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Sunday, March 27, 2011

The Origin Of The Term 'Baby Mama'

By: John McWhorter

Over the past 10 years, the terms "baby mama" and "baby daddy" have jumped the fence, as it were, and become mainstream American terms, albeit usually in an ironic sense. Rap group Outkast's megahit "Ms. Jackson," dedicated to "all the baby mamas' mamas," seems to have made "baby mama" officially American in 2000. By 2008, Fox News was confident enough about the general awareness of the term to pull it out of its inner-city associations and apply it to Michelle Obama, and the film Baby Mama, about middle-class whites, decontextualized it even further. Meanwhile, "Jesus Is My Babydaddy" T-shirts testify to the mainstreaming of the male version of the expression.

There have been those who wondered where the expressions come from -- and as often as not, you'll be taught that the answer is Jamaica. Nah, mon. It's from even further away than that. CONTINUE....