Black Women in America

AFS/GSW 5110 Winter 2016

[eu6211-blog]

Sex education doesn’t just prevent pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases, it enables black women to make important decisions about their bodies and sexual and reproductive health, because they have been equipped with safer sex knowledge and healthy body image practices beyond what is presented to them by mainstream media.

Habersham, Raisa. "Beyond the Basics: Why Black Girls Need Comprehensive Sex Education." For Harriet. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016. <http://www.forharriet.com/2015/05/beyond-basics-why-black-girls-need.html#axzz44FeON2DC>.

The quote above is from an article on the website For Harriet that discusses the importance of sexual education for black girls, and argues that if black girls had access to better sexual eduation they would be able to create a better sexual identity for themselves. In Shapeshifters: Black Girls and the Choreography of Citizenship by Aimee Meredith Cox, the author discusses how black girls are perceived as sexually deviant and how the lack of sexual education affects that. She states that “The way young Black women talk about sex (in terms of personal responsibility, not structural constraints) reveals their hyperawareness of the representation of black women as sexually deviant.” The author of the For Harriet article, Beyond the Basics: Why Black Girls Need Comprehensive Sex Education, by Raisa Habersham battles this idea of sexual deviancy by stating,

Emphasizing sex education among adolescents not only reinforces why Black women matter in a society that works effortlessly to deny us simple rights, but instills in us the self-esteem we need to combat the media’s and society’s depictions of our sexuality.

Ultimately, equipping Black girls and young women with sexual health knowledge allows us to take true ownership of our bodies and sexual agency.

Habersham’s argument that sexual education will combat stereotypes of sexual deviancy is important because it sheds light on the fact that Black girls and women are not provided with the tools necessary to navigate around confines of sexuality that these stereotypes have set up for them.  

Cox, Aimee Meredith. Shapeshifters: Black Girls and the Choreography of Citizenship. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

[eu6211-blog]

In Chapter One: “We Came Here to be Different”: The Brown Family and remapping Detroit of Shapeshifters by Aimee Meredith Cox, on page 106 Cox begins to describe Janice Brown’s experience with Detroit’s public school system. Janice, a fifteen-year-old African American girl, jumping around from home to home in Southwest Detroit, was accepted to Detroit’s Monroe High School, which boasts a 95% college placement rate. Janice wasn’t struggling with the schoolwork, but it was her lack of resources in her home life that led her to drop out of the supposed “bourgie” school and join the job corps. Janice states,

“They [job corps] call it what it is and teach you exactly what you need to know to get hired. It ain’t about all that extra, ‘for show’ stuff that I was learning at Monroe just to demonstrate to someboy I was educated. When will I speak Latin? Never. But I can lean how to repair a computer today and get hired by somebody tomorrow.”

Janice’s sentiment echoes that of many young African American women in and around Detroit. When surviving at a basic level is the ultimate goal, Latin becomes irrelevant. If Janice is jumping from her grandmother’s home, to her aunt’s house, to a friend’s house, to a homeless shelter, and then starting the cycle over again, her number one desire is going be learning how to make money quickly and efficiently, rather than waiting on the unforeseeable benefits of a high school and college education.

A former CBS News anchor, Dan Rather, made an investigative documentary about the Detroit Public School System in 2011 tited “A National Disgrace,” just two years after the school system was taken over by the state. In the news article Dan Rather on ‘National Disgrace’ of Detroit Public Schools: Time to Start Listening to the Kids, by Jonathon Oosting, (which you can read here) Dan Rather states that:

“I hope if people take nothing away from this 'National Disgrace' report on the Detroit Public Schools tonight, it's that they'll listen carefully to the students…the heartbreak of these students, many of whom are children of single parents working like the dickens trying to get an education for their kids. We've listened to the politicians. We've listened to the so-called intellectuals and experts. It's time to start listening to the kids and the teachers.”  

It is important that society begins to listen to the students of the Detroit Public School System, because their basic needs are far different that what another high schooler’s needs may look like. In a society that is dominated by wealthy white men, there is no way they can no what is best for a black teenage girl living in poverty. Just like Rathers says, we have to listen to the kids.

