From ‘Mammy’ To Madame President? Get Ready For White Men To Lose It—Again

Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (R) shakes hands with Donald Trump during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. | Source: SAUL LOEB / Getty

If Kamala Harris wins the presidency on November 5, the majority of white men—who overwhelmingly back Donald Trump—will plunge into an existential free-fall. And the meltdown is going to be a spectacular hot mess of fury, rage, and tears flooding America’s streets and backwoods as they implode under the weight of centuries of entitlement that afforded them the ability to be masters of everybody else’s bodies and destinies.

We saw a preview of this meltdown in 2008 when Barack Obama took office. His presence in the White House, which was built by enslaved labor, made it painfully clear that white supremacy was in jeopardy.

The Primal Howl: Eight Years of Obama Rage

Remember: The Tea Party protests, birther conspiracies about forged certificates, chants of “Take our country back,” racist signs and lynching effigies at rallies, calls for Obama’s impeachment, gun-toting protestors outside statehouses, Confederate flags waved with pride, dog whistles about “law and order” or “fiscal responsibility,” “You lie!” shouted on the House floor, Fox News hysteria fanning flames of fear, a dramatic spike in gun sales, violent anti-government militia and hate groups on the rise, and Facebook conspiracy groups spreading misinformation. And let’s not forget the Patriot movement, open-carry marches, voter suppression, and right-wing politicians peddling fear about Sharia law, socialism, and FEMA death camps.

The backlash wasn’t just political.  It was a raw, unhinged eruption, a primal howl from white men watching the world they once dominated rapidly shift toward diversity and progress.

Do you recall how white folks seethed for eight years over the sight of a Black man leading a nation their colonizer ancestors stole through genocidal violence but still believed was rightfully theirs? Remember how they were grinding their teeth as Obama walked across the White House lawn, stewing in resentment every time they had to listen to him speak with eloquence and confidence?

Oh, and how they raged as Michelle Obama redefined First Lady elegance without bowing to their stiff, vanilla-coated versions of respectability. How her intelligence, competence, and unapologetic Blackness robbed them of the chance to reduce her to a token or use her as a convenient demonstration project in racial inferiority. That burned them up inside.

I can still see them sulking through Obama’s press briefings, and how they exploded at the sight of him golfing, vacationing, loving on his wife, doting on his daughters, or simply existing with decorum. Each policy, each handshake, and each executive order felt like a personal attack on their myth of white male supremacy—a narrative they’d been fed for generations.

For eight years, they responded with rage and denial. They framed their anger as “economic anxiety,” claiming they had been left behind and were victims of reverse discrimination.

They whined about factory closures. They blamed immigrants for “stealing” jobs they didn’t even want. They railed against affirmative action for giving “their” jobs and university seats to allegedly “unqualified” people of color. They insisted that diversity initiatives were part of some grand conspiracy to erase them. They raged about marriage equality, cried foul over political correctness and not being able to wear blackface at Halloween, and even blamed Starbucks cups for destroying their values, all while stockpiling guns, hoarding survival gear, tuning into Fox News for their daily dose of outrage, and sharing memes about the good old days.

Meanwhile, white families continued being ruptured culturally and economically by the same racist capitalist system their forefathers created. We witnessed poor white men’s educational and health outcomes approach that of racialized groups. In recent years, there’s been a surge of white men in the United States dying earlier due to a mix of economic hardship, loneliness, drug overdoses, suicides among the young and elderly, the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and other so-called “deaths of despair” contributing to the overall decline of white life expectancy.

The Loss of Mammy: A Wound That Never Healed

And now, Kamala Harris, a Black and South Asian woman, threatens to take this transformation even further and unleash something even more volatile: the intersection of race and gender, amplified by an old wound that white men have been carrying since slavery—the loss of their Black mammy.

During slavery, Black women were forced into the role of caregiver, wet nurse, and emotional support for white men and their families. The figure of the mammy became a symbol of comfort and nurturing, an extension of the plantation order that propped up the delusion of white male superiority. Black women’s labor, both physical and emotional, became part of the fabric of white men’s identity. Mammy was not just a caregiver — she was a crutch that allowed white men to remain emotionally stunted, dependent on the unconditional care they believed they deserved.

The end of slavery disrupted that relationship, severing the forced bond between white men and the Black women they had relied on for comfort, power, and control. The loss of mammy was not just a loss of labor; it was the loss of an emotional dependency that many white men never recovered from. In the aftermath of emancipation, that grief curdled into rage. It was no coincidence that, after emancipation, white men unleashed a wave of violence against Black communities — lynchings, Jim Crow laws, and domestic terrorism designed to restore the control they had lost. Their violence wasn’t just about labor; it was about punishing Black people for no longer being willing to play the roles they had once been forced into.

Listen, if Obama’s presidency unhinged white men, a Harris presidency will crush their brittle illusion of control—the same illusion they’ve clung to since the first plans for a monument to mammy surfaced in the 1890s, back when they could no longer suckle her breasts or feast on her cornbread.  Harris doesn’t just represent the impending end of white male dominance, she symbolizes the death of the mammy figure in the white racial imagination, a figure that white men have never stopped mourning, even if they don’t consciously realize it.

Epigenetic Grief and Rage: A Legacy of Lost Control

That loss of control and the loss of mammy has simmered for generations and the rage we will see if Harris becomes president is not new.  It is an echo of the rage white men have expressed throughout history when their power and privilege are threatened. But it is also tied to something more intimate: the unresolved grief of losing the forced bond they had with Black women.  I’m not being hyperbolic or facetious when I harken back to the days of Black women suckling white children.  The oxytocin exchanges from generations of enslaved wet nursing left emotional imprints on generations of white people that have never reconciled. Without access to the mammy figure, they have struggled to build secure emotional identities, turning instead to violence, racism, and control to fill the void.

This is why white male rage is more than just a political reaction. It is a public health crisis, a generational trauma that has been passed down, reinforced by systems of white supremacy. When white men lash out — whether through hate groups, mass shootings, or political extremism — they are not just reacting to the present. They are responding to the epigenetic echoes of a loss they don’t fully understand but feel deeply: the loss of control over the Black women who once nurtured them under duress.

And now, Kamala Harris stands at the threshold of the highest office in the land, representing not just political power but the very embodiment of womanhood that white men once dominated. The idea that a woman of color, one who isn’t there to nurture, comfort, or serve them, could lead the country is a psychological rupture that many white men will not be able to process.

Brace for Impact: White Male Rage Will Burn Either Way

If Harris wins, we should expect the backlash to be swift and vicious.  Just as they did with Obama, white men and will be lash out with conspiracy theories, character attacks, and attempts to undermine Harris at every turn.  The media will once again leap to white men’s defense, urging us all to understand, contextualize, and sympathize with their frustrations. They will paint these men as victims of a changing world, struggling to find their place in a society that no longer centers them. But let’s be clear: their rage isn’t about policies or economic hardship. It’s about the end of their dominance.

Brace yourselves — because no matter what happens, we’re screwed either way. If Kamala Harris wins, their rage will burn hotter than ever, and if Trump wins again, their vengeance will be relentless. Either way, we’re staring down a fight.

Dr. Stacey Patton is an award-winning journalist and the author of Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won’t Save Black America.

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