“I attempt to write about characters without condescension, without making them into an image which some may deem more useful, inspirational, profitable, or suitable. Listen for the poetry in common prose, a sensitive experience.” – Alice Childress, Knowing the Human Condition
Black American playwright and fiction writer Alice Childress was known for creating strong, humorous, and principled characters who overturned stereotypes, rebelled against power structures, and inspired readers to radically reimagine their societies to be more equitable. Mildred, a domestic worker in Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic’s Life (1956), is one such character, imbued with humanistic pleasures, great emotional depth, and a passion for artistic expression. Mildred is also hilarious. She fearlessly talks back to, interrupts, challenges, informs, and corrects her white employers who run the gamut of personas, from ‘mean’ to kind, because as she shows us through her vivid storytelling, Mildred transcends the flaws of her employers – including racism itself. In a series of touching and engaging stories – originally published as columns in Freedom and the Baltimore Afro-American – Mildred assertively calls out a number of wrongs in society, ranging from racism, sexism, and classism, to ageism, war, and the exploitation of all people globally. Drawing upon oral traditions of Afro-American cultures, Childress’s Mildred speaks of several encounters with white employers to her trusted friend Marge, who represents the social community from which Mildred hails, and with whom Mildred can be most candid. In her brilliant monologues, Mildred displays moral and intellectual clarity, uses irony to reveal societal incongruities, and deflates the presumed superiority of whites, thereby unforgivingly pointing out ‘the nakedness of the Emperor’; that is, she utilizes humor to expose the injustices born out of race, class, and gender hierarchies.
Before detailing Childress’s skillful use of humor, it is important to note the historical context of this work. Set and published in the mid-1950s, the need for Mildred’s domestic work was a direct result of the mass movement to suburbia after World War II. White, middle-class women who had made strides earlier in the twentieth century towards gender equality were now moving back into the domestic sphere to fulfill their roles as wives and mothers (Walker 5). Amid fears of “creeping Communism,” conservative sentiments prevailed and ensured women’s secure place back in their home environments (Dresner 221). This time was also the height of the civil rights movement. Desegregation was underway but not yet achieved in many public sectors, while de facto segregation still prevailed even in the north (e.g., New York), where Childress’s Mildred worked. Childress’s book was published during this historical moment of the Jim Crow South, black liberation in Africa, and racial tensions in the US, evidenced by “anti-Negro violence and blatant discrimination” (Dresner 222). The anxieties and anger surrounding segregated spaces are apparent in Mildred’s stories, both in the voices of characters with whom she interacts and in the activism that she and others undertake. Domestic workers, primarily women of color, who serviced suburban homes spent much of their day working in close quarters to white, middle-class women before returning home to their communities in the evening on segregated buses (Walker 107).
Due to Childress’s social location as an African-American woman and a great-granddaughter of a slave, she wrote with the awareness that many black women are often triply oppressed by race, gender, and class. This, in addition to having been a domestic worker and having an aunt, Lorraine, who had also been a domestic worker, informed her creation of the strong-willed character, Mildred. Childress draws upon oral traditions of black folk storytelling in Mildred’s narrations that allow her to make “art out of conversation” (Harris, “Introduction” xx) and “simulate casualness and spontaneity” (Harris, “I Wish I Was a Poet” 25). Childress’s humor is political in that it addresses discrimination and inequality felt by the oppressed. “[T]he focus in Childress’s work is on the liberation of the Afro-American community from the political, social, and economic oppression imposed by the dominant culture” (Dresner 229). In The Literary Genius of Alice Childress, John O. Killens describes Childress’s humor as “a cultural weapon” (129). He writes, “Childress’s humor is in the profoundest tradition, i.e., humor with a political vengeance” (131). However, perhaps the following is the most befitting description of the kind of humorist Alice Childress was:
The humorist is at odds with the publicly espoused values of the culture, overturning its sacred cows, pointing out the nakedness of not only the Emperor, but also the politician, the pious, and the pompous. For women to adopt this role means that they must break out of the passive, subordinate position mandated for them by centuries of patriarchal tradition and take on the power accruing to those who reveal the shams, hypocrisies, and incongruities of the dominant culture. (Walker 9)
Childress – and Mildred through Childress – are the very antithesis of a submissive, docile worker, writer, or storyteller and they are both able to accrue the power to which Walker alludes. Dresner further explains that Mildred is in fact “the negation of the Aunt Jemima stereotype, of the docile, domesticated domestic” (225). Similarly, Trudier Harris, in her introduction of Childress’s book, explains that, “[i]nstead of a handkerchief-headed black woman, or one bowing and scraping before her ‘quality white folks,’ Mildred stood up straight and tall” (xv). Mildred simply does not conform to any caricature or stereotype of a black woman; her moral rectitude, sensitivity, intellect, and sass make her a complex character, one who is inspiring to her readers.
