Black Men, White Women, and Black Women: Part 1

Some Thoughts on Culturally  socialised  Bias’ with Specific Regard to Black Men, White Women, and Black Women

I recently had a conversation with a white woman colleague of mine about interracial couples, specifically black men and white women, and how the reverse is far less common. Her theory on why white men and black women don’t date at the same rate was that maybe black men and white both have oppression to bond over. In her words, “both groups had to fight for their rights” (the right to vote, fair pay, education etc). She said that maybe black women and white men don’t date because they’re unable to bond, since straight white men have never had a similar struggle of which to relate, and that black women consider them to be their oppressors. I said, by that logic, wouldn’t black men and black women have even more in common, and even more to bond over? Having gone through a much more similar struggle?   

Furthermore, if their bond is based on “the struggle” then why is it that more privileged black men, by way of class and education, that tend to take white mates? While black men who have had less privilege, and can be considered to “really understand the struggle” tend to date black women. More so, it’s black men that have success, as defined by white patriarchy, that seek relationships with white women at a higher rate. Wouldn’t those black men choosing a mate based on “the struggle” seek out black women? White women and black men, while both oppressed are also both oppressors (both groups enjoy more privilege than black women by way of their respective race and genders). 

Black men have always been more eager than black women to pursue romantic relationships with whites. This has a long historical precedent. According to bell hooks, in her 1981 book Ain’t I A Woman, one of the reasons for the savage treatment (lynchings, castrations, wrongful imprisonment, firebombings, etc) of black men during reconstruction and onward was to prevent interracial marriages. The myth of the “black rapist” was perpetuated in part to scare white women from pursuing relationships with black men. This also gave whites an excuse to lynch black men, and control white women (claiming it was for their own protection). Along with the myth of the black rapist comes the myth of the black jezebel, which dates back to slavery. Black women were blamed for their rape because it was believed that they seduced the white men who enslaved them. The image of women as seductresses and men as helplessly controlled by their own libidos dates back to the rigid sexual morality of the early American puritan colonial settlements). 

Black women were believed to be incapable of fidelity and sexually lose. This myth served to devalue them so that no white men would seek relationships of any kind with them. Black women were never considered to be “ladies”, instead they were largely viewed as whores and prostitutes. The notion that blacks are sexual deviants still hurts blacks to this day.

Yet these ideas are not new. In an essay on right-wing conservative paranoia entitled “The Paranoid Style in American Politics”, by Richard Hofstadter, Hofstader argues that it is a common tactic for white patriarchs to depict the enemy in graphic sexual terms, not unlike the Mormons, Jewish persons, and members of the LGBTQ. These groups, like blacks, have been depicted as frequent engagers of illicit sex.

" [The enemy] seems to be on many accounts a projection of the self: both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. Much of the function of the enemy lies not in what can be imitated but in what can be wholly condemned. The sexual freedom often attributed to him [the other], his lack of moral inhibition, his possession of especially effective techniques for fulfilling his desires, give exponents of the paranoid style an opportunity to project and freely express unacceptable aspects of their own minds…"

Hofstadter claims that the sexually frustrated right-winger projects her/his true sexual desires on “the others”, and depicts these groups as having no sense of morality and insane sexual desires. The public will then have less sympathy for groups they perceive to be immoral, and don’t care if these groups are treated inhumanely or even killed. The public comes to view this mistreatment as fair, and that if the others were better at assimilating then they would not suffer. It benefits whites to depict all others in graphic sexual terms, amongst other moral defects. (Hofstadter lists several.)

After the successes of the Civil Rights movement of ’60s, many rumors regarding black personhood were debunked. Blacks were able to prove that these myths were used for their torture and persecution, and that there was never a time when black men raped white women in large number. Black women, however, retained the image as being sexually loose, and black men are still portrayed in the media as having large genitalia and heightened sexual prowess. Despite these harmful stereotypes, the ’70s saw more sexual freedom for blacks and white women. White women saw a greater control of their bodies, and white men no longer saw the alliance of black men and white women as a threat. 

Part 2 continues...

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