From Maya Angelou's "The Heart of a Woman"

The black mother perceives destruction at every door, ruination at each window, and even she herself is not beyond her own suspicion....Beyond her door, all authority is in the hands of people who do not look or think or act like her and her children. Teachers, doctors, sales clerks, librarians, policemen, welfare workers are white and exert control over her family's moods, conditions and personality; yet, within the home, she must display a right to rule which at any moment, a knock at the door, or a ring of the telephone can be exposed as false. In the face of these contradictions, she must provide a blanket of stability, which warms but does not suffocate, and she must tell her children the truth about the power of white power without suggesting that it cannot be challenged.