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2011/05/dan_rather_on_national_disgrac.html

[email protected], Jonathan Oosting |. "Dan Rather on 'National Disgrace' of Detroit Public Schools: Time to Start Listening to Kids." Mlive. N.p., 10 May 2011. Web. 21 Mar. 2016. <http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2011/05/dan_rather_on_national_disgrac.html>.

Cox, Aimee Meredith. Shapeshifters: Black Girls and the Choreography of Citizenship. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

[eu6211-blog]

Pete, Dredge. IVF Assessment Centre. Digital image. Cartoonstock.com. N.p., 24 Oct. 2007. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.

I had a difficult time agreeing with some of what Dorothy Roberts argues for in Chapter 7 “Race and the New Reproduction” of Killing the Black Body. She outlines the pitfalls of in vitro fertilization, but in doing so she seemingly bashes women for having what she says is no choice in the matter. She states

“…some women feel a ‘duty’ to undergo the ordeal before they give up on the possibility of genetic parenthood. But many women who undergo IVF are themselves physiologically fertile, although their husbands are not. These women could therefore become pregnant using a much safer and cheaper process—artificial insemination, for example. Underlying women’s desire to undergo IVF then, is often their husbands’ insistence on having a genetic inheritance.”

I really struggle with this line of logic. I feel as though this argument is generalized and anecdotal. Roberts completely disregards any choice that women may have in the matter. Some women may not feel a ‘duty’ but rather a genuine desire to have genetically related children. She then places blame onto men for women undergoing IVF when the women themselves are fertile, and neglects the possibility that it could be the woman as well that has a desire to have genetically related children with her male counterpart. From an evolutionary perspective, the desire to have genetically related offspring is biologically programmed into every animal, including humans, as a means to protect and ensure longevity of the species. It’s an instinctual desire, and by stating that women are victims of IVF, Roberts is almost unintentionally dehumanizing women who undergo IVF.

That is not to say that there aren’t real problems with the procedure. Earlier in the chapter she states,

“Most IVF clinics accept only heterosexual married couples as clients, and most physicians have been unwilling to assist in the insemination of women who depart from this norm. They routinely deny their services to single women, lesbians, welfare recipients, and other women who are not considered good mothers.”

Not to mention, the procedure is incredibly time consuming and expensive, which does not make it a viable option for many black women who are already struggling financially.

Upon searching for information regarding IVF, black women are barely represented. The only outlier of women that I could find represented was an overweight woman, as pictured above in the political cartoon. The right to be or to not be a mother belongs to all women, regardless of if they are fertile or not, if their partner is fertile or not, regardless of their sexual orientation, race, or class. Motherhood is a human experience that should not be forced upon or taken away from anyone. It especially should not be saved only for the physically and fiscally elite members of society.

The fact that black women have so little access to advances in today’s medicine that they aren’t even represented in the media is truly saddening, and they should be given the same chances for motherhood as white women.

   Roberts, Dorothy E. Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty. New York: Pantheon, 1997. Print.

[knowledgefromthespicequeen-deac]

AFS/GSW 5110 Tumblr #5 The Black Women’s body as a Commodity

After reading the first portion of Killing the Black Body, one of the ideas that stuck out to me was the idea that the Black Women’s Body was used as a commodity. For instance in the first chapter of the text there was the story of Rose Williams and how she was used as a ‘breeder’ in the home of her master. As a breeder, it is arguable that they could not be a mother to their children. Since the black woman’s body was seen as a commodity that belonged to the owner, so did the children that were produced from the black woman. Therefore, few black women were able to have a maternal relationship with their offspring. In the photo below, there is a black stomach with the mother that holds her arms around the belly with maternal care. The significance of the photo demonstrates the motherly bond that many women are able to feel for their offspring and the hope of a strong relationship developing after birth. However, this relationship was stripped away from the black woman because this was not seen as a ‘mother-child’ relationship, but more like a ‘dog-puppy’ relationship, where the slave master’s (i.e. owner’s) financial situation was thought to be the most important factor

Dionne, Evette. Black Women Must Care about Tennessee’s Latest Law. 2015. Photograph. New York, New York                                                                                

Another important fact was the fertile black women’s body was worth significantly more because they were able to produce more “home grown” slaves. However, after the black woman was no longer of child bearing age her “worth” would go down significantly! The importance of this notion is that a black woman’s worth came down to her ability to reproduce. Once she could no longer produce she became worthless in the eyes of slave masters. 

