Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Bought a print I love, DH is worried it's racist

999 replies

NC4T · 31/05/2018 21:12

Saw it on IG and loved it. Purchased it for the laundry room corridor, but it's arrived and DH is a little worried it might be racist. I can't see how. To me, it's a mum finding a few minutes of calm in the chaos and I love her babies little sleeping face.

We are white Jewish, for cultural context.

What do you think?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
17
JamieVardysHavingAParty · 01/06/2018 01:41

tiddliewinkiewoo

Eh? You have distorted what Queen said massively. She thought it looked like the artist was drawing her idea of an African village woman. I agree, actually.

The world is a horribly unequal place. There are millions of people living without access to clean water to drink; in fact it's 844 million people, according to WaterAid. If they don't have piped in water, they can hardly have washing machines plumbed in to the water supply they don't have.

If any woman anywhere grew up wihout running water and electricity, she would need to read a washing machine manual before she used it for the first time. It is not an aspersion on her intelligence to observe that.

Believe it or not, learning to use a washing machine is a learnt skill. If you've never had a washing machine, you don't know how to use one. I remember the day when my family got our first one and do you know what? We had to read the manual. Presumably my mother was thick, then? Hmm

DixieFlatline · 01/06/2018 01:44

The black female body has been fetishised for centuries by white people and this painting is like stepping back in time.

Or to Denmark, which sadly is a bit of a way behind due to stubbornly refusing to discuss racism in any meaningful way, much less turn a critical eye inwards.

Hence my lack of surprise that this picture is from Denmark.

mathanxiety · 01/06/2018 01:45

Is there the suggestion in the image that though the woman has achieved some western-ness, she has not got all the way there yet? Who takes off all her clothes and lounge on the washing machine while carrying a baby in traditional baby wrap on her back? Someone who has absorbed some but not all of what it takes to be western.

It's a 'one foot in Africa and one foot in the west/one foot in the age old ways, one foot in the new ways' image. The use of the washing machine as a representation of the west and the modern is very problematic, because there is an implied comparison and contrast there with the black woman's African culture.

Battleax · 01/06/2018 01:47

She thought it looked like the artist was drawing her idea of an African village woman. I agree, actually.

I thought so too.

I can’t imagine what else could have been the intent of depicting her leaning naked on the washing machine to read with traditional headscarf and baby tied to her back. Surely we’re supposed to understand that she doesn’t have many changes of clothes and she is using a communal laundry room (otherwise she’d be on her sofa reading naked - more comfortable)?

Whether the intent beyond that is commentary, whimsy or whatnot, I really can’t tell. It just makes me uncomfortable.

Whyarealltheusernamestaken · 01/06/2018 01:53

I saw the picture, was not offended at all and didn’t think it was racist. However give me some time to think and I can come up with lots of reasons why this offends me somehow, as my outrage may be popular....

JamieVardysHavingAParty · 01/06/2018 01:57

Yep, Battleaxe.

For me, it taps into that genre of knick-knacks of black women with babies on their backs, sans clothes. The nude statuary would doubtless be dressed-up with excuses like 'celebrating other cultures', 'celebrating motherhood' and 'but if they had clothes on it wouldn't be an authentic representation' and so on.

Faugh.

Raven88 · 01/06/2018 02:02

I like it, what is see is a women with a new baby taking five minutes and she also realised that she has absolutely no clothes left because she has been too busy and she is home alone on mat leave so thought why not wash what I'm wearing too. I don't see it as racist but I'm also white so I don't feel my opinion matters.

Rach5l · 01/06/2018 02:15

I don't see it as racist but I wouldn't hang it unless I identified with doing laundry naked. I'm sure some people do, but most don't unless they only have one set of clothes. The woman in the drawing doesn't strike me as someone with only one set of clothes so she's naked because she enjoys being naked. Nothing to do with skin colour

Battleax · 01/06/2018 02:18

The woman in the drawing doesn't strike me as someone with only one set of clothes so she's naked because she enjoys being naked.

And does she also actively “enjoy” reading leaning on a washing machine? Nobody reads leaning on an active washing machine from choice.

She’s trapped in there by her nudity. Because she hasn’t strolled down her laundry room corridor to pop a load in her Miele and have a quick read. She’s somewhere communal.