At the same time, Childress’s writing can be seen as an artistic masterpiece that articulates a “Supermaid […] who champions the causes of morality and decency” (Harris, “I Wish” 26), the “lady in shining armor charging off to attack insensitive racist infidels,” (Harris, “Introduction” xxi) who speaks to a deeply buried truth—“the universal desire for freedom” and “the human need for entertainment or for transcendence of difficult situations” (Harris, “I Wish” 24). Mildred is fantastical in her ability to constantly outwit and rise above all circumstances she encounters while maintaining a zest for life and a humanity stronger than all meanness. Perhaps this is what makes Childress’s writing most resemble feminist humor—by positing a woman who transcends her racialized, classed, and gendered circumstances to upend unjust dynamics . Additionally, by having Mildred confide in Marge, Childress allows Marge to stand in for a broader audience, including the readers themselves, thereby “achieving one of the major social functions of humor: the fostering of group solidarity” (Dresner 224). This is so skillfully achieved as readers laugh with Mildred and experience a shared satisfaction at her victories.
Simply put, one of the ways Childress’s humor is most subversive is by affording the last laugh to Mildred. As is characteristic of minority humor, Mildred emerges the victor and asserts a superiority over her white employers—intellectually and morally. This is a rich use of irony by Childress in order to overturn racial expectations; the genteel class of whites stands much to benefit from Mildred’s insights. “Complexity is undone by simplicity, and book learning gives way to mother wit” (Harris, “I Wish” 27). In order to accomplish this, Mildred undertakes two tasks at once: she deflates the supposed superiority of white employers by pointing out their hypocrisy, greed, and ignorance, while simultaneously demonstrating great intellectual prowess in history, creative thinking, and ability to see clearly. A technique constantly at hand is role reversal, or “turning the tables” (Harris, “I Wish” 29). Each of these facets to Childress’s humor will be explored in greater depth with textual examples in order to offer a close reading of her work.
First, what is central to Mildred’s gaining of the upper hand is her ability to devalue what is hegemonically powerful and problematize preconceptions that are usually left untouched. “Mildred’s ‘conversations’ reflect basic patterns of ethnic humor that involve defiance and deflation of the oppressor through linguistic deconstructions and comic reversal.” (Dresner 229). Mildred begins these deconstructions in the opening story and pursues them throughout the book. She criticizes the hypocrisy of her employers, who claim to call her “one of the family” and yet show greater consideration for their pets and plants than they do towards Mildred (Childress 1). In “Like One of the Family” Mildred remarks on the limited spaces she can use within the home, and that even the family’s dog sleeps on a “satin spread” (2) while she toils in the house, thus illustrating she is not at all one of the family. Similarly, in “Weekend with Pearl” Mildred points to her employer’s implicit priorities; Mildred is expected to water the geraniums at the expense of her own time off, but Mildred, frustrated, says that she too needs the same care as the plants. “I need some sun and water and air myself” (81). Mildred is thus able to expose the double standard in their compassion for living things, since it appears Mildred does not quite qualify for it. In both of these examples, Mildred exposes the insincerity in the outward kindness of her employers. This discrepancy is what Dresner describes as “incongruous contrasting images” which allow Childress to “satirize those behaviors and precepts promoted by American culture to demean and oppress a particular group of people” (223).
Therefore, Mildred’s naming and shaming of superficialities present culturally in the homes of white families is a key part of her sardonic humor. She mocks the language, mannerisms, and pretentiousness that she witnesses, such as the use of the words “wonderful” and “amusin’,” the excessive smiling, and the false proximity in the words, “never thought you’d leave us.” Additionally, in the tradition of jokes made at the expense of white oppressors, Mildred ridicules white dependency, or as Walker explains, “the inability of whites to survive without the black servant class on which they have come to rely” (109).