[eu6211-blog]

Killing the Black Body left me absolutely speechless with stories like these! The fact that African American women have never truly had autonomy in our nation’s history is incredibly sad to me. 

[floracreativa-deactivated201704]

Black Mothers and their Lack of Rights

@afsgsw5110

Killing The Black Body opened up a plethora of ideas and contemporary works I wanted to speak on. One was the idea of forced birth control, another was abortion and rights women have in regards to child bearing (such concepts brought up in the song The Lost Ones by J Cole). But probably the most vivid connection I could make was with the novel Beloved, written by Toni Morrison. On page 48, Roberts explains different forms of resisting child bearing, most due to mothers overwhelming sense of fear for their future children:

              “Infanticide was the most extreme form of slave mothers’ resistance. Some enslaved women killed their newborns just to keep them from living as chattel. In 1831, a Missouri slave named Jane was charged with “knowingly, willfully, feloniously and of her malice aforethought” preparing a “certain deadly poison” and giving it to Angeline to drink on December 8 and 9. The indictment further alleged that on December 11, so “that she might more speedily kill and murder said Angeline,” she wrapped her baby in bedclothes and then “choked, suffocated and smothered” her. “

In the story, main character and freed slave Sethe tried to murder her children, while enduring potential recapturing into slavery. She was successful with only the oldest, by, “her throat having been cut with a handsaw by Sethe.” (Sparknotes, http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/beloved/summary.html) . Sethe exclaims in the novel that the children would be safer dead than in the hands of slaveowners.

This terribly sad yet responsible reality was of that of many slave women. The fact that their motherly instincts to protect their children, and realize that even though this would cause them great pain, guilt, and even in their own beliefs a great consequence in the afterlife, they stood by their decisions.  Rightfully so, the mothers felt this was the only right they had over their bodies, and was at the time. Still today, the issues of a woman’s rights in regards to reproduction is still not 100% hers, as the ideas of others and their opinions impose their way onto her decisions. The heartbreaking story of Beloved proves as a testament to yet another horrible act upon black women and preludes many of the injustices that are still being faced today.

[eu6211-blog]

I believe the same sentiment was expressed in Incident’s in the Life of a Slave Girl, when Jacobs stated that she sometimes thought it would be better for her children to be dead than to grow up in slavery. 

[lovetaylordenise]

“The Most Dangerous Place for an African American is in the Womb”

The above photo is a picture is a billboard image found in St. Louis Missouri, meant to address the ubiquitous abortion of children in the African American community. It boasts that the most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb. I think it holds a sense of incredibly dark humor and irony that this billboard exists in the same city where a young African American man was murdered at the hand of a police officer. There is no “most dangerous” place for an African American, anywhere they exist is bound to be dangerous simply because they exist as African Americans. In the introduction to Dorothy Robert’s text Killing the Black Body:Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty she says, “The belief that Black procreation is the problem remains a major barrier to radical change in America.” (Roberts 6) Here, I see the issue of procreation being part of the dominant discussion as a problem. Why the major concern with autonomy and not a bigger concern on how we care, provide, educate and keep safe African American children when they are born. With a master mix of racial violence, gendered racial violence, poverty and the inability to actually provide care for black children, it isn’t a wonder as to why some women would choose to not have children or terminate their pregnancies. 

[eu6211-blog]

This billboard just appears to be so ignorant on multiple levels, and completely disregards any legitimate reasoning African American women might have for not wanting children, some of which you briefly touched on. 

[eu6211-blog]

Digital image. Wikipedia. N.p., 14 Apr. 2014. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Planned_Parenthood_logo.svg>.

While reading Chapter 2 of Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts, titled “The Dark Side of Birth Control,” I was left absolutely appalled by the discussion of legalized sterilization techniques used on minorities and the justification of it based on eugenics. Eugenics is the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. I felt as though I was reading fiction, something that had happened in a dystopian parallel universe, not in our own country. Roberts states,

“The eugenics movement, however, did not rely on nature to eliminate the unfit. It implemented a more direct means of weeding out undesirable citizens. The movement’s most lasting legacy is its coercive enforcement of negative eugenics, which aimed to prevent socially undesirable people from procreating” (pg 189).

