Identifying Black Caricatures - Brutes, c00ns, Toms, and Sapphires etc..
- Thread starter Micky Mikey
- Start date
saturn7
Politics is an EXCHANGE!!!
Cheryl Underwood and Whoopi be playing the mammy roles on their talk shows. 
BelowTheMasonDixon
Veteran
told the story of a black maid, Aunt Delilah (played by Louise Beavers) who inherited a pancake recipe. This movie mammy gave the valuable recipe to Miss Bea, her boss. Miss Bea successfully marketed the recipe. She offered Aunt Delilah a twenty percent interest in the pancake company.
"You'll have your own car. Your own house," Miss Bea tells Aunt Delilah. Mammy is frightened. "My own house? You gonna send me away, Miss Bea? I can't live with you? Oh, Honey Chile, please don't send me away." Aunt Delilah, though she had lived her entire life in poverty, does not want her own house. "How I gonna take care of you and Miss Jessie (Miss Bea's daughter) if I ain't here... I'se your cook. And I want to stay your cook." Regarding the pancake recipe, Aunt Delilah said, "I gives it to you, Honey. I makes you a present of it"
"You'll have your own car. Your own house," Miss Bea tells Aunt Delilah. Mammy is frightened. "My own house? You gonna send me away, Miss Bea? I can't live with you? Oh, Honey Chile, please don't send me away." Aunt Delilah, though she had lived her entire life in poverty, does not want her own house. "How I gonna take care of you and Miss Jessie (Miss Bea's daughter) if I ain't here... I'se your cook. And I want to stay your cook." Regarding the pancake recipe, Aunt Delilah said, "I gives it to you, Honey. I makes you a present of it"
Thanks for this 
Jezebel Stereotype
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Perhaps she remembers
her great-great grandmother
who wanted to protest
but only rolled her eyes
and willed herself not to scream
when the white man
mounted her from behind.
--Andrea Williams(2001)
The portrayal of black women as lascivious by nature is an enduring stereotype. The descriptive words associated with this stereotype are singular in their focus: seductive, alluring, worldly, beguiling, tempting, and lewd. Historically, white women, as a category, were portrayed as models of self-respect, self-control, and modesty - even sexual purity, but black women were often portrayed as innately promiscuous, even predatory. This depiction of black women is signified by the name Jezebel.1
K. Sue Jewell (1993), a contemporary sociologist, conceptualized the Jezebel as a tragic mulatto - "thin lips, long straight hair, slender nose, thin figure and fair complexion"(p. 46). This conceptualization is too narrow. It is true that the "tragic mulatto" and "Jezebel" share the reputation of being sexually seductive, and both are antithetical to the desexualized Mammy caricature; nevertheless, it is a mistake to assume that only, or even mainly, fair-complexioned black women were sexually objectified by the larger American society. From the early 1630s to the present, black American women of all shades have been portrayed as hypersexual "bad-black-girls."2
Jewell's conceptualization is based on a kernel of historical truth. Many of the slavery-era blacks sold into prostitution were mulattoes. Also, freeborn light-skinned black women sometimes became the willing concubines of wealthy white southerners. This system, called placage, involved a formal arrangement for the white suitor/customer to financially support the black woman and her children in exchange for her long-term sexual services. The white men often met the black women at "Quadroon Balls," a genteel sex market.
The belief that blacks are sexually lewd predates the institution of slavery in America. European travelers to Africa found scantily clad natives. This semi nudity was misinterpreted as lewdness. White Europeans, locked into the racial ethnocentrism of the 17th century, saw African polygamy and tribal dances as proof of the African's uncontrolled sexual lust. Europeans were fascinated by African sexuality. William Bosman described the black women on the coast of Guinea as "fiery" and "warm" and "so much hotter than the men."3William Smith described African women as "hot constitution'd Ladies" who "are continually contriving stratagems how to gain a lover"(White, 1999, p. 29). The genesis of anti-black sexual archetypes emerged from the writings of these and other Europeans: the black male as brute and potential rapist; the black woman, as Jezebel whore.
The English colonists accepted the Elizabethan image of "the lusty Moor," and used this and similar stereotypes to justify enslaving blacks. In part, this was accomplished by arguing that blacks were subhumans: intellectually inferior, culturally stunted, morally underdeveloped, and animal-like sexually. Whites used racist and sexist ideologies to argue that they alone were civilized and rational, whereas blacks, and other people of color, were barbaric and deserved to be subjugated.4
The Jezebel stereotype was used during slavery as a rationalization for sexual relations between white men and black women, especially sexual unions involving slavers and slaves. The Jezebel was depicted as a black woman with an insatiable appetite for sex. She was not satisfied with black men. The slavery-era Jezebel, it was claimed, desired sexual relations with white men; therefore, white men did not have to rape black women. James Redpath (1859), an abolitionist no less, wrote that slave women were "gratified by the criminal advances of Saxons"(p. 141). This view is contradicted by Frederick Douglass (1968), the abolitionist and former slave, who claimed that the "slave woman is at the mercy of the fathers, sons or brothers of her master"(p. 60). Douglass's account is consistent with the accounts of other former slaves. Henry Bibb's (1849) master forced a young slave to be his son's concubine (pp. 98-99); later, Bibb and his wife were sold to a Kentucky trader who forced Bibb's wife into prostitution(pp . 112-116).
