Popular Culture Review 32.1
suggests the showrunners are aware , then , that issues of race and racialization are present in Westworld and leave it unacknowledged . It emphasizes the relative lack of power for Black women , which finds its roots in the archetypal role of African American women in the 19 th century .
Female slaves were used , in addition to the rest of their labor in the house and / or fields , as breeders . Their children were usually prematurely weaned and separated , so as to sever the connection between mother and child . Children were born to work on the plantation or to be sold ; Black women gave birth only to lose their children . These preconditions foster the rise of the outraged mother . In cases where slave mothers were not immediately separated from their children , they grew deeply fond of them ; a woman ’ s child was hers , not anyone else ’ s . The outraged mother bonds with her child and attempts to escape with them , often because separation at the auction block was imminent . Unlike the articulate hero , who works for himself and emulates the “ self-made man ,” the outraged mother works for her children and appeals to the “ cult of true womanhood ” in the hopes that white mothers sympathize .
Harriet Jacobs , through her pseudonym Linda Brent in Incidents , is an example of the outraged mother . To fulfill the archetype ’ s preconditions , Jacobs presents a description of her childhood , including her familial separation . She experiences a loss of innocence at the hands of Dr . Flint , her enslaver : “ She [ the slave child ] will be compelled to realize that she is no longer a child . If God has bestowed beauty upon her , it will prove the greatest curse . That which commands admiration in the white woman only hastens the degradation of the female slave ” ( Jacobs 27 ). Jacobs hopes to prevent this corruption of morality from affecting her children .
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