Roberts further discusses the legalization of forced sterilization on any who were deemed undesirable by society. This sterilization was widely considered genocide against minorities, namely African Americans. This mindset, that white people in power were preventing African Americans from having children for political and societal reasons, led to many African American organizations refusing birth control and the aid of family planning facilities, such as Planned Parenthood.

Currently, the Republican Party has made it one of their goals to end the federal funding of Planned Parenthood. According to a Huffington Post article by Laura Bassett, titled Congress Votes Yet Again to Defund Planned Parenthood, Bassett explains that “The House of Representatives is expected to pass a budget reconciliation bill that guts the Affordable Care Act, pulls roughly $450 milion in federal assistance from Planned Parenthood,” which in turn would prevent low income women, many of whom are African American, from having accessibility to the family planning and other female health services that Planned Parenthood provides. It appears to me that the mindsets might have flip flopped at some point, but this issue is important because the fact remains that African American do not have control over their bodies. They government still dictates what these women can and cannot do with their own bodies. They do not have autonomy, and that is a major problem.

Bassett, Laura. "Congress Votes Yet Again to Defund Planned Parenthood." Huffington Post. Huffington POst, 6 Jan. 2016. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/congress-votes-defund-planned-parenthood_us_568d5a67e4b0cad15e62fda6>.

Roberts, Dorothy E. Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty. New York: Pantheon, 1997. Print.

[femmemystake-blog]

When black women die from street harassment

Who cries when black women die? I’m not asking that as some type of rhetorical, poetic question, meant to move you toward ferocious finger snaps. I want to know. Who cries when black women die? Further, who cries when black women are killed? Mary Spears was killed. The man who killed her did so ...

In the article above, Mychal Smith speaks of the lack of attention the murders and sexual assaults of black women receive. The article is largely calling out black men who engage in street harassment.

Although it is an important issue, the article fails to take into account racial sexual violence that black women encounter throughout their lifetimes. In The Dark End of the Street, Danielle McGuire explores the history of such violence, and the ways in which black women pushed back against it. In Jim Crow times, public transportation was a dangerous place for black people. Black women not only experienced physical racial violence, but sexual violence as well. Since bus drivers were in charge of upholding segregation, they were granted police powers, leading to rampant abuse. Black women would experience sexual and physical violence at the hands of police and the drivers themselves, all white men.

Although this type of violence didn’t take place on the street per se, it was still a public place. Although the author does not touch on white men and street harassment, perhaps the history of racial violence still plays a role in the current climate. One could hypothesize that the 21st century black woman still faces greater threats of violence from the white man. However, the way in which this violence is carried out might look different than black male street harassers.

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: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Print.                                                                              

Smith, Mychal Denzel. “Feministing.” Feministing. N.p., 2015. Web. 16 Feb. 2016.                    

[eu6211-blog]

Of course the history of racial violence still plays a role in today’s climate! Just take a look at Daniel Holtzclaw. 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/21/us/oklahoma-city-officer-daniel-holtzclaw-rape-sentencing/

[malayshacammon-blog]

Picture Source: Photographer unknown; used by http://madamenoire.com/50822/white-women-do-it-too-8-things-black-women-cant-get-away-with-doing/; article written by L. Nicole Williams (April 16, 2011 )

The picture I chose, is one that I had seen in Madam Noire magazine a while ago in 2011. I’ve always thought this image was powerful, and had its own meaning to for the people of the world to understand.  This picture was attached with an article named, “White Women Do It, Too: 8 Things Black Women Can’t Get Away With”. [Article written by L. Nicole Williams (April 16, 2011)]  It was an article that described “stereotypical” things that white women can do with very little reticule, and black women cannot do.  Some of the stereotypes discussed were “black girl bitch face”, “Black women being loud”, and many others; it showed how white women and black women are set to different standards. A white woman is put to a higher standard than a black woman. You never hear the stereotypes of a white woman speaking loudly, or having her “bitch face on”. Society today, as in older times, have separated the image and characters of these women.

