Untitled

[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

http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2014/07/black-women-must-care-tennessees-latest-law/

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. 

[femmemystake-blog]

Great analysis of the very physical notion of the black woman’s body.

[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]

Have you read about Margaret Sanger, the founder of PP? A lot of her ideas were founded in eugenics. Icky! @afsgsw5110

[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. 

[femmemystake-blog]

Great analysis! I have been to St. Louis; there are definitely a lot of racial tensions. @afsgsw5110

[femmemystake-blog]

Officer Patricia Warner bent down amid the cockroaches, the filthy clothes and the rotting food that littered the West Side apartment. Police had found 19 cold and hungry children there late...

In the early chapters of Killing the Black Body, Roberts references the case of the “Chicago 19″ (Roberts). The name refers to the nineteen children found living in extreme conditions in a Chicago apartment in 1994.

A newspaper article about the discovery, entitled “Roaches, Rotten Food, Filth...And 19 Kids” goes into detail describing the neglectful living conditions of the children. Although Roberts notes that the “Chicago 19 soon became the leading portrait of families supported by welfare”, the article does not specify whether or not the parents were welfare recipients in the first place. The title of the article emphasizes that the number of children in the apartment, leading the reader to believe that all children came from the same mother. In fact, the nineteen children came from five to six different mothers. Later in the article, it does state that apart from one child, all of the children “seemed to be in good health” (McMahon, Kuczka).

From analyzing the assumptions and bias in this article, the reader can understand how this event was leveraged to spawn a welfare reform movement filled with misogynoir and classism. The title alone reinforces several stereotypes of black women Roberts touches on in her book. Among these tropes are the Devious Black Mother, Black Unwed Mother, Negligent Black Mother, and of course the Welfare Queen. The children live in ‘filth’, and the assumption is that their caregivers receive welfare. This leads the reader to deduce that the black woman is a faulty mother, both unable and unwilling to perform domestic duties.

The Chicago 19 is just one example of how media portrayals of black women are leveraged in order for the state to enforce racialized policies.

McMahon, Colin, and Susan Kuczka. "Roaches, Rotten Food, Filth...And 19 Kids." Chicago Tribune. N.p., 03 Feb. 1994. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.                          Roberts, Dorothy E. Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty. New York: Pantheon, 1997. Print.                    

[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.)

[femmemystake-blog]

Ah, respectability politics. Your post reminds me of this buzzfeed video. It has some alright parts, but some of the things the participants say are trying to uphold respectability politics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDwuRyLIy0s

[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

[femmemystake-blog]

This is really important to think about. Misogynoir is really powerful.

[aisforaudre-blog]

Why We Can't Tell "Incomplete Stories": Meet Black Youth Project 100's Charlene Carruthers

Charlene Carruthers has spent her adult life fighting for equality. As the national director for Black Youth Project 100 and a board member for black reproductive justice organization SisterSong, she helps lead a collective of black millennial activists who are dedicated to creating change in

Reading At the Dark End of the Street, particularly throughout chapter three; “Walking with Pride and Unity,” I thought about this article from refinery29, a website whose mission is to be a media-brand for “smart, creative and stylish women everywhere,” where Charlene Carruthers, National Director of the activist organization Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), was interviewed about the importance of not telling ‘incomplete stories.’ Here, she is quoted talking about the importance of embracing the Black feminist tradition of testimony and intersectionality saying, “All of our identities and experiences reflect the kind of systemic oppressions that impact our lives. And so it’s important. Black people are whole people; we don’t come to this work in pieces, and if we’re going to have any type of solution that is actually meaningful, we have to include all of who we are.” She goes on to say that this work, of organizing, of Black liberation then is about a “commitment to seeing people as their full selves and the systems of oppression that impact them.” 

Placing this interview within the history of organizing for Black liberation laid out in At the Dark End of the Street, it becomes especially important that someone like Charlene Carruthers, a queer Black woman from the South Side of Chicago, is telling this story and doing this work. I’m called to think about how when there was a refusal to tell complete stories – when the Black feminist tradition of honest testimony was sidelined by the politics of respectability and patriarchy, people like Rosa Parks, who through reading I have learned was a fierce freedom fighter, become a “secondary figure” (107), relegated to a “symbol of virtuous Black womanhood … worthy of protection” (88) who was noted for her “quiet dignity, prim demeanor, and middle class propriety” (87) and not for the impossibly skilled activist and organizer and fighter that she was.

