A
woman’s sexuality has been objectified for centuries, so it’s no surprise that
it would be used as a tool by both the white supremacy and the black activists as a tool during the Civil Rights movement.
At the Dark End of the Street, a book
by Danielle L. McGuire, outlines the case of Recy Taylor. She was a young woman
who was abducted and gang raped by six white working men: Dillard York, Billy
Howerton, Herbert Lovett, Luther Lee, Joe Culpepper, and Robert Gamble (8).
Claiming that Taylor was a prostitute and they paid her in return for sex, the
sheriff let them off with a fee that would never actually be paid. Rosa Parks,
an activist commonly thought of as a feeble, old woman, heard of this case and
immediately travelled to Abbeville, Alabama in order to assist Taylor and other
activists in bringing attention to the case. Although attention was, in fact,
brought to the case — the event even made articles all the way in The Chicago Defender — the trial was
incredibly unjust. With an all-white male jury, there was unfortunately no
chance for Taylor and her family to be victorious. However, this was a prime
opportunity for black activists to bring attention to the discriminatory
system. This instance of sexual violence proved to have more purpose in
exposure than the courtroom.
Ever
since they were slave masters, white men raped black women. As the United
States moved into a post-slavery, segregated state white men continued to rape
black women. Rape and other forms of sexual assault developed into more than a
way to having a man’s sexual desires met: “Whites used outrageous racial rumors
and rape scares to justify strengthening segregation and white supremacy” (28).
This assertion speaks of two kinds of sexual assault. The first is the threat
of rape and the verbal sexualization of black women. By dehumanizing these
women, they eliminate the threat of half of an oppressed people. Once they are
dehumanized, the second kind of sexual assault, actual rape can be used to
enforce their supreme hold on the black race. On the other hand, black
activists use instances of sexual assault as a way to expose the horrifying
disposition of the white race: “Although the struggle to secure justice for
Recy Taylor did not succeed in the short term, it was the largest and best organized
of may efforts to draw attention to the ruthless heart of the racial caste
system” (46). While Taylor and those who worked on her case were not
victorious, her rape was used as a tool to alert the whole of the United States
of the judicial and social injustice occurring in the South.
It
is disgusting that the men who so brutally gang raped Recy Taylor were so
easily acquitted. What we can further take from this story is the fact that
oftentimes Civil Rights activists reaped no immediate reward for their hard
work. Their position in society forced them to constantly make difficult
decisions, like the decision to settle with an unjust verdict in an unjust case
in order to teach future generations about the unjust system. Reading about the
Taylor case allowed insight to the struggle of the black activist and demanded
respect for those who endlessly fought — and continue to fight — for racial
justice.
McGuire, Danielle L. At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance- a New
History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. New York: Vintage, 2010. Print.
History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. New York: Vintage, 2010. Print.
Ozakh, I think your analysis of white oppression of African American's in terms of the treat of rape and actual rape of black females is spot on. I think that it is important to note that white males used the treat of rape as well as actual rape to oppress and dehumanize black women because exemplifies the fear blacks felt even when protesting for their civil rights. Building off of your argument of why African American women were raped, I would argue that the rape of black females was in part due to the stereotype we still see today that black women are "overtly sexual." It seems as though this stereotype was created and enforced by white males to absolve them of responsibility in the sexual abuse and rape of African-American women. Black women in such cases were said to be "asking for it" because they were perceived as sexual beings. Today, this stereotype can still be seen. In the lecture and screening of The Abolitionists at the beginning of the semester, there is a scene where Frederick Douglas is watching is Aunt getting whipped by her owner. As Shelby Crosby pointed out in the panel discussion, the scene was almost voyeuristic in that is showcased the female body getting whipped. Here we see a respected TV station producing a documentary with commentary from well known, educated historians and even they are still influenced by this stereotype of black females and almost perpetuate this stereotype in the way that they portray African American females in film.
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ReplyDeleteTo continue idea of the hypersexualization of women in our culture, I'd like to bring up the idea of the role of women in rap and hip hop. When blackface minstrelsy was popular in American music in the mid-1800s, women were usually put into two different categories: “mammy” and “jezebel.” While the “mammy” character was usually nurturing and motherly, the “jezebel” character was usually viewed as a sex object. As Ozakh highlighted, black women experienced this sexualization greatly during slavery and segregation. This idea has since perpetuated American society and culture, continuing from the mid-1800s through the present. Now, women are usually depicted as sexual objects in many various mediums, especially music lyrics and music videos. While rap and hip hop are certainly not the only music genres that continue these perceptions, they are possibly the most explicit. For example, one of the top rap hits right now is “Anaconda” by Nicki Minaj. While this song can be interpreted as a woman’s reclamation of her body, the sexualization of both the lyrics and the video are unreal and undeniable. These stereotypes and expectations are not only destructive to females' image and esteem, it teaches young children, males in particular, inappropriate stereotypes for women’s roles in society.
