Sex And Racism In America: The Dilemna Of The Black Woman

Apart from the USA being a white culture with images of white beauty being more promoted in the media, I think the question we must ask is what is the difference between the black and white woman archetype. The way one looks like is usually attractive not by itself, but by the unconscious assumptions we make about other qualities of the person, based on the looks.

In the white culture there has been for a long time an image of the woman as a delicate, almost ethereal creature who must be protected and deserves to be adored for being above the dirty and mundane aspects of life. It is of course the image of the upper class woman - because only this was promoted in arts in literature till not a long time ago. A century ago the woman was still expected to look great, not work, faint upon hearing a dirty word and occupy herself mainly with making the home and the world more beautiful and warm. Maybe not so much in America, but in Europe that was it and the impact of European culture is still more significant, America despite of its cultural domination copies lots of things.

(If we go back to the Middle Ages, there's a more extreme motive that had great impact on the image of femininity - the knight and his lady. The knight was fighting in an arena, with the lady watching him from high above, she could drop a hankerchief if she liked him and he would take it and go to the war, fighting for his lady and holding on to the small thing she gave him. The woman was elevated to a goddess-like status here and the relationship often stayed platonic, with the woman out of reach.)

In general, the white woman is presented as both weaker than the man (showing absolute helplessness used to be very sexy) and spiritually better than him, more sophisticated, more chaste, mysterious and difficult to get to. A precious fragile thing. Todays emancipation and feminism may have changed the behaviours, but the subconscious image persists.

Now, the black woman has an entirely different image. She never was a decoration: she always was a co-worker, a hard working companion of the man, a helper, often pictured as more down-to-earth than the man. She was to be strong and resourceful, and her main role was practical, she was not exalted. It is not the white culture and media that created this image, but the African culture itself. In many African cultures women have worked harder than men and it was normal. Ah, I read a book by a white traveler who described a part of Africa in times when "fragile femininity" ruled in Europe and he wrote about a people where the woman got back to work in the fields a few hours after giving birth. How shocked he was, it was unthinkable in his culture.

Now, both of these are just images. White feminists genuinely hate the "precious fragile" stereotype and have done much to fight it, it was artificial too because it was based upon a small caste of rich ladies and didn't reflect the true role of woman in a white society. The black woman image was created by circumstances. Life in Africa has always been hard due to the climate and other environmental factors and societies couldn't afford to have people sitting at home, doing nothing, being weak and useless except for decoration. Africa, including times before colonization, had problems with insufficient workforce, all able men and women had to contribute to the society.

But this has nothing to do with what a real person is like. You must realize how you are acting by outdated stereotypes, making assumptions about white and black women's inner qualities by these culturally imprinted images.

(I think there's another problem: white women have succeeded in getting out of the stereotype that was forced upon them, learning the "strong" behaviours and not losing the "princess" attitude; in fact, most white women have learned to use both these attitudes depending on what is more convenient at this moment and what will give a better result. Many black women, on the other hand, didn't learn "the other side" and despite of all this talk about woman being the "queen", many of them would benefit from a course "how to behave like a queen". Adoration is something very attractive in romance, both for men and women, women have no problem with this because the man is the stronger one, men make lack this if the woman is not able to be a princess sometimes. I'm not saying that this applies to all black women.)

So why do you represent the same causcaian ideals in your music videos?

Davidlyn,

When people can have their hair made into a red/blue and white flag for 4th of July or red and green for Christmas. A lot of the formation around who shall we look like is answered by: What I want. I don't think we worry as much about this issue as when the role of Black women was that of Mammy (big fat lovable mom who works for whites.).

Now style and the new things that people can do has pushed us way past the point of "looking white".

blonde1 forgot to mention the deep and abiding historically documented sense that "white women" were the enemies of whitemen. i.e. Mother raises child to destroy the father and take power for herself and her son.

This lack of enemyhood between Blackwomen and Blackmen is the reason that everybody was welcome to share in all tasks, whether great or small.



This was actually my first mind when reading his post that he has internalized a love for things that don't stem from the actual women he loves (mother, sisters, etc)


paddy_lo,

I agree. 100 percent. Black and White. This is what makes me sometimes very much believe that voluntary partial segregation would not be such a bad thing for Black Americans.

It's hard to watch the Black Youth and their obvious loss of culture as they use the larger community to battle against Black Authority. i.e. (I am a individual person, I can do what I want)

Sometimes it makes one seriously doubt that lacking divine or human intervention, African Americans are going to be able to in the future hold on to their culture without it becoming little more than decoration.

Desegregation and the teachings by the larger culture for the last 40 years have made a mockery if not completely destroyed some parts of what AA culture has always held dear.

blonde1,

I agree. The reality is there was no renaissance, in fact this period called the "renaissance" was actually a worse period of European history than other periods.

It has not stopped people from celebrating renaissance events or days or festivals. The myth has influenced the reality.

whenever I hear this kind of statement, I look at the person saying it.

'because anyone swallowing this kind of generalization is showing their own mindset and attitude towards black women, I think. The person may not even be aware of their inner rage and confusion.

women from every race copy features in other races which they feel are attractive. This is why people get butt implants or butt enhancers, breast implants, and burn themselves in the name of tanning.

I'm sure white, not black women  have a greater representation at plastic surgery clinics. Just guessing here.

but only black women get the rap for "standards of beauty".

its all about looking good. Nothing more and nothing less. If its fashionable to go bald, most women will do so. Foot binding used to be the rage in China. It was considered beautiful then. Not so now.

am just saying.

true, some men base their standards of beauty on a white ideal, but to each his own. Not all men or women do so.

neither did the "caucasian standard of beauty" prevent the slavemasters from hopping on top of their jetblack female slaves. Didnt prevent them hopping on top of the jetblack aborigines in Australia either.

At the end of the day, a man will always be a man.

It takes a tremendously strong mind and massive amounts of self-confidence not to be swayed by a strong, domineering and imperialistic force like the Europeans have been in the last two millenia.  Most of the non-White world have felt the force of European contact, but Africa appears to have  come off worse.  The Arabs, Chinese, Japanese had a stronger sense of national and individual self-confidence and were better able to face off to their European counterparts.

Take for instance the notion that lighter skin Africa are generally consider more attractive than the darker skin friends.  This notion is implicitly promoted within indigenous Africa circles to the extend that skin lightening lotions are  particularly popular in sub-saharan Africa.  Straighting of hair amongst males and females is another of such practices that harp back to the inferior status some African have their natural looks/features.