As McGuire notes, it was not just Rosa Parks who “was written out of the story of the Montgomery bus boycott” (107), it was also the “thousands of working-class women who made Montgomery “the Walking City (107).” Here I think of the larger importance of telling complete stories as well. Carruthers notes in the article that telling incomplete stories will beget incomplete solutions, but beyond the inability to imagine greater solutions – or perhaps through digging deeper into what it means to tell incomplete stories – one finds that the inability to name and hold someone’s humanity is also deeply reinforcing of the violence and erasure that allows for so much of the violence Black women, Black queer people, Black disabled people, etc. face. Writing women out of history not only diminishes their fundamental contributions to our struggles for liberation, but it makes it impossible for us to hold the realization of humanity – which is to say we maintain the compounded racial, sexual, and gender violences that beget these struggles for liberation in the first place. 

[femmemystake-blog]

I agree that the bus boycott has larger implications. Those women must be recognized! Great analysis.

[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.                    

[lovetaylordenise]

You OK, sis?

The Atlantic, Interview with Feminista Jones about #YouOKsis campaign.

In 2015 the ‘You OK, sis?’ campaign swept social media. The campaign was a show of solidarity of black women from different backgrounds as they expressed their shared experiences with street harassment. In an interview for The Atlantic, Feminista Jones, writer, social worker and activist describes the exchange of street harassment, “…We have been socialized to believe that interactions between men and women are about men being predators and women being prey.”  This quote made me think of chapter four, five and six of Jacob’s narrative and how she detailed the many ways Dr. Flint would employ to interact with her and the tactics she employed to avoid his advances. 

In Jones’ interview she goes on to speak about the particular experience of black women when it comes to street harassment, she says, “The police won’t help us. A lot of our men won’t stick up for us, unfortunately. People know this. We are the women people can take these things out on. They can sexually harass us, they can rape us and who’s going to believe the word of a black woman?”  Here I believe she explains the idea that black women are both strong and sexually deviant plays a role in how black women’s experiences with street harassment are handled. Their complaints often go ignored and overlooked.  In Jacob’s narrative we see the exact same tropes. The lack of power, the idea that black women are sexual deviants and the knowledge that no law protects them. In her narrative Jacob’s states, “No matter whether the slave girl be as black as ebony or as fair as her mistress. In either case, there is no shadow of law to protect her from insult, from violence, or even from death; all these are inflicted by fiends who bear the shape of men.” (Jacobs 45) Black women have been and continue to this day to be subjected to violence not simply because they are women but a special brand of it because they are also black. Where these intersections meet put black women in a space that requires that all encompassing strength they are thought to possess. Where, like Jacob’s, one must find a way to evade these advances without subjecting themselves to violence.

#35Rk

[femmemystake-blog]

I love Feminista Jones!!!

[knowledgefromthespicequeen-deac]

While reading Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl I continued to refer back to the relationship between “Linda” and Dr. Flint.  At the young age of fifteen “Linda” was defending herself against sexual advances from forty year old Dr. Flint.  Yes, Dr. Flint saw “Linda” as a sexual property at fifteen years old. …..This type of behavior reminds me of the Hypersexualized idea of the black women and the property rights that white men felt they had over them in the past.  During slavery there was the assumption that black women were “Jezebels” or overtly sexual. As “Jezebels” black women were seen as sexual animals that wanted to have intercourse regularly in contrast to asexual white women.  Therefore many white men would assume that black women wanted sexual attention or sexual intercourse.

       Couwenbergh, Christiaen Van. Three Young White Men and a Black Woman. 1632. Oil on Canvas. Musee Des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg, France.

