Sexualized race, racialized sex
Perhaps she remembers
her great-great grandmother
who wanted to protest
but only rolled her eyes
and willed herself not to scream
when the white man
mounted her from behind.
–Andrea Williams
The portrayal of Black women as lascivious by nature is an enduring stereotype. The descriptive words associated with this stereotype are singular in their focus: seductive, alluring, worldly, beguiling, tempting, and lewd. Historically, White women, as a category, were portrayed as models of self-respect, self-control, and modesty – even sexual purity, but Black women were often portrayed as innately promiscuous, even predatory. This depiction of Black women is signified by the name Jezebel.
K. Sue Jewell, a contemporary sociologist, conceptualized the Jezebel as a tragic mulatto – “thin lips, long straight hair, slender nose, thin figure and fair complexion.”3 This conceptualization is too narrow. It is true that the “tragic mulatto” and “Jezebel” share the reputation of being sexually seductive, and both are antithetical to the desexualized “Mammy” caricature; nevertheless, it is a mistake to assume that only, or even mainly, fair-complexioned Black women were sexually objectified by the larger American society. From the early 1630s to the present, Black American women of all shades have been portrayed as hypersexual “bad-black-girls.”
Jewell’s conceptualization is based on a kernel of historical truth. Many of the slavery-era Blacks sold into prostitution were mulattoes. Also, freeborn light-skinned Black women sometimes became the willing concubines of wealthy White southerners. This system, called placage, involved a formal arrangement for the White suitor/customer to financially support the Black woman and her children in exchange for her long-term sexual services. The White men often met the Black women at “Quadroon Balls,” a genteel sex market…
… … Jezebel has replaced the Mammy as the dominant image of Black women in American popular culture. The Black woman as prostitute, for example, is a staple in mainstream movies, especially those with urban settings. The Black prostitute and the Black pimp supposedly give these movies cutting edge realism. Small budget pornographic movies reinforce vile sexual stereotypes of Black women. These women are willing, sometimes predatory, sexual deviants who will fulfill any and all sexual fantasies. Their sexual performances tap into centuries-old images of Black women as uninhibited whores… …
Elaina:
Thank you very much for posting this, Stan.
12 December 2005, 3:24 pmJuliajn Real:
Hi Stan.
Thanks for that excerpt of the excellent article, which, it is worth noting, is accompanied, on the linked site, by several disturbing images of racist-sexist artifacts.
I have a problem with the author’s unchallenged use of the term, “mulattoâ€. As one who sees spoken and written words as political acts, among other things, I think it is important to comment more thoroughly on this term.
Sociologist David Pilgrim’s article deals with U.S. white’s anti-African/African-American racism, and its origins in white and male supremacy. While the intersection of racism and sexism is being appropriately scrutinized by him, the term “mulatto†is presented, generally, as if non-controversial. Only in a footnote do we see that it may be regarded as politically problematic by the politically incorrect folks who are anti-CRAP (Corporate Racist Atrocious Patriarchy).
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulatto , we get this:
The origin of the term is often said to derive from “mula”, the Spanish word for mule, once a generic designation name for any hybrid. This is not certain but, as a result, it is considered offensive by some English-speakers, who might prefer terms like “biracial” instead. (Julian’s note: or might have experienced “mulatto†as a term of derision and discrimination.) Others however insist on the use of the term mulatto because it is more precise. (Julian’s note: more precisely what?) It must also be noted that words change their actual meaning independently from their etymological origin. Many words that are now widely used once had a negative origin. (examples are: hysterical (sexist origin), berber, slavic, hapa etc.) Spanish-speakers do not consider “mulatto” offensive. (Julian’s note: David’s article is not in Spanish.) In Latinamerica the term is even associated with beauty and sometimes with artistic ability. An alternate etymology traces mulatto to the Arabic muwallad, which means “a person of mixed ancestry”.
In U.S. society, where English is mandated as “the†official language—quickly spreading across the globe, the mule, in practice, is commonly used by humans as a pack animal.
Dictionary.com notes several meanings of the term, mule, in the English language:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mule
Mule:
(See also stubborn as a mule.)
The sterile hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, characterized by long ears and a short mane.
Informal. A stubborn person.
Also noted at that site is this term: drug mule, and its definition: any young female acting as a courier for illegal drugs; also called mule, from mule as a beast of burden.
