The 2015 MTV Video Music Awards have thus far been full of especially racially-loaded, tense moments. But perhaps the most offensive moment came when host Miley Cyrus used the term "real mammy" on stage.
In a pre-recorded backstage bit with Snoop Dog, he and Cyrus consumed brownies which he claimed were baked by her grandmother, who, we all learned Sunday night, she apparently calls "mammy."
The "mammy" is the "most well known and enduring racial caricature of African-American women" known for devotion to their white slaveowners and were promoted as "evidence of the supposed humanity of the institution of slavery," according to Ferris State University.
Twitter users understandably reacted in rage.
Lawd. Something uncomfortable to be discussed re: Miley and black men.
Still trying to wrap my mind around what Miley said. So lazy and racist and just gross.
"Mammy" pic.twitter.com/kuwgo2lsNm
Miley...before she left for tonight's #VMAs where she evoked #Mammy for the masses. http://33.media.tumblr.com/50796edd39e2d57fcab228c7619b3de4/tumblr_inline_ngn1eeK60X1qdd23b.gif ...
so just for the record, Miley Cyrus tonight: faux locs dismisses nicki's critique again black-cent references her "mammy" #VMAs
ok i'm watching now and this mammy shit is evidence enough that not a single writer of the VMAs even KNOWS a black person
they found just cause for miley to say the word mammy w/ fake dreads in her hair after... *throws up hands*
Correction August 31:
An earlier version of this story stated that Miley Cyrus, in a rainbow flag contraption, called Snoop her "real mammy." Rather, she was referring to her grandmother.