In At the Dark End of the Street, I saw this question and it jumped out at me due to my topic of my research paper. The question was “Why isn’t Negro womanhood as important as white womanhood?” (pg. 24). Even in modern times, we still face issues of inequality. For the research paper, I chose the subject around the portrayal of black women in sports through media. It’s hard growing as a young female athlete trying to find someone on television who looks just like me. Don’t get me wrong they were there, but do you hear about them often. Do you even know what channels to find them? Many Black female athletes and other women of the world contribute so much to the world, but we get very little recognition on how powerful the contribution was to the world. In the book it talks upon unfair injustices (rapes/even political injustices). As women we need to come together and help each other grow.

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: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Print.

@afsgsw5110

[vmd7-blog]

Very interesting post as well as article. Its really eye opening when you really sit back and think about how different individuals react to certain stereotypes. It’s something we see almost everyday. It’s like seeing a young black girl out partying, being wild and most will say “oh, she’s just a ratchet lil girl. She ain’t got no home training” or something along those lines, where as if they seen a young white female doing the same thing there’s always responses like “she’s probably dealing with issues at home” or “she’s just a misguided young lady”.

[eu6211-blog]

It’s interesting that the stereotypes mentioned are also ones that qualify a woman as a “lady.” A white woman couldn’t get away with being loud like a black woman because she must be “ladylike” and ladies are quiet, but that same expectation is not there for black women. 

[showtime-synergy1985-blog]

So reading At The Dark End of The Street evoked a lot of feelings within me that have been discussed in our class before. It discussed the lack of respect for a black woman’s virtue ( which was technically nonexistent) and the tactics used to keep the African American race, both men and women, under the heel of white supremacy but when I read Chapter 3, entitled “Walking in Pride and Dignity,” it just had me feeling conflicted about what I had just read. Chapter 3 discusses the first few women who actually refused to give up their seats before there was Rosa Parks. While the first few chapters involve revealing who Rosa Parks was before she became known for the police having “…arrested the wrong woman,” I was practically upset about the treatment of Claudette Colvin the young teenager who was arrested for doing exactly what Rosa Parks did. (McGuire 97) Colvin, who was pregnant at the time, was arrested for not giving up her seat to a white passenger who was inclined to stand. She refused because for one she was not breaking any segregation laws at the time (she was sitting in the designated“colored” section) and two to ask an obvious impregnated female is cruel because of the stress that can result from standing up too long. But again since black women lacked the ability of impersonating “white womanhood” such a courtesy was denied.  Alas she was arrested and charged with breaking the “segregation law.” She received assistance in taking her case to trial but when it came to the thought of making her the image of the bus boycott in Montgomery she was dismissed. Although Colvin came before Parks and shared a very similar situation, Colvin was dismissed because she did not fit into category of “Respectability Politics.” RP really rubbed me the wrong way because it sounds like a synonym for assimilation.  For instance, on page 91 of McGuire, Nixon states, “She’s just not the kind that we can win a case with…” In the eyes of R.P Colvin was not a good candidate because she lived in a not bad part of town and was an unwed pregnant teenager. According to Nixon, she was not worth the risk of going to the Supreme Court because she was not an example of good R.P. Rosa Parks however was a perfect match. Parks was fair skinned and had been a good citizen middle class hard working citizen. She was a respectable wife and active member of the Civil Rights Movement. To have this type of atrocity to happen to her was a strict violation of her 14th Amendment and people of all nationality would see that violation, with darker skinned Colvin, Nixon assumed they would not. Respectability Politics is just another factor that divides the black community. While Parks rose to notoriety for her act of defiance, Colvin was lost in history and never really mentioned throughout learning about African American history (I never head about her until I reached college)  R.P is oftentimes seen as the solution to the rise of blacks within America.