As mentioned above, the non-human mule is unable to reproduce, as it is a crossbreed of horse and donkey. One animal is often regarded as majestic, if still exploited, as in the sexist-racist and speciesist film, Sea Biscuit. (Check out the scene in this beloved horse/human date movie, where U.S. white men go to Mexico, “[to a dreamland where promiscuous sex with brown-skinned virgins is more available]â€. No, I’m not kidding.)
The other animal is commonly referred to as an ass. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon long to figure out which animal is seen as representing white people (the proud horse), and which is intended to stand in for Black Americans (the utilitarian donkey). The use of animal names as referents to African American women and men, and also for white women, is common in CRAP: Playboy has its bunnies, and Penthouse has its Pets; Hustler refers to women more as wood-gnawing, flat-tailed river creatures. But Black men and women, in particular, have been seen by white supremacists as naturally possessing the status of non-human animals, or worse. (If many of the white men and women I know cared as much about the intersections of racism, sexism, classism, and patriarchal corporate militarism as they do about Animal Rights, the quest for the end of white and male supremacy might be realised. We’d still have economic, ecological, and specistist issues to deal with though.)
U.S. governmental mistreatment of poor, often Black, Americans, became graphically clear recently. The television-watching American public noted this gross disregard for human life during the horrendously racist and classist (and feeble and criminal) “efforts†of the U.S. government to attempt, pathetically, corruptly, and outrageously, to save a few of the lives of those who are, normally and daily, killed or left to die through systematised neglect (at least), by dominant American policy and practice—with or without the wind and rain of Hurricane Katrina. (Who picks those hurricanes’ names, anyway: how about naming hurricanes after past white-male U.S. presidents’ last names for a few decades?)
Note: the flooding was not Katrina’s (nature’s) fault primarily, it was due to ridiculous environmental policy and stupid urban planning, but I imagine that’s been noted already on this blog. I’m new here.
Also note: the genocide against Native Americans is ongoing. No television coverage exists to give that atrocity an authentic voice, perhaps because there aren’t a lot of “natural†disasters surrounding the genocide-affected areas to focus attention on. Such a natural disaster would allow the corporate media to spin away from the real atrocity of mass murder of the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island (now called North America; see:
http://www.turtleisland.org/front/_front.htm ), just as the “Katrina disaster†was framed up as not primarily CAUSED by U.S. policies and practices.
At http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mulatto the term is not commented on as possibly derogatory, in English, or as the more ethically neutral “obsoleteâ€. “Mulatto†IS a derogatory term, in the English lexicon, in my experience. That it is used unremarkably is of no surprise in a dominant culture that also uses terms like “bitch†and “ho†as if they were synonyms for women; they are, rather, insulting terms that reinforce male supremacy. Women and men commonly use the term “bitchâ€, misogynistically, perpetuating the idea that feminism has somehow succeeded, and so woman-hate is now “coolâ€, not harmful. “Mulatto†is used in the academy, on the streets, and in white people’s homes, without thinking of its origins, and, too often, without caring about its racist sting.
For more writing about the intersections of racism and sexism in film, see bell hooks’ book, Reel to Real: Race, Sex, and Class at the Movies . New York, NY: Routledge, 1996.
Thanks for all you do, Stan.
In on-going support,
Julian Real
12 December 2005, 9:43 pmStan:
Very good point. This term is still used extensively in Haiti… by Haitians, who often suffer intense internalized racism via color-coding. It is also used quite frequently by C. L. R. James in his matchless history of the Haitian Revolution, “The Black Jacobins.”
My own kids, by the way, would fall into this category… though I’m not t all sure they’e ever heard the word. They just called themselves “mixed.”
My friend, Kim Diehl, is about to publish a book, btw, through South End Press, about the experiences of “mixed” kids, which will be something to look forward to.
But I have digressed…
12 December 2005, 10:29 pmJulian Real:
Hi Stan.
I hope your kids also consider themselves “lucky” to have a parent like you, and “uniquely wonderful and beloved” for being the individuals they are.
Julian Real
13 December 2005, 2:20 pmSam:
What an educational, illuminating read. Thanks for sharing.
13 December 2005, 4:40 pmYolanda Carrington:
You know what, folks?
If White men saw Black women in all those fucked-up, disgusting ways (Zulu Lulu sticks?!?!) enough to make the exploitive consumer products they did only a few couple decades ago, where the hell are they now with their stereotypes of us? This may sound like a redundant question, but I’m serious.