 In reality black women did not choose to become sexually active with white men. In the picture above it depicts nude (or close to nude) white men holding down a nude black woman. Due to the state of their undress, the look of horror and the apparent struggle of the black woman, it can be inferred that these men plan to rape this woman. White men would use the “Jezebel” stereotype of the black woman as an excuse to force them to have sexual intercourse against their will. It is important to point out the black women’s struggling body and how the white men seem to be holding her down and mocking her by pointing or waving their hands at her. This demonstrates that the men saw this woman as a piece of property.  A piece of property that did not have a voice or will of her own. In Incidents “Linda” stated: “He told me I was his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things (pg 46).” The body of a black woman is seen as sexual property in the photo above and in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. These women were not given a choice because no one ever thought to give them one.

References

Gordon, T. (2014). 10 Horrifying Facts About The Sexual Exploitation of Enslaved Black Women You May   Not Know. AtlantaBlackStar. Retrieved from http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/11/05/10-horrifying-facts-about-the-sexual-exploitation-of-enslaved-black-women-you-may-not-kn

[femmemystake-blog]

Great analysis. What would you say about Linda’s relationship with Mr. Sands in the novel? There certainly are forces of power at play there, even if the relationship was consensual. I find it hard not to compare the scenario to today’s standards, where there would be issues of statutory rape. Also, even if he had the best in mind, as a white man Mr. Sands had power over Linda.

It is important to give her the space to self-identify, but it is complicated.

[aisforaudre-blog]

What Janese Talton-Jackson’s Death Teaches Us about Black Women’s Lives

We must all say her name.

Reading  Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, particularly chapter fourteen, I am called to reflect on the ways in which Black women and femmes are forced to deal daily, not only with the various ways in which violence manifests itself upon their bodies as Black people, but the unique and inextricable ways this violence is compounded and intensified because of their genders. In chapter fourteen, Jacobs discusses the instances in which her master would try to coerce her into sex and the consequences for when she refused. Pages 118-119 demonstrate this; from the physical abuse Linda endured via the cutting of her hair by Dr. Flint, to the instances in which he beat her. What Jacobs is trying to portray ultimately, as she says, is that “slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for woman,” which is to say that it is important to name the gendered racial violence Black women, girls, and femmes endure because not doing so, not acknowledging the threat of fatality in refusing the abuse and violence they deal with under misogynoir and patriarchy, maintains said violence and often times kills Black women, girls and femmes.

Contemporarily, this part of the book reminds me of the recent murder of Janese Talton-Jackson who, as reported by For Harriet, an only community that encourages the storytelling of Black women and femmes to give space and voice to their experiences, was murdered by a man for refusing his advances. Like Linda, in Incidents, the compounded violence of racism, misogynoir, and patriarchy work to uniquely deny women and femmes bodily autonomy, the right to say no, or the right to dictate when, where, and with whom they would like to engage romantically or sexually.

The machinations of anti-Blackness, misogyny, and patriarchy have institutionalized the presupposed availability of women and femmes, Black women and femmes especially, to men, to the extent that it becomes logical to some people to believe that women, girls and femmes who refuse men, who resist historical violence that denies them autonomy, deserve to die. This current movement for Black lives consistently seeks to address the myriad violences that Black people endure – but as Jacobs said, while slavery (which by extension can contemporarily be used here to mean the structural realities of anti-Blackness and white supremacy) is bad for all Black people – it is especially detrimental and often fatal for Black women, girls and femmes, which is why it has to be as much a part of the conversation as everything else.

[femmemystake-blog]

This is a REALLY great post. I especially like your mention of misogynoir, and including black femmes in your discussion.

In one of my other classes, we were talking about that the law has the ability to recognize discrimination based on gender or race, but when compounded, as you put it, there is a blind spot. This oftentimes leads to the victimization of black women and femmes.

[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.

[femmemystake-blog]

This was a really good post! Ties can definitely be drawn between movements lead by black people and their religious institutions. The civil rights movement had strong roots in the church, and Sunday services helped to spread the message.

My question for you is, with recent movement such as Black Lives Matter, do you think the church still plays a role in revolution, rebellion, and activist movements?