For instance the image above is a contemporary example of R.P. New York State Senator Eric Adams had campaigned for a ban on “saggy pants.” He states, “Raise Your Pants, Raise Your Image.” That message rang for me in the context of reading Chapter 3 as, “relate to white people as much as you can so you can “survive” and “matter” in this world. It read that way to me because R.P is just an excuse for assimilation. When the text pointed out the pigmentation difference between Colvin and Parks and Colvin being dark and Parks being light, not only was that an example of colorisum but it suggested and solidified the ideal that the closer to white you are the more acceptable by society you will be. Saggy pants is something suggested as a ‘black thing” therefore it is inexcusable in the white corporate world, therefore in order to not be seen as “other” black must pull up the image of the race by presenting and behaving themselves as “more white.” The senator’s billboard insinuated that African Americans can’t have “that kind” to be the representation of blacks to the world. So what message is R.P really sending to our community? Must we give in to what the world wants us to be and assimilate to fit in and be respected among our peers and the world? The sad answer to that is R.P seems to be the answer to the rise of the black person in America. While I commend Parks and other black activists for the role they played in advocating for our freedoms, I often wonder, well wished they could have achieved these same things without bashing members within their own communities.

Citations:

Pleltz, Jennifer. “‘Stop the Sag’ Billboards Battle Low-slung Pants.” Msnbc.com. 01 Apr. 2010. Web (When I did the Reverse Google Search multiple websites popped up and none claimed to be an original source. But NBC gave me more information about where the billboard originated from.)

[vmd7-blog]

It seems as though their plan was all about strategy, to them. A black teenage pregnant girl will never get the same respect as an upstanding citizen. Then again she wouldn’t get the same respect as a pregnant white female neither. they may be in the same position physically but they are looked at totally different. I think making your own people your stepping stool or bashing them sometimes adds fuel to the fire.

[eu6211-blog]

I agree that their plan was all about strategy, but I don’t agree with the respectability politics of it. However, it poses a problem that the system they were trying to appeal to is the same system that was oppressing them.

[eu6211-blog]

Flint Water Crisis

Cartoon by Matt Wuerker from Politico

This political cartoon and is a representation of the Flint water crisis that is currently taking place in Flint, MI, and the situation is being heavily criticized for having similarities to the segregation that occurred under Jim Crow laws. The book At the Dark End of the Street, by Danielle L. McGuire, outlines the violent acts that took place against African Americans, and particularly against African American women. In the first chapter, titled “They’d Kill Me If I Told” details the extensive segregation between blacks and whites.

“Black nurses could not care for white patients, and black students dared not use ‘white’ textbooks. In Texas ‘Africans’ could not watch a boxing or wrestling match together. Some states prohibited black and white workers from laboring together in the same room, while others barred blacks from certain trades altogether” (McGuire, 37).

I found these segregations and exclusions from basic human experiences that are described by McGuire to be similar and even reminiscent of the Flint water crisis that is currently taking place. The Flint water crisis is a blatant disregard for the health and safety of an entire city, that is largely African American, and it echoes the sentiments of Jim Crow laws. Governor Rick Snyder, a wealthy white man, as well as many others holding positions of power, were fully aware of the safety concerns of switching the city of Flint’s water source, but the act was pushed on anyways. Now, an entire city is living without clean water, and an entire generation of children will face the risk of lead poisoning. A city with a large black community has to go without a basic human need, something that should not be denied to anyone in a first world country. These citizens have to fight for their right to clean water, and for a long time was not receiving the attention they deserved.

This is important to pay attention to, because through the Flint water crisis society is able to see that a disregard for the health and safety of black bodies persists.  

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: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Print.

[eu6211-blog]

A Passion For Justice

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Straight Outta Compton. Dir. F. Gary Gray. 2015.

Straight Outta Compton is a movie that was released in 2015, and tells the story of the African American musical group’s, N.W.A., rapid ascent to fame and success. The film has a heavy focus on the police brutality that the musician’s faced, and was released at a sensitive time, as our society has been struggling with police brutality towards the black community over the past few years.

While watching the documentary Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice, I was struck by the police brutality that was discussed, and how horrifyingly similar it was to the police brutality shown in Straight Outta Compton. In A Passion for Justice a story is told about three black men who started a grocery store in direct competition with a white grocer. The white man didn’t like that black men were attempting to gain power where he was unwilling to give it, so he took the matter to the police. The police showed up at the black men’s grocery store armed, but not in uniform, which resulted in a deputy being shot by one of the black grocers. 20 to 30 black citizens, including the three black grocers were arrested for this, and it ended with a mob dragging the three black grocers from their jail cells and murdering them, a reaction that is could be described as incredibly harsh and out of line.

