Human beings often relive the past, as it often repeats itself. Going through African American history shows how we still have not outgrown somethings that we did as Americans in the past. African Americans are still stereotyped in pop culture. The African American woman is hyper sexualized and demanded while the black man is hyper sexualized.
The demeaning of women is a phenomenon common in almost all societies across globe. In the American society, certain women bear the brunt of this vice more than others. These are black women. In the media, black women are often portrayed as the stripper and the baby mama, while other races rarely get to play such characters. These characters often portray the African woman as a man eater of some sort since and her ‘dominating matriarch’ is often cast in a negative light. She is not a single mum, rather, a baby mama and the latter has a negative connotation to it. On the other hand, black women can be portrayed as the non-threating, desexualized mammy figures. The sexualization of women in this manner is not extrapolated to white women. In advertisements alone, women of color are more likely to be sexualized than white women. For example, women of color make up a large amount of the provocative advertisements, 35%, a number that is disproportionally larger than the number that they make up in the media and in the United States’ at large. Additionally, African American women are more likely to be viewed as immoral compared to their white counterparts. This often gives African Women traits that are can often disregarded as despicable rather than admired.
The over-sexualization of black women in contemporary popular culture today is a re-occurrence of what happened in the past. The demeaning of black women was part of the cultural apparatus of 19th century racism. Taylor and Roberts use the terms “producers” and “reproducers” to describe the roles that were often associated with African American women during the period of slavery. The role of a black woman inside her master’s home was that of a producer as she not only contributed to the production of crops, but also in the bearing of children who would enrich the master with more labor. In this context, the term reproducer can be interpreted as the subjugation of black women in their roles as contributors to the slave population. Robert discusses how black women were victims of reproductive control since the establishment of the 1662 Virginia law. The 1662 Virginia law condemned the fates of unborn children to a life of enslavement. African American women had no choice because the law supported the reproductive control of enslaved women. Without control over their freedom and reproductive rights, they could not have control over their image. These women were often forced to reproduce not only with their male counterparts but with their whit masters as well. Their mixed children also received the same kind of treatment as scholars have documented fetish markets of light skinned enslaved women.
Author Bell hooks (1992) suggests that these perceptions of the 19th century and beyond still influence the perceptions of society even today (p.5). This is because black women trying to make it contemporary culture will still find themselves being labelled in away that attaches the to their skin color instead of their ability to perform, sing, act etc. For example, black female artists will always find themselves categorized in the hip pop music category despite their music being of the pop genre. Organizations guilty of doing this is the Grammys and the Billboards. In this organizations, particularly the former, a huge number of the decision makers are white. The connotation of black female artists to hip hop is racially bias, and more often than not, echoes the depiction of women in rap music which often sees women sexualized. This often forces women of color to fit their image within these stereotypes in order to advance their careers and see an increase in media coverage. The media world will rarely popularize them unless they fit within these stereotypes. A media that will not advance their cause if they are not ‘black’ enough.
The hyper sexualization of black women occurs while the white woman normally shielded. For example, girls of color have a higher chance of being depicted in images similar to child pornography. On the other hand, white girls are less likely to be depicted in the same sexualized setting. Instead, they will be depicted as children in sexualized setting while in movies, or as innocent children of the bourgeoise, rarely exposed to the hard ships of the working class. Similar to the black woman, another group that is rarely shielded is the black man.
Taking an intuitive look, American society in the past quite differed from others since patriarchy was not granted to all members of this society. Patriarchy within this society was often white and the black man’s position as a leader, common in most societies across the world, was robbed of him. This can be attributed to slavery. Slavery robbed African American of their ability to participate in their roles as leaders in a society that was patriarchal. Instead, African American men were subjected to similar means of production as the women as the were forced to work in fields and perform various tasks for their masters. The African American males were valued for their physical abilities, they abilities to farm, harvest and so on. This physical appreciation of the black man often crossed over to their sexual traits and black slaves were hypersexualized as well. African American males were also valued based on their ability to reproduce. Taylor and Roberts make this point stating both males and females were involved in coerced production. Both were involved in these activities for economic profit and the increase in control over the slave population.
It is quite clear that the black woman’s image was the most demeaned in America at the time and this phenomenon still occurs today, slave women felt pressure to reproduce and breed. The incidence of sexual assault that did not end in pregnancy was far greater than these numbers reveal. In the same, the mis-repenetrating of back women is far greater than what the numbers reveal today since society normally normalizes it.
The second phenomena that occurs today similar to what happened in the past is the appreciation of black men based on their physical and sexual traits. This is done at the expense of appreciating them for other traits that are perceived as ‘manly’ such as their intellect. This is common today in popular culture, and echoes what happened in the past. Often times in popular culture, the white male is offered a variety of roles to play, the underrepresented Asian male is often given a nerdy role, while the black male is portrayed as athletic if not over sexualized. This happened during slavery where the Black man was sexually violated and exploited with the purpose of serving the systems of subordination that existed under slavery.
White people found sexual appeal in the bodies of black males, and they still do so today. According to Refus, the bodies of African American male slaves were controlled by enslavement and they held the key to manliness in some way yet oppressed. The subordination of black males was not only done by white slave masters but by white women as well. In a society that was largely patriarchal, white women would use black men as way through which they could fulfill their radical fantasies of domination over the male figure. This was mostly done to nearly white light skinned black males.
Other ways through African American males were emasculated was through the ack of freedom. In a lot of ways, this occurs today given that society will often sanction those who try to deviate away from the stereotypes. In the past, masters made enslaved men had to carefully negotiate the will of masters and mistresses in the area of intimacy. Today, society which is largely white dominated will dictate how African Americans are to be perceived and in turn how they should express themselves, something that is intimate in nature. Additionally, Masculine norms emphasized independence even in the face of enslavement, and while some masters allowed men to select their own partners, all involved knew that those relationships had no legal standing. In the same way that people who try to branch away from their stereotypes today lack no societal backing for the most part.
The results of the objectification of African Americans (for example, through hypersexuality) is more proof that this happens today. One effect of this is that it has created a society where white Americans effortlessly play around with their identity while African Americans are told to question it when they do. For example, white men and women can explore their sexuality in ways that men and women of color cannot. If they do, society will question their actions and they will too. A second effect is that young African Americans are often over-represented in certain fields such as sports, while they are under-represented in other fields such as sciences. It is worth noting that this often done for the benefit of those whom the system benefits similar to what happened in the past. To safeguard their positions of power, the white patriarchy needs to encourage certain stereotypes in order to undermine certain racial groups.
Another phenomenon that occurs today similar to the what occurred in the past is the glorification of the mixed aesthetic. Two decades ago, your typical pop princes was the blond girl next door. One simply has to glance over the superstars of the early 2000; Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson, Lizzie McGuire, and Willa Ford. However, today we see Ariana Grande thrive yet she has made certain adjustments to fit the mixed aesthetic. As a lover of pop music and image, one has to ask why this has changed over time, and how this echoes the past.
As Refus details in his book, there are many instances white men and women fetishized their mixed-race offspring. White women would use them to fulfill their desires to dominate me over them. White men on the other would hypersexualize these women and create markets exclusive to them. Lastly, African Americans found some privileges by being mixed, and in some scenarios, white passing. In all these scenarios, we see the American society try to fulfill some of their desires through ‘unambiguous blackness’. White individuals who participate in the glorification of this mixed-race aesthetic often want enjoy the cultural contributions of the African American culture but they still have to marginalize it in some way, therefore, this is why we see the rise of the mixed-race aesthetic today.