What Mildred then achieves is an inverted hierarchy where she rises as superior. The first method to be explored here is Mildred’s assertions of intellectual superiority, and this is apparent in the ways she is able to see what others do not. She bears witness to the errors of their ways, from the perfunctory and joyless jaunts of the privileged to the gradually accumulating troubles of spoiled children. She also sees through the pretentious amicability towards domestic workers and the poorly concealed racial undertones to all conversations. For example, in “The Pocketbook Game”, not only does Mildred recognize her employer’s preconceived notions about a maid’s proclivity for stealing, but she also demonstrates great shrewdness in her patience and plotting. She tolerates her employer’s blatant maligning of her trustworthiness and waits for the right moment to respond. “I held my peace for months, tryin’ to figure out how I’d make my point…. Well, bless Bess! Today was the day!” (Childress 26). What becomes apparent is that Mildred is “a confident, creative woman who consciously plans and executes a confrontation” (Harris, “I Wish” 29). There is even subtlety to be read in the way Mildred begins her narration. “Marge…day’s work is an education!” (Childress 26). This can be read as a simple starter to a story, or an indication of Mildred’s notions of labor and learning as mutually constitutive of one another. Clearly her encounters at work contribute to her development of wit and astuteness.
Other examples of Mildred’s intellectual prowess are strongly evidenced in “Listen for the Music” and “Story Tellin’ Time”. In the former, Mildred describes where music comes from to a young white boy, but with the thoughtfulness of a scientist and educator, inviting her pupil to question and ponder upon what she says. “Frankie, I don’t rightly know that I can give you the last-word facts about it, but I can tell you what I think if you’d like to hear that” (Childress 5). Contrast this with the “off-hand” response and the “dumb-struck” look that Mildred describes is on the face of the boy’s mother. This disparity affords the audience an appreciation for Mildred’s efforts. “[T]he audience recognizes the truth and seriousness of what she says in contrast to the falsity and triviality of what the whites have said” (Harris, “Introduction” xxiv). Despite her humility, Mildred offers an intriguing response to the boy’s ceaseless questions that quickly draws the attention of his mother, who turns down the radio to listen to Mildred. Here we see humor in the form of subtle irony by Childress. As Dresner explains, humor arises “from the discrepancy between white people’s foolish stereotypes about blacks and the reality Mildred embodies. This discrepancy continually creates the irony that reveals the whites as the fools.” (226). Mildred’s power of observation (i.e., her ability to see what is not always manifest) and her passion for life itself are showcased in this story as making her truly exceptional. Childress is at once defying stereotypes about poor, black women while offering her readers a laugh, as Mildred’s storytelling got her out of “an afternoon’s ironin’” (Childress 8). This goes beyond displaying “black women’s humanity” as Roxanne Gay writes in the foreword of the book; this is a display of a black woman’s creativity, ingenuity, imagination, and eloquence.
In “Story Tellin’ Time” Mildred also demonstrates her wit in the face of attempted domination. Mrs. B, Mildred’s employer, tries to stop Mildred from attending a concert by Paul Robeson due to his political activism. Mrs. B describes him as “the kind of people that will make trouble” (Childress 116). Mildred rejects the power of the oppressor to define who is a troublemaker, and through a serious but darkly humorous narration, she teaches Mrs. B about who really incarnates trouble. Mildred presents, with a strong backing in history, the ruthless exploitation and violence towards black Americans, and she does so in such a way that encompasses the sheer injustice and absurdity of it all. “After old Master got over his cryin’ spell, he formed the Ku Klux and went out shootin’ down some of Jim’s relatives” (116) – and this just after weeping over Jim’s unknown fate. Mildred shows Mrs. B the master’s duplicity time and again, and by taking charge of the narrative, she circumvents the possibility that Mrs. B will vilify civil rights activists in the future. Indeed, she is successful, as by the end of the story, Mrs. B avoids the topic altogether. As Walker explains, “Mildred is thus part of a long tradition of servants who outwit or see more clearly than their masters, a tradition that turns upon class differences as well as upon racial differences” (108).
