What Does It Mean to ‘Look Like a Mom’?

The mom that is usually (though not always) a white mom, in part because she comes from a mass market pop culture tradition that has been run largely by white people. The mom that stretches back to June Cleaver, in her apron and florals, and extends through “The Brady Bunch,” “Eight Is Enough,” “The Cosby Show” and “Cheaper by the Dozen.”

Even the word “mom” — unlike, say, mother, which has more Madonna-like implications — conjures up the idea.

Indeed, this is in part why the Wall of Moms, which is largely white, though Ms. Barnum herself is Mexican-American, has also been called the Wall of Karens, and has been the subject of debate among protesters who see it as performative solidarity, undermining the goal of racial equity by positioning white women as rescuers.

Black mothers, after all, have twinned their motherhood with activism for decades without the same broad recognition and public embrace. As Kelly Glass pointed out in The Lily, before there was the Wall of Moms, there was the Army of Moms: a group of Black women united against gun violence in Chicago — the same city where, a week before the Wall of Moms was founded, there was a march of moms from Black and Latino communities. All of them are part of a singular and powerful tradition of mother symbolism, with their own reference points and cultural touchstones.

In response, the Wall of Moms founders have emphasized that they are not speaking for the movement, simply standing with it.