Letter from Roxy to "Tom"

My dearest son Chambers (now known as Tom)-

When you were a baby, I wanted the best for you. I looked into your little eyes and saw the vision of a life much brighter than that which could exist down the river. So I outwitted the white men and women and switched you with Tom so that you could have a life of privilege and joy. I sought vengeance on the supposed immovability of race and succeeded by fooling the world with these racially ambiguous baby boys.

Yet now that I look into your grown-up eyes, I see a lost life. I see a boy who grew into a man tainted in his heart not by Negro blood, but by the entitlement that comes with the status of a white, male aristocrat. I wanted so badly to give you a life of privilege but now I ask myself, what is privilege? You took your whiteness and your wealth and you ruined the lives of those around you because you thought that with access to unbounded privilege came a relinquishing of your responsibility to the world. The real Tom was sweet, gentle, meek, kind. He had no material, physical privilege and yet he understood empathy, responsibility, and respect. This had nothing to do with the color of his blood - this was because of ridiculous, artificial notions of race that can make a black white man like you think he owes no respect to the people in his life.

I wholeheartedly regret what I did.

Sincerely,

Your Mammy

Questions:

1) The DuBois reading left me wondering, what about the souls of black female folk? His writing seemed specifically targeted at men - his frequent use of the word 'men' to ostensibly encompass both females and males seemed to lend the piece a tone of androcentricity that made me want to know where the women fit in to this discussion of black self-realization and empowerment.

2) How was the role of a mother complicated during the era of slavery in the U.S. when black women were serving as both mommies and mammies? How did a slave mother define her relationship with her own child when she was simultaneously caring for someone else's child as well? Also, what about when the father of her child was a white master? How, then, was her child different from the master's other children for whom she was caring?