughters and kill their sons!
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u/Humble_Drag_6727 10h ago
This is why I hope my ancestors are rolling over in their graves as I rebuke everything they stood for and did back then. We cannot and SHOULD NOT ignore the work that black men and women put into raising this country. They literally did all the work and deserve the reparations from it.
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u/Arsenal8944 8h ago
Now the majority of people changing the diapers of old white men and feeding them pudding at nursing homes are black women. Not a whole lot has changed.
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