[mrsmelaninmonroe-blog]

Reading Incidents Of A Slave Girl took me back to a picture I’d seen some time ago. This picture reminds me of a drawing I saw of Saartjie Baartman. Ms. Baartman was placed in a cage and put on display at circuses around the world; because she was what today’s generation would call “thick.” In the literature Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl. Harriet Jacobs explains how slavery was torture for slaves in general but “far more terrible for women.” 1 main reason is because the slave women suffered sexual abuse by their white masters. This picture (to me) represents the black woman being exploited by white men that view her as breast and thighs. Her having to hold a mirror and look into it is another form of humiliation. Do not forget. We won’t let you forget. As if her being naked and infront of strange men isn’t uncomfortable enough, she’s given a mirror. “Remind yourself that you are naked. The masked men (I assume they’re KKK members) appear to be praying or showing some form of Sick worship. The relationship between the black (slave) woman and the white (master) men is a sadistic relationship. White slave owners would beat the women because they disliked and or was disgusted by them; but would rape them for their own pleasure. I can only assume it was because they recognized a foreign beauty that their women didn’t posses.

[femmemystake-blog]

http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/89522/frenchie-davis-on-black-sexuality-respectability-politics-erotic-poetry-and-libido-talk

This is an interesting podcast. Frenchie Davis, a black sex educator and poet talks about Saartjie Baartman, the ‘Hot-n-Tot Venus’. I will warn you some of the content is a bit NSFW (it is a sex talk show), but Tristan Taormino, the host, is a feminist and does a good job of facilitating the discussion.

To go directly to her discussion of Baartman, skip to 10:15

Really great discussion about fetishization, especially with America’s current “ass obsession”. Davis also talks about the ‘double-bind’ she was in, for the only way for her to receive freedom was to objectify herself. Tying it in with current times, Davis and Taormino compare Baartman’s experience with black women’s experience in the media, being ‘on display’ in reality TV.

[femmemystake-blog]

We Are Not All Strong Black Women - BGD

by Raina J. Johnson At times I am strong, but I am not, and never will be, a ‘strong Black woman.’ As a queer Black single mother, I feel pressure to be superhuman even though it can be hard… Continue Reading →

Above is an article from the blog Black Girl Dangerous, whose tagline reads “amplifying the voices of queer and trans people of color”. In an article posted on December 28th of last year, Raina J. Johnson unpacks the trope of the ‘strong Black woman’, relating it to her experiences of black womanhood and queerness. Johnson writes that the ‘strong Black woman’ is a trope portrayed in the media. Black woman protagonists in films and television shows exemplify this, as well as the depictions of celebrities in the media. This trope can also be traced back to 19th century literature, and is present in Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

Several of the characters in Incidents fall into the ‘strong Black woman’ trope, most memorably the main character Linda’s grandmother. Throughout the book, Jacobs describes her grandmother (a former slave) as a self-sacrificing, no-nonsense woman who puts the well-being of her family before that of herself. She works tirelessly, baking after hours to earn extra money, supporting Linda through the births of her children, and even standing up to Linda’s abusive slaveholder. Never is the grandmother’s own emotional state mentioned.

In Johnson’s article, she goes on to talk about how this trope stigmatizes mental illness, and effects the treatment of black women by mental health providers. Most of her analysis is tied to modern-day ramifications and self reflection. Jacob’s book gives further insight into the origin of this trope: slavery. Enslaved black women were not afforded the same femininity white women were. Treated as chattel, they were expected to work hard without complaint. This view of black women is still prevalent today, as seen in the Johnson article.

This begs the question: Why would Jacobs rely on the trope of the strong black woman in her novel? Throughout the book, she makes an appeal to the ambiguous ‘reader’. In the introduction, it is said that Jacob’s audience was mostly northern, white women. In the north, puritan ideals were still very prevalent. Portraying black women as ‘strong’ and hardworking would win over Jacob’s audience, because from a puritanical standpoint, hard work was moral.  Consequentially, the character of the grandmother was made to be one-dimensional. The stereotypes depicted by the trope of the strong black woman would go on to shape the experiences of black women for centuries.

                           Works Cited 

  Jacobs, Harriet A., Lydia Maria Child, and Jean Fagan. Yellin. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1987. Print.

Johnson, Raina J. "We Are Not All Strong Black Women." Black Girl Dangerous. BGD, 28 Dec. 2015. Web. 27 Jan. 2016.