Guest Post: How Did She, How Did We Get Here? Reflections on Precious Jones, Shaniya Davis and Black Motherhood By Summer McDonald

Mo'Nique in Precious

During a recent episode of Oprah: Fridays Live, two seemingly unrelated stories about black girls and their mothers were (un)intentionally juxtaposed.  First, Winfrey interviewed the white father and aunt of Shaniya Davis.  Following that segment, Winfrey introduced Gabby Sidibe, star of Precious, the film Winfrey executive produced.  A friend of mine had previously mentioned Precious and Shaniya in the same breath, but it wasn’t until I saw these segments that I paused long enough to make a connection. Watching a story on Davis, the 5-year-old girl allegedly sold into sexual slavery by her black mother only to be found dead days later, succeeded by scenes of Sidibe as Precious Jones, an illiterate, fat, black girl twice-pregnant by her father, whose value was similarly determined as something more tangible—and much less valuable—than Precious, was disheartening yet illuminating.  The similarities between a little North Carolina girl and a fictional Harlem teenager, though not immediately apparent, exist below the surface nonetheless.

Antoinette Nicole Davis

What the flurry of debate surrounding Precious and Shaniya Davis’ death reveals is a particular public fascination with and unequivocal condemnation of black women who represent a pathologized version of motherhood, an image that perpetually manifests itself in our public sphere.  It seems that turning our collective attention to the lives of young black girls requires that their mother either serve as First Lady or represent a stereotype, such as a welfare queen (Precious’ mother, Mary Johnston) or (former) drug addict (Shaniya’s mother, Antoinette Davis).  A recent article about the continued violence in Chicago Public Schools, for example, concludes with an interviewee implying that single black mothers are the reason for such decrepit (educational) environments, making them solely responsible for black children’s violent behavior, never implicating the larger social constructs.

I defend neither mother’s actions.  Our view of them, though myopic, is not unwarranted.  Indeed, what Precious and Shaniya experienced at the hands of their mothers—like so many black bodies before them—is a trauma tied to an appraisal of their monetary value: Precious is worth a welfare check, while Shaniya’s price equals her mother’s drug debt.  Yet, despite both Mary Johnston and Antoinette Davis serving as the latest examples of well-worn images of black women, the abuse that these dark-skinned, natural haired black women enact upon their daughters is understood as unique and alarmingly monstrous.  Though the penultimate scene of Precious shows Mary explaining to Ms. Weiss (the social worker) her reasons for allowing Precious to be abused by her boyfriend, by then the viewer has become accustomed to quietly judging Mary.  An earlier scene featuring Precious’ grandmother—appearing onscreen just long enough to shake her head disapprovingly at her daughter—not only validates our negative evaluation of Mary, but implies that she became monstrous and abusive on her own, without precedent.  The lineage of abuse remains unseen, comforting viewers into believing that such people are mere anomalies.

Similarly, the resounding response to Antoinette Davis, whose seeming malevolence is represented by the repeated airing of her mugshot is, “What kind of mother would do this to her child?” rather than the more telling and appropriate inquiry: How did she, and how did we get here?  We’re reluctant to consider that the one-night-stand during which Shaniya was conceived—quite plausibly yet another exchange of a black body for money—allowed Antoinette to think that she should barter her daughter.  Such thoughts would implicate Shaniya’s father, whom we have come to empathize with.  Instead, we submit to the impulse not to understand Mary or Antoinette, hardly finding use for them beyond condemnation.

Our accusatory responses to and indictments of these black women are comforting, allowing us to obscure the reality that once we come to know Precious, Shaniya, and their mothers, it is too late.  Once the meeting with Ms. Weiss begins, once the mugshot is taken, it is already too late—not just for Shaniya and Precious, but for their mothers and other mothers like them.  As long as we are satisfied with punishment, it is too late.  As long as we view these women and their nihilistic acts as monstrous, we do not have to acknowledge the other Preciouses and Shaniyas who also won’t be saved when their mothers go to jail or are no longer able to obtain welfare.  We won’t address that our community, both its people and the institutions that comprise it, only figure intimately in these women’s lives once too much damage has been done.

We should compel ourselves to be compassionate enough to re-evaluate the structures that aim to help but inevitably fail these women as quickly as we advocate for their punishment.  We must assess the way that we have been unjust to them. Indeed, such endeavors won’t resurrect Shaniya, or render films like Precious completely moot.  Yet we may prevent another Shaniya Davis from having to live and die in a way that negates just how precious she is.

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Summer McDonald is a doctoral candidate in English at The University of Chicago.  She specializes in 20th century American literature and race.  She blogs weekly about race and popular culture for the Black Youth Project.