{"product_id":"mama-dont-you-weep-rhaisa-kameela-williams-9781479841073","title":"Mama, Don't You Weep: Black Motherhood, Performance, and the Costs of Grief","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow Black maternal grief sustains, resists, and remakes Black life\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn 1955, Mamie Till-Mobley's decision to display her son's brutalized body transformed private mourning into public activism, establishing a paradigm of \"grief capital.\" In \u003ci\u003eMama, Don't You Weep\u003c\/i\u003e, Rhaisa Kameela Williams interrogates this phenomenon, arguing that Black maternal grief functions simultaneously as a political and financial commodity and a deeply embodied experience. Williams traces how Black women navigate the \"murky waters\" where their pain is leveraged as symbolic currency--reproducible, marketable, and subject to contract--while they simultaneously perform the quiet, ongoing labor of living with loss. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSpanning the years 1955 to 1986, Williams employs performance studies to analyze the shift from the racial liberalism of the Civil Rights era to the rise of liberal multiculturalism. She examines a diverse archive, contrasting the \"grief tours\" of Mamie Till-Mobley with the debt resistance of the National Welfare Rights Organization and the creative works of Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor. Williams challenges the \"frozen image\" of the strong Black mother, distinguishing between grievance--the linear, legal demand for justice--and grief, which is cyclical, messy, and pervasive. By shifting focus away from the spectacle of murdered Black men and toward the material realities of the women left behind, \u003ci\u003eMama, Don't You Weep\u003c\/i\u003e reveals how Black maternal grief is generative, capacious, and inextricably bound to the nation's political economy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Rhaisa Kameela Williams\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1479841072\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781479841073\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e New York University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/17\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 240\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback","brand":"Rhaisa Kameela Williams","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48997508284671,"sku":"9781479841073","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/mama-dont-you-weep-rhaisa-kameela-williams-9781479841073","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}