But that does not negate the fact that, for decades, Aunt Jemima's parent company fought like hell to defend its use of the mammy caricature . The "mammy" is an ahistorical depiction of enslaved Black women , one that casts them as jolly domestic workers who cooked and cleaned for their white enslavers and even nursed their children (often at the expense of being able to nurse their own children). It conveniently leaves out the part where these enslaved women are subjected to daily acts of violence, at the hands of white men and women.