Yet Mildred’s ability to outwit her employers is not her only strength in the face of oppression; she also demonstrates a stereotype-busting, unwavering morality and a strong ethical grounding that far exceeds what she encounters at the hands of others. This is yet again a use of irony by Childress to satirize the supposed gentility and advancement of the white race in comparison to poor and unsophisticated blacks. “Mildred, the assumed bottom rail culturally and intellectually, becomes the top rail morally and racially” (Harris, “Introduction” xxiv). This is apparent in Mildred’s work ethic and the absence of racism in her attitude. In “Hands”, it becomes clear that Mildred views work as inherently meaningful and feels wonder at the creative labors of others. She tells Marge that “everyone who works is a servant” (62) and invites Marge to witness the labor inherent in each object surrounding them. “Now Marge, you can take any article and trace it back like that and you’ll see the power and beauty of laboring hands […] Why, you could just go on through all the rest of time singin’ the praises of hands” (62-63). Her ability to imagine the invisible is more evidence of her ingenuity, but it also illustrates her deep respect for the labor and time of people. Mildred’s own hard work increases her sensitivity and capacity for empathy. As Harris puts it, “Mildred scrubs and soars,” not only in imagination but also in compassion (“Introduction” xxxvii).
Mildred’s morality is also patent in her sidestepping of systemic bigotry that befalls so many around her; Mildred is unequivocally not a racist. This is readily apparent in the positivity and affection with which she describes particular white folk she encounters and in such a way that is different from condescension. For example, an elderly white couple is the subject of her fascination in “I Wish I Was a Poet” as she describes the gentle love between them. “Marge, he was lookin’ at her like every woman on earth dreams of bein’ looked at, and her eyes were doin’ the same thing back at him” (Childress 101). Similarly, she uses positive language to describe the son of an employer. “Where I worked today, there was a little boy about five years old and he was such a bright-eyed inquirin’ little fellow that it was a pure joy to be around him and it was all I could do to keep doin’ my work and not stop and play with him all afternoon” (Childress 4). Not only does Mildred describe them in a positive light, but she also expresses the warm effect they have on her. This is apparent when she describes Mrs. L affectionately in “I Liked Workin’ at that Place”: “I must say that she was always nice about things like that and I really felt free and easy around her” (Childress 68). In fact, her entire narration makes the case for the kindness in people. Mildred seeks (and asserts) a “mutual humanity” in her relationships with her employers (Harris, “I Wish” 27). “The conscience and concern displayed by Mildred often contrast with the insensitivity and condescension of her white employers” (Dresner 227). Her capacity to be instructive to racists in the areas of love and compassion is amply evidenced through these stories.
A final way that Childress is able to upend the normative hierarchy and satirize the racial, gendered, and classed role of the domestic worker is by imbuing Mildred with a love for the artistic. As previously shown, Mildred is a creative and imaginative thinker, and this fact often startles and impresses her employers. In “Pretty Sights and Good Feelin’s”, Childress takes this irony a step further with comical consequences. Mildred is serving a luncheon party during which women, friends of her employer, reminisce – quite vapidly – about their international travels. Here, the role of the outsider affords Mildred some distance by which she can gain a clear perspective on the objects of her gaze. This allows her to point out amusing contradictions and hypocrisies about them, such as their resistance to eating at a luncheon party but their verbosity on the topic of food from abroad. “Seems like they couldn’t eat unless they went off some place far!” (Childress 139). Mildred cleverly uncovers their “code”; that is, she shows that speaking about foreign food is a performance of high status. In her subversive manner, Childress makes Mildred the most interesting traveler at the luncheon party. When Mildred begins to speak about her train ride in South Carolina, she finds a captive audience. The underlying hilarity is that France, Egypt, and South America pale in comparison to Mildred’s train ride. Mildred can see that their vacations are not actually enjoyable at all but more perfunctory. “Mildred truly enjoys the experience of her trip while the white women have simply catalogued the places they have visited that make them a part of an in-crowd” (Harris, “I Wish” 26).