Of course we know that American society remains in a terrible place when it comes to women of color, at all institutional levels, but I guess the question that I’m asking is about context. I expect Lil’ Kim (for those not familiar: a bad-girl, sexualized rap star), video “hos” and “bitches,” and Black/Asian/exotic fetish porn, but I don’t expect to see Zulu Lulu or Old Mammy Shortening ads nowadays. Do you see what I mean?
I assumed we had gotten past the notion of eugenic, biological “race” by 2005 (at least in the liberal mainstream) and are now in the period of “cultural” racial difference. By this notion, Black women are sluts and whores because we are “raised” this way rather than because of our genetics. But then again, when it comes to racist misogyny/misogynistic racism, I probably shouldn’t assume any kind of evolution.
On the flipside, I think that Pilgrim was spot-on when he critiqued actor Angela Bassett’s explanation for turning down the Halle Berry role in “Monster’s Ball.” Although understandable given her decades-long experience in Hollywood, Bassett’s reasons for her rejection were quite problematic: she didn’t want to be a “prostitute” on film, i.e. she didn’t want to play a Black female character of such low morality/esteem. For me, there is deeply embedded patriarchy and class elitism in her comments, argued from a reactionary moralist standpoint. These are the same unexamined arguments that were used a decade ago to condemn the work of gangsta/thug rappers (and the Blaxploitation cinema of three decades ago), and they are arguments that—for me at least—get us absolutely NOWHERE in dismantling racist gender oppression.
It goes right on back to the question of condemning the person or condemning the system—or as we hip-hop heads used to say—don’t hate the player, hate the game. On that note, I’ve had to learn that condemning individual White people and men on their lack of morality gets us nowhere, but that always confronting the myths, lies, weak justifications, and outright fallacies that reinforce oppression is needed and necessary.
I for one, don’t EVER want to see Zulu Lulu and her ilk again! Believe that!
14 December 2005, 2:41 pmDevans00:
I’ve read on this topic many times during college. It’s good that someone is keeping it fresh in people’s minds. And introducing the topic to people who may not be aware.
14 December 2005, 2:47 pmStan:
You nailed it again, Yolanda. The dichotomy between the bad old days and the bad new ones is not really a split, but an reinscription. Patriarchy and white supremacy have dressed themselves up in new clothes… that’s the thing we’ve been saying about pornography, too. But the fact that Zulu Lulu is off limits now is indicative of a positive shift of power.
hat doesn’t make Li’l Kim’s sexual commodificaton okay, and it sure doesn’t make it liberatory. Her public persona is the recoding of the same power gradient, but it is a weakened one on the national oppression front, because Li’l Kim is not sexualized for a white man in the Jim Crow south — she is a commodity sold to Black men and an image sold to Black women. On the gender front, it’s a different story.
Having lived through these periods, the most striking thing that has happened gender-wise with Black women (speaking generally), to me at least, has been the pressure brought on them by the media and men to achieve fomerly-”white” beauty norms: non-utilitarian hairstyles, shaving of legs and axillae, anorexic endomorphia, all that stuff that white society has long constructed as female desirability that constrains, silences, and demobilizes women.
This is where that critical look at desire (and NOT letting it stand as merely “natural”) is so important.
Having said all that, sending Zulu Lulu to the dustbin is progress. Never doubt, however, that there are plenty out there who would gladly recover all of that given half a chance.
For now, they have to settle for their weak-ass justifications for killing brothers like Tookie Williams. I hope everyone will afford themselves the satisfaction of dropping in each week at Black Commentator, an online weekly that takes all these bulls by the horns very well. http://www.blackcommentator.com
If we are not studying African America in every single one of these issues, we are not serious. Neither gender nor national oppression can wait for the “other” revolution. The Other Revolution won’t happen without THESE revolutions. Straight up.
14 December 2005, 3:43 pmJulian Real:
As Andrea Dworkin noted, “If it hurts women, feminists are against it.” Racism and classism, as well as sexism/male supremacy, of course, hurts women. Period. The days of a privileged white-biased feminism, as the core political stance against and critical perspective on patriarchy, I hope are GONE right along with those atrocious artifacts of racist misogyny/misogynistic racism diplayed in the title piece of this thread.
Down with CRAP–down the toilet!
All white people and Black men could learn a lot from reading all of the books by bell hooks, Patricia Williams, and Patricia Hill Collins, for some damn cool contemporary feminist analysis. As hooks says, in the title of one of her books, Feminism Is For Everybody.
Julian
18 December 2005, 6:06 pm