Slave women were property; therefore, legally they could not be raped. Often slavers would offer gifts or promises of reduced labor if the slave women would consent to sexual relations, and there were instances where the slaver and slave shared sexual attraction; however, "the rape of a female slave was probably the most common form of interracial sex"(D'Emilio & Freedman, 1988, p. 102). A slave woman explained, "When he make me follow him into de bush, what use me to tell him no? He have strength to make me"(p. 101). At the same time, black men convicted of raping white women were usually castrated, hanged, or both (Winthrop, 1961, p. 157 and n44).
People make decisions based on the options they have and the options that they perceive. The objective realities of slavery and the slaves' subjective interpretations of the institution both led female slaves to engage "voluntarily" in sexual unions with whites, especially slavers, their sons, and their overseers. A slave who refused the sexual advances of her slaver risked being sold, beaten, raped, and having her "husband" or children sold. Many slave women conceded to sexual relations with whites, thereby reinforcing the belief that black women were lustful and available.
The idea that black women were naturally and inevitably sexually promiscuous was reinforced by several features of the slavery institution. Slaves, whether on the auction block or offered privately for sale, were often stripped naked and physically examined. In theory, this was done to insure that they were healthy, able to reproduce, and, equally important, to look for whipping scars - the presence of which implied that the slave was rebellious. In practice, the stripping and touching of slaves had a sexually exploitative,5sometimes sadistic function. Nakedness, especially among women in the 18th and 19th centuries, implied lack of civility, morality, and sexual restraint even when the nakedness was forced. Slaves, of both sexes and all ages, often wore few clothes or clothes so ragged that their legs, thighs, and chests were exposed. Conversely, whites, especially women, wore clothing over most of their bodies. The contrast between the clothing reinforced the beliefs that white women were civilized, modest, and sexually pure, whereas black women were uncivilized, immodest, and sexually aberrant.
Black slave women were also frequently pregnant. The institution of slavery depended on black women to supply future slaves. By every method imaginable, slave women were "encouraged" to reproduce. Some slavers, for example, offered a new pig for each child born to a slave family, a new dress to the slave woman for each surviving infant, or no work on Saturdays to black women who produced six children (Rawick, 1972, p. 228; Gutman, 1976, p. 77). Young black girls were encouraged to have sex as "anticipatory socialization" for their later status as "breeders." When they did reproduce, their fecundity was seen as proof of their insatiable sexual appetites. Deborah Gray White, a modern historian, wrote:
Major periodicals carried articles detailing optimal conditions under which bonded women were known to reproduce, and the merits of a particular "breeder" were often the topic of parlor or dinner table conversations. The fact that something so personal and private became a matter of public discussion prompted one ex-slave to declare that "women wasn't nothing but cattle." Once reproduction became a topic of public conversation, so did the slave woman's sexual activities.(White, 1999, p. 31)
The Jezebel stereotype is contradicted by several historical facts. Although black women, especially those with brown or tan skin and "European features," were sometimes forced into prostitution for white men, "slaves had no prostitution and very little venereal disease within their communities"(D'Emilio & Freedman, 1988, p. 98). Slaves rarely chose spouses from among their blood relatives. Slavers often encouraged, and sometimes mandated, sexual promiscuity among their slaves; nevertheless, most slaves sought long-term, monogamous relationships. Slaves "married" when allowed, and adultery was frowned upon in most black "communities." During Reconstruction "slaves eagerly legitimated their unions, holding mass-marriage ceremonies and individual weddings"(p. 104).
Unfortunately for black women, Emancipation and Reconstruction did not stop their sexual victimization. From the end of the Civil War to the mid-1960s, no Southern white male was convicted of raping or attempting to rape a black woman; yet, the crime was common(White, 1999, p. 188). Black women, especially in the South or border states, had little legal recourse when raped by white men, and many black women were reluctant to report their sexual victimization by black men for fear that the black men would be lynched (p. 189).