These murders took place during the Jim Crow period, an era that could be considered incredibly violent towards African Americans. Yet, in the 1980s, several decades later, we see police brutality that parallels what was happening during the Jim Crow era. In Straight Outta Compton, there is a scene that depicts an N.W.A. concert at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit being shut down by police because the musical group chose to perform their song “Fuck the Police” after being specifically asked not to. The men in this group were speaking their minds about the kind of discrimination and prejudice they had witnessed as African Americans, and they were gaining control because of it. This power was a direct threat to the white power system that had been in play. Similarly to the story told in A Passion for Justice, these black men were gaining power where white men were unwilling to give it, resulting in the arrests of the members of N.W.A.

These parallels are so important to recognize because currently our society is seeing the highest amounts of police brutality, specifically towards African Americans, in forty years. The power structures and oppressions created during slavery persist to this day, and we are seeing them acted upon in the violence towards the black community by police officers.

Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice. William Greaves Productions, 1989.

[aisforaudre-blog]

Daniel Holtzclaw, Police Sexual Assault, and the Terror of Being Uncared for

Daniel Holtzclaw must be brought to justice for his crimes against 13 Black women. This is police brutality.

Reading Under the Sting of the Lash: Gendered Violence, Terror, and Resistance in the South’s Convict Camps, it is impossible to not draw intimate correlations between the experiences of Black women examined in the article, and the recent case of Daniel Holtzclaw, convicted to 263 years in prison, after routinely raping and assaulting over a dozen poor, Black women in Oklahoma. This particular attention to poor Black women, is reminiscent of the ways in which the vagrancy statutes used in the post-emancipation period targeted poor and landless Black people as well (368).

As was examined in the article, Holtzclaw utilizied the threat of violence, the force of the state – realized as the threat of “prolonged encounters with the state (again)” as one woman was quoted saying, and the threat of (re-)incarceration to sexually assault them. It is a chilling reminder of the ways in which the state, and those charged with legitimizing it interpersonally has consistently worked primarily to confirm white male supremacy on the bodies of Black women.

[mrsmelaninmonroe-blog]

This is a good example of how black women suffer at the hands of white men. It’s not just the arrogance of being an officer but the belief that black women are inferior and are sex tools. That’s why his victims were all black women

[eu6211-blog]

What Holtzclaw did was disgusting and unforgivable, and every time I see and article about him I wish men like this didn’t exist. What’s even worse, it that how he threatened these women is reminiscent of the mindsets that white slave owners had towards their black female slaves, and it’s terrifying to see how those mindsets persist in our society still. 

[lovetaylordenise]

The Exclusive Club: White Womanhood

 Huffingtonpost Article, The History of Using White Female Sexuality to Justify Racist Violence by Emma Gray

In this Huffingtonpost article by Emma Gray she discusses the 2015 Charleston Shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. She specifically focuses on a statement made by the Charleston shooter, a white man, he said, “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.”  Gray goes on to explore the historical context behind violence in the name of protecting white womanhood and the inaccurate depiction of sexual crimes committed by black men onto white women.  As I refer back to the reading, in Ida B. Well’s essay, The Southern Horrors she lists and details occurrences of accused rape of white women. She list case after case of black men accused of raping white women and the violent response from white men.  In the late 1800’s lynching was the consequence of rape and in the instances where white men found no justice for the defiling of white women they took it upon themselves to exact justice. Specifically on page 37, Well’s discusses an incident involving a black man that had been charged with raping a white woman. This man was taken from jail while government officials stood by, dragged through the street, stabbed and toss off of a bridge. Throughout the text she gives gruesome details of how white men exacted revenge on black men if they were thought to have been involved with a white woman. On the flip, occurrences of rape of black women and girls led to no lynching or justice for those women. It’s here that Well’s explains implicitly the way white womanhood is to be protected and honored whereas black womanhood is not given any of the same sentiments. 