Monty27 · 01/06/2018 02:33

I love the illustration.
I think had the woman been white it may not have invoked so much controversy, but then there would be controversy about the subject not being male?
The perception here is that women do the laundry and that's after slavery.

mathanxiety · 01/06/2018 03:35

Does she also enjoy the fact that she is being watched as she leans naked on the washing machine, minding her own business?

The viewer here occupies a point of privileged invisibility. I think the element of privilege is magnified for viewers who are male and viewers who are white.

sleepingdragons · 01/06/2018 03:42

I can’t imagine what else could have been the intent of depicting her leaning naked on the washing machine to read with traditional headscarf and baby tied to her back.

I recognised it instantly as a mother catching 5 minutes to read while multitasking.

otherwise she’d be on her sofa reading naked - more comfortable

Not if she was worried she's wake the baby - or if she's waiting for a quick wash to end.

I see her as time poor - simply because she's a mother.

Have you forgotten what those early days are like Battleax?

How much time did you get to relax on the sofa with a good book? I got exactly none!

QuackPorridgeBacon · 01/06/2018 03:55

MiggeldyHiggins Really? Fuck knows what I’ve read then. I thought it was over a hundred.

Lacucuracha · 01/06/2018 04:11

If you're time poor you don't wait around for a wash to end, you get on with other stuff.

And waiting for a wash to end is like watching a kettle boil - interminable and mind numbing. Reading a book whilst standing and waiting for the wash to end is not much better. I agree, the woman is trapped in a communal laundry.

And she's going to be trapped in OP's laundry room now

GinIsIn · 01/06/2018 04:31

I don’t like it because it’s a bit twee and not my sort of thing, but bloody hell, some of the vaguely racist judgements on here are bizarre! I would imagine the baby has puked on her last set of clean clothes, she’s shoved what she was wearing in the wash, discovered the noise from the machine will keep screamy newborn asleep for 10 minutes and is reading jilly cooper in an exhausted haze whilst waiting to move the wet clothes to the drier so she actually has something to wear. Because most of us have been there!

Bettyfood · 01/06/2018 04:36

It's horribly twee and worthy.

mathanxiety · 01/06/2018 04:37

Are you sure we have almost all been there, naked by the washing machine, our last stitch covered in puke, reading a book that just happened to be there, with a baby strapped to our backs?

This never happened to me.

AjasLipstick · 01/06/2018 05:04

Fenella it's nothing at all to do with what she is or isn't DOING but to do with the objectification of a black woman. Your twee description of a new Mother reading Jilly fucking Cooper and being in an "exhausted haze" serves nobody.

Monty27 · 01/06/2018 05:04

Absolutely never Matt. It's subjective. It's more sexist than racist to me.

hazyhazza · 01/06/2018 05:20

Have you asked a black person?

hazyhazza · 01/06/2018 05:24

Funny that when white women carry babies on their backs with a sling or whatever it doesn't mean poverty. Grin

Monty27 · 01/06/2018 05:25

I am a white woman and whilst I love the illustration I am offended. I would be offended no matter.

namechangemaestro · 01/06/2018 05:32

Not racist but I think it's a bit sexist

Getoffthetableplease · 01/06/2018 05:47

I don't see it as anything to do with race? I dunno, maybe that's because it's a normal scene here frequently...I will often last minute blitz all cleaning at once, shove all the washing in machine (yes, including clothes off back as I have more but choose to wear same on rotation in all honesty as I'm a bit fat now and need to easily be able to get boobs out for feeding baby), youngest has to be worn for me to vacuum without him going batshit, have books dotted around to read whenever and will often lurk for machine to finish so I can peg washing out and then actually sit rather than get up again to continue jobs 5 mins later. So there may well be something I totally don't see but just wanted to put my 2p in to say there's at least one of us who does see this as a normal thing, ha!

TheDowagerCuntess · 01/06/2018 05:54

Gosh, it makes me really uncomfortable. And I would rather die than put it up on my laundry wall.

My thought process is - what if an African or Caribbean woman came into my house and saw it? What would they think?

Would they think I was trying to be really 'right on' and feel patronised? Would they think I was (mis)appropriating something that doesn't belong to me?

Would they just be plain old, bog standard offended?

I suspect they might be. And if there was even a chance of that, it would put me off hanging it.

As PPs have said - it counts for precisely nothing that a bunch of white women don't think there's anything wrong with it.

Swipe left for the next trending thread