ReplyDeleteYeah! We can definitely connect the hypersexualization of women today to the hypersexualization of women in the past. There is also an institutionalized sexism that I believe stems from the exploitation of the black woman. Historically, the white woman's image has been depicted as pure, innocent, virgin-like. Black women have historically been depicted as sexual objects. While there is definitely exploitation of white women in the present, rap videos (at least the ones I've seen) have a vast majority of sexually alluring black women dancing in them next to nice cars, alcohol, or money. That completely objectifies them, just as using them in the past to exert white male supremacy objectified them in the past.
DeleteOzakh’s explication of female’s embodiment of “pure, innocent, and virgin-like” characteristics I think is essential to unpack the depth of power obtained by white males in their rapes of black females. Prior to women’s suffrage, females had been seen has having higher morals than their male counterparts. Women used this ethical dominance to assert themselves in the social and political spheres. Further, women took pride in their matriarchal positions at home. Pairing this vision of the women with the act of rape creates both obvious physical trauma but symbolic detriment as well. Ozakh did a good job describing the disgusting nature and physical consequences endured by Recy Taylor. The act of white men raping black women took away this purity and matriarchal importance of the female. Especially when paired with the significance of community in black neighborhoods, this type of sexual assault was tremendously crippling. Taking away purity or moral prestige was an act leading to consequences that the female could never get back. In a highly religious and moral society, the act of white men raping black females left life long cost to these individuals, that these same perpetrators used to assess the values of their victims.
ReplyDeleteI really love what is said in this post. It goes back to when we talked about emancipation and that whites no longer had control over blacks. But in reality, whites took every opportunity to assert their dominance and control, by whatever means necessary. They made it seem as if emancipation had never happened. Blacks were free, but they were still enslaved to the white society. The whites did treat blacks as less than human so that they were able to justify the terrible things they did. And one of these awful things was rape. How ironic it is that the whites were fighting to protect their women from the dangerous, lustful, uncontrolled, animal-like black men, and then turn around and rape and/or kill black women? The hypocrisy of whites is astounding. But again, this is not the only place that whites were hypocritical. As said in this blog post, black women’s sexual assault led the way to exposure of the injustice of the whites’ ways.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think Ozakh also brings up an interesting point when she says that civil rights activists do not receive immediate reward for their work. This is such an important insight to the will of everyone fighting for civil rights. People worked so hard and often times lost the case or even died trying to stand up for themselves. Blacks never gave up- they may have been discouraged, but they never gave up. The hope, strength, and endurance they had, to push on against the hatred, violence, and roadblocks, simply amazes me.
I really like this post. I specifically want to focus on the part where you mentioned that whites used rape scares to justify segregation and strengthen white supremacy. This point is constantly reiterated in At The Dark End of the Street. This argument on the part of the whites is ridiculous, weak and hypocritical. They would successfully encourage people to support segregation by using scare tactics that warned of miscegenation and interracial marriages when interracial sex was already happening and whites were the initiators. It baffles me that this argument was effective in scaring whites and gaining support for segregation, when the evidence of interracial relations was right before their eyes. They, no doubt, saw the white men leaving black communities at the break of dawn, admitted to employing black prostitutes when charged with rape, and saw the numerous light shades of black skin in the black communities. This evidence renders their argument completely and utterly invalid but, yet, it was still peddled and continued to incite fear amongst the whites, as if the fear had not already been realized. It's just ridiculous! To refer to the text, I love this quote in the book where James J. Kilpatrick, a white man and editor of The Richmond News-Leader tells James Baldwin, a black man, that he regarded the Negro writer as a citizen, but that did not mean he wanted Baldwin to marry his daughter. Baldwin responds saying, "You're not worried about me marrying your daughter. You're worried about me marrying your wife's daughter. I've been marrying your daughter since the days of slavery." This quote nicely points out the ridiculousness of the miscegenation argument of the whites, basically saying that relations between the races have been in existence since slavery.
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