 In her article Gray states, “If the Charleston shooter’s comments are any indication, these sentiments are still depressingly ingrained in our culture. White women’s bodies are still used to explain away the destruction of black bodies and lives – both male and female.”  Here, I like how Gray includes how this worshiping of white female bodies also negatively affects black women. White womanhood was and is viewed as virtuous – the end all, be all. White womanhood is viewed as true womanhood, something that black women will never have access to and black men should never have access to. The supposed violation of that white womanhood was the Charleston shooter’s justification for violence, just as it was justification of violence against black men in the 1800’s.

[eu6211-blog]

This was really interesting to read! In the documentary that we watched this week, this same issue was addressed. Like you mentioned white men did exact revenge on black men in the name of justice for white women, but in the documentary it goes on to further detail how Wells began to research the accusations of rape that black men were receiving. And many times she found that they were false, and the accusations were a response to the disbelief that white women could have any sort of romantic interest in black men. 

[crowdpleasah]

[ameliatherese-blog]

I have had much to think about with this week’s reading and movies. While watching the Ida B Wells documentary, there was a section of her life dedicated to women’s suffrage; she even befriended and campaigned with Susan B Anthony. Mention of this reminded me of the very first GSW class I ever took, which was essentially an introductory class about gender. We watched the movie Iron Jawed Angels, about the American suffragist movement, centered mostly around Alice Paul.

In the scene depicted above, the suffragists were preparing for their now famous parade in Washington. The white suffragists strategically segregated the march in order to appeal to white moderates and segregationists.

This decision further perpetuated the separation of black and white worth, and complicated the perceived moral character of black women. If black women were involved in the fight for women’s suffrage, there would be no sympathy from white men, who found their worth only in areas of corporal and sexual assault, both within the prison system and their own homes. African American women cannot be “everywhere and yet nowhere” if they have any shred of humanity or respect from their oppressors, and thus cannot be exploited. The decision to exclude them from the march was wise in the eyes of white supremacy, but later in the movie proved to be pointless, as Ida B Wells and her peers joined the march anyway.

[showtime-synergy1985-blog]

I really enjoyed reading your blog. Especially when you stated, “African American women cannot be ‘everywhere and yet nowhere’ if they have any shred of humanity or respect from their oppressors, and thus cannot be exploited.” This was awesome to point out because just like Wells, African American women were not about to be exploited or excluded in the fight for feminine autonomy. @afsgsw5110

[eu6211-blog]

The segregation of black women during the suffrage movement was really interesting to point out. Similarly to the portrayed struggle in Jawed Angels, Wells experienced the same from Anthony. This political act showed that white women identified closer with their white male peers, rather than with black women, and in doing so they disproved the idea of a universal womanhood. 

[eu6211-blog]

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Nat Turner Preaches Religion. N.d. The Granger Collection, New York. PBS. PBS. Web. 27 Jan. 2016. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h501.html>.

“While still a young child, Nat was overheard describing events that had happened before he was born. This, along with his keen intelligence, and other signs marked him in the eyes of his people as a prophet ‘intended for some great purpose.’”

"Nat Turner's Rebellion." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 27 Jan. 2016. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1518.html>.

In this week’s reading of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author, Harriet Jacobs, dedicates all of Chapter 12, titled “Fear of Insurrection,” devoted to discussing Nat Turner’s Insurrection and the havoc that it caused in their community. Prior to reading this, I had little to no knowledge of who or what Nat Turner is and why he would have caused an entire community’s worth of slaves to be questioned and their homes violently searched. From the article Nat Turner’s Rebellion, I found that in August of 1831 Turner led a slave rebellion consisting of about 40 slaves, who killed a total of 55 white people. I found it interesting that Turner was known for being deeply religious and that he also was a preacher. In Chapter 13, titled “The Church and Slavery,” Jacobs states that “after the alarm caused by Nat Turner’s insurrection had subsided, the slaveholders came to the conclusion that it would be well to give the slaves enough of religious instruction to keep them from murdering their masters” (pg 79), though it was Turner’s religion that had led him to murder his masters and many others. Jacobs later mentions that at religious meetings “they [the slaves] never seem so happy as when shouting and singing at religious meetings” (pg 80). A large part of this perceived happiness, though Jacobs has not mentioned it, is that these religious meeting often times were used as a cover for slaves plotting escape, or in the case of Nat Turner, rebellion.