ABSTRACT
Twisted images of Black womanhood have always been a pivotal element of the American economy. That system of brutal patriarchy and chattel slavery has been reduced and metamorphosed into present day forms of structural racism, sexism, and cultural hegemony and still powerfully influences the lives and futures of Black females, their families, and people around the world. Sister Souljah laments the obstruction of African womanhood from the African American worldview. Though many Black females were not born into literal American ghettoes, as were Souljah and I, most nevertheless struggle for selfdetermination and self-definition against the world’s ghettoized image of them. Young Black females often struggle to invent themselves against the distorted images of “money hungry heartless bitch,” “Jezebel,” and good ole “Mammy” among others, many of which were created during slavery. Patricia Hill Collins (1991: 71) explains:
The first controlling image applied to African American women is that of mammy-the faithful, obedient domestic servant. Created to justify the economic exploitation of house slaves and sustained to explain Black women’s long-standing restriction to domestic service, the mammy image represents the normative yardstick used to evaluate all Black women’s behavior.
