Missy Sue
White woman, late 30's, early 40's. Spirited, driven, a strong sense of duty and mission. Somewhat oblivious. Emotionally free and open. Daughter of Sara's Master. Sara's former childhood friend.
Missy Sue
S8/P70
"We're living in indecent times, Sara."
Conditions of Antebellum Slavery 1830 - 1860
"Enslaved African Americans could never forget their status as property, no matter how well their owners treated them. But it would be too simplistic to say that all masters and slaves hated each other. Human beings who live and work together are bound to form relationships of some kind, and some masters and slaves genuinely cared for each other. But the caring was tempered and limited by the power imbalance under which it grew. Within the narrow confines of slavery, human relationships ran the gamut from compassionate to contemptuous. But the masters and slaves never approached equality."
-PBS Africans In American Series
"Because they lived and worked in such close proximity, house servants and their owners tended to form more complex relationships. Black and white children were especially in a position to form bonds with each other. In most situations, young children of both races played together on farms and plantations. Black children might also become attached to white caretakers, such as the mistress, and white children to their black nannies. Because they were so young, they would have no understanding of the system they were born into. But as they grew older they would learn to adjust to it in whatever ways they could."
-PBS Africans in America Series
Black Portland reflects on role of white allies in movement
by GILLIAN FLACCUS
"More than two months of intense protests in Portland, Oregon — one of America’s whitest major cities — have captured the world’s attention and put a place that’s less than 6% Black at the heart of the conversation about police brutality and systemic racism."
-GF
Missy Sue
S4/P24
“What’s a woman without bearing fruit and multiplying? There isn’t a place for us, Sara.”
Missy Sue
S8/P84
Missy Sue Freedom doesn’t come with acres and mules, Sara….
"The Strangest Freaks of Despotism": Queer Sexuality in Antebellum African American Slave Narratives
by Aliyyah I. Abdur-Rahman
"Being a master or mistress became so addictive a pleasure that the slave as ultimate possession became a necessary part of the master's or mistress's identity"
-Abdur-Rahman
Aliyyah I. Abdur-Rahman
"The subjection of black bodies in slavery and the imputation of social and sexual deviance onto black persons supported the development of whiteness and solidified heteronormativity as one of its main features. In other words, throughout the nineteenth century both whiteness and heterosexuality were conceived, constituted, and stabilized through their opposition to and haunting by the specter of the black sexual deviant."
They were Her Property:
White Woman as Slave Owners in the American South
by Stephanie E. Jones-Rodgers
In They Were Her Property, historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers has written a book that bridges women’s history, the history of the South, and African American history. Rather than land, women typically inherited slaves, who were their primary source of wealth. White women actively participated in the slave market, profited by it, and used it for economic and social empowerment. Jones-Rogers presents a narrative that prompts a rethinking of women’s history and the history of slavery.
Sara & Missy Sue
S4/P31
MISSY SUE I want you to feel the ultimate love, Sara.
SARA What kind of love is that?
MISSY SUE Freedom.
What's In A 'Karen'?
image by Bisa Butler
"And white womanhood — rich or poor — was firmly placed on a pedestal, the living icon of white supremacy. Because it was so verboten to speak about white women with anything but polite deference, Black folks developed "Miss Ann" as a signifying reference; it was a moniker that allowed us to talk in code if we needed to. "You know Miss Ann: has to be right about everything, all the time!""
by Kathy Conkwright and Mary Makley
Southern Belle
In the summer of 2008, we discovered a camp in middle Tennessee that teaches young women how to become a 19th century Southern belle. Perplexed by the concept of contemporary girls choosing to return to a time when they would have had very few rights and freedoms, we wanted to document the experience- the only one of its kind in the country.
In this era of hyperbolic opinion and prime-time rants, we chose to observe rather than critique.
-Conkwright and Makley