Patricia Hill Collins Contribution To Negative Stereotypes Of Black Women
Black women’s assumed qualities contribute to negative stereotypes of Black women. Dominant ideologies use these negative portrayals to oppress and control Black women, ultimately elevating white male ideas and interests (Collins, 1989: 7). This method of suppressing Black feminist thought – what Patricia Hill Collins refers to as “controlling images” – is especially pertinent to Dorothy Roberts’ claim that naturalizing characteristics such as lasciviousness and neglectfulness onto Black women leads to icons such as Jezebel, the immoral Black mother, and Mammy, the negligent Black mother. These icons, collections of negative qualities tacked onto the category “Black women,” suppress Black women’s reproductive liberties and Black feminist thought,
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Assuming Black women to be the locus of sexuality, negative stereotypes like Jezebel, the immoral Black mother, arise (Roberts, 1998: 11). This image of Black women acts as a foil for white women. Black women’s eroticism enhances white women’s chastity and elevates them as morally superior True Women, reinforcing the “system of social control designed to keep African-American women in an assigned, subordinate place” even after emancipation (Roberts, 1998: 10-11; Collins, 1989: 7). Additionally, locating sexuality within Black women allows white men to sexually exploit their human property without penalty because the law didn’t recognize the rape of slave women (Roberts, 1998: 29). The rapes of Black women have been left largely unrecognized because of the white men’s sense of entitlement to Black women’s bodies and the unrespectability of Black women for their supposed inherent sexuality, both of which stem from the time slave women were legally human property, inferior to white people, and seen as more primitive. Dr. Flint’s wife terrorizes Linda during the night because, buying into the images that white elite men constructed, Dr. Flint’s wife believed that Black women were the locus of sexuality, the locus of problems (Jacobs, 2001: 31). These practices stem from slave owners’ economic stake in the ability of slave women to produce and reproduce, ultimately elevating and profiting the white
Assuming Black women to be the locus of sexuality, negative stereotypes like Jezebel, the immoral Black mother, arise (Roberts, 1998: 11). This image of Black women acts as a foil for white women. Black women’s eroticism enhances white women’s chastity and elevates them as morally superior True Women, reinforcing the “system of social control designed to keep African-American women in an assigned, subordinate place” even after emancipation (Roberts, 1998: 10-11; Collins, 1989: 7). Additionally, locating sexuality within Black women allows white men to sexually exploit their human property without penalty because the law didn’t recognize the rape of slave women (Roberts, 1998: 29). The rapes of Black women have been left largely unrecognized because of the white men’s sense of entitlement to Black women’s bodies and the unrespectability of Black women for their supposed inherent sexuality, both of which stem from the time slave women were legally human property, inferior to white people, and seen as more primitive. Dr. Flint’s wife terrorizes Linda during the night because, buying into the images that white elite men constructed, Dr. Flint’s wife believed that Black women were the locus of sexuality, the locus of problems (Jacobs, 2001: 31). These practices stem from slave owners’ economic stake in the ability of slave women to produce and reproduce, ultimately elevating and profiting the white