So it would appear that turning the tables is a very effective tool in Childress’s humor. However, what has not yet been undertaken in this paper is a look at humor as a means of establishing distance from difficult circumstances, or in other words, coping. Harris explains that in humorous retellings of encounters, “[t]he tone is light and confident; it almost belies the seriousness of the content of the situation” (“I Wish” 28). Humor affords a different reading of the often emotionally-charged and anxiety-ridden stories surrounding racist behavior committed by white oppressors. “Let’s Face It” offers readers an example of what Harris describes. “Mildred has taken events that were probably not at all reassuring or entertaining and has made them so” (“I Wish” 28). In this story, Mildred talks back to a “Mr. Billy Alabama of the genteel, narrowminded school of thought” (Childress 180). This is Childress’s first step towards injecting humor into what will be a charged racial encounter: Mildred names him in her signature way of reclaiming the use of language to deflate the oppressor. When Mildred takes a seat across from Mr. Billy Alabama as an equal, he is stunned. She tells Marge, “Girl, he got a look on his face like somebody had just slammed a automobile door on his finger.” This funny comparison vents the looming tension and delegitimizes Mr. Billy Alabama’s emotions. By making his anger a source of amusement, Childress renders him less powerful and does not allow him to set the tone of the story. She can speak about him mockingly, showing that his inane, racist rage deserves no accommodating. This use of humor is an expert way to control the tone of the story that keeps in with the black American tradition of "laughing at the man" (Walker 109).
Lastly, a note on Mildred’s tone throughout her narrations is warranted. Though role reversal has been described in prior examples, Mildred’s use of her own voice to interrupt has yet to be explored. Interruptions are yet another way that Mildred subverts the power dynamic and claims a position of superiority, contrary to expectations. “She is herself an example of the unexpected becoming important, of the politically powerless becoming politically potent” (Harris, “I Wish” 29). Mildred engages the familiar technique of “turning the tables” by performing the mannerisms expected of the oppressor (29). Dresner also describes this role reversal as “a standard device of ‘out-group’ humor” which allows Childress to “empower Mildred while at the same time disempowering the white employer who would disparage her” (225). For example, Mildred challenges Mr. Billy Alabama’s rambling narrations with hilarious interruptions that halt his outpour of ignorance. When he describes a black reverend looking up at him, Mildred asks, “Where was he, on the floor?” In this and many of her stories, Childress offers witty ways of responding to unstated prejudices that can be very difficult to challenge through the usual modes of confrontation because racist actions are often not overtly committed. Mildred violates “all the requirements for silence and invisibility that were historically characteristic of domestics” (Harris, “Introduction” xx).
In summary, Alice Childress has engaged in a politically rebellious humor characteristic of minorities in her work Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic’s Life. Not the humor of the privileged that elicits light laughter, these monologues by Mildred are both a way of coping with angers at an unjust world, and a social satire that deconstructs race, class, and gender preconceptions. The astute, humorous, and talented protagonist Mildred overcomes numerous slights against her and shows readers how to face discrimination with confidence and dignity. Childress’s humor offers an outlet and a coping mechanism for the “underdog” or the “have-nots” in society while undermining its hierarchies. Dresner explains:
By refusing to allow herself to be used or manipulated by her employers, by asserting her integrity and autonomy, Mildred provides a new, more “real” norm or model of black womanhood for other black women and working-class women to emulate while allowing Childress to poke fun at the prejudices and delusions of whites. (225-226)
Mildred points to countless incongruities in racialized conceptions of the world, she directs laughter at the oppressor, and, to her readers’ delight, she repeatedly turns the tables on those who disparage her. As Harris states in the book’s introduction, “One Mildred, a black maid whom they have considered inconsequential and utterly lacking in intelligence, turns the intellectual tables on them all” (xxiv). Part humorous fantasy, part political satire, this text both draws upon and enriches the long tradition of African-American humor against domination.
Works Cited
Childress, Alice. “Knowing the Human Condition.” Black American Literature and Humanism. Ed. R. Baxter Miller. University Press of Kentucky, 1981, pp. 8-10.
---. Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic's Life. 1956. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986.
Dresner, Zita. "Alice Childress's Like One of the Family: Domestic and Undomesticated Humor." Look Who's Laughing: Gender and Comedy. Ed. Gail Finney. Langborne, PA: Gordon and Breach, 1994, pp. 221-229.
Harris, Trudier. Introduction. Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic's Life, by Alice Childress. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986, pp. xv-xxxviii.
---. ""I Wish I was a Poet": The Character as Artist in Alice Childress's Like One of the Family." Black American Literature Forum, 14.1. School of Education, Indiana State University, 1980, pp. 24-30.
Killens, John O. “The Literary Genius of Alice Childress.” Black Women Writers (1950-1980): A Critical Evaluation. Ed. Mari Evans. New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984.
Walker, Nancy A. A very serious thing: Women's humor and American culture. Vol. 2. U of Minnesota Press, 1988.
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