Jezebel in the 20th Century
The portrayal of black women as Jezebel whores began in slavery, extended through the Jim Crow period, and continues today. Although the Mammy caricature was the dominant popular cultural image of black women from slavery to the 1950s, the depiction of black women as Jezebels was common in American material culture. Everyday items - such as ashtrays, postcards, sheet music, fishing lures, drinking glasses, and so forth - depicted naked or scantily dressed black women, lacking modesty and sexual restraint. For example, a metal nutcracker (circa 1930s) depicts a topless Black woman. The nut is placed under her skirt, in her crotch, and crushed.6Items like this one reflected and shaped white attitudes toward black female sexuality. An analysis of the Jezebel images in the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia reveals several patterns.
Many of the Jezebel objects caricature and mock African women. For example, in the 1950s "ZULU LULU" was a popular set of swizzle sticks used for stirring drinks. There were several versions of this product but all show silhouettes of naked African women of various ages. One version read: "Nifty at 15, spiffy at 20, sizzling at 25, perky at 30, declining at 35, droopy at 40." There were versions that included depictions of African women at fifty and sixty years of age. ZULU LULU was billed as a party gag as illustrated by this advertisement on the product:
Don't pity Lulu - you're not getting younger yourself...laugh with your guests when they find these hilarious swizzle sticks in their drinks. ZULU-LULU will be the most popular girl at your party.
The Jezebel images which defame African women may be viewed in two broad categories: pathetic others and exotic others. Pathetic others include those depictions of African women as physically unattractive, unintelligent, and uncivilized. These images suggest that African women in particular and black women in general possess aberrant physical, social, and cultural traits. The African woman's features are distorted - her lips are exaggerated, her breasts sag, she is often inebriated. The pathetic other, like the Mammy caricature before her, is drawn to refute the claim that white men find black women sexually appealing. Yet, this depiction of the African woman has an obvious sexual component: she is often placed in a sexual setting, naked or near naked, inebriated or holding a drink, her eyes suggesting a sexual longing. She is a sexual being, but not one that white men would consider.
An example of the pathetic other is a banner (circa 1930s) showing a drunken African woman with the caption, "Martini Anyone?"7The message is clear: this pathetic other is too ugly, too stupid, and too different to elicit sexual attraction from reasonable men; instead, she is a source of pity, laughter, and derision.
The material objects which depict African and black women as exotic others do not portray them as physically unattractive, although they are sometimes portrayed as being socially and culturally deficient. During the first half of the twentieth century images of topless or completely nude African women were often placed in magazines and on souvenir items, planters, drinking glasses, figurines, ashtrays, and novelty items.
It must be emphasized that the items that depict African and African American women as one-dimensional sexual beings are often everyday items - found in the homes, garages, automobiles, and offices of "mainstream" Americans. These items are functional - in addition to promoting anti-black stereotypes, they also have practical utility. For example, a topless bust of a black woman with a fishing hook attached functions as an object of racial stereotyping and as a fishing lure. One such object was the "Virgin Fishing Lucky Lure (circa 1950s)." It has become a highly sought after collectible nationwide.
An analysis of Jezebel images also reveals that black female children are sexually objectified. Black girls, with the faces of pre-teenagers, are drawn with adult sized buttocks, which are exposed. They are naked, scantily clad, or hiding seductively behind towels, blankets, trees, or other objects. A 1949 postcard shows a naked black girl hiding her genitals with a paper fan. Although she has the appearance of a small child she has noticeable breasts. The accompanying caption reads: "Honey, I'se Waitin' Fo' You Down South."8The sexual innuendo is obvious.
MORE PICTURES
her great-great grandmother
who wanted to protest
but only rolled her eyes
and willed herself not to scream
when the white man
mounted her from behind.
--Andrea Williams(2001)
The portrayal of black women as lascivious by nature is an enduring stereotype. The descriptive words associated with this stereotype are singular in their focus: seductive, alluring, worldly, beguiling, tempting, and lewd. Historically, white women, as a category, were portrayed as models of self-respect, self-control, and modesty - even sexual purity, but black women were often portrayed as innately promiscuous, even predatory. This depiction of black women is signified by the name Jezebel.1
K. Sue Jewell (1993), a contemporary sociologist, conceptualized the Jezebel as a tragic mulatto - "thin lips, long straight hair, slender nose, thin figure and fair complexion"(p. 46). This conceptualization is too narrow. It is true that the "tragic mulatto" and "Jezebel" share the reputation of being sexually seductive, and both are antithetical to the desexualized Mammy caricature; nevertheless, it is a mistake to assume that only, or even mainly, fair-complexioned black women were sexually objectified by the larger American society. From the early 1630s to the present, black American women of all shades have been portrayed as hypersexual "bad-black-girls."2
Jewell's conceptualization is based on a kernel of historical truth. Many of the slavery-era blacks sold into prostitution were mulattoes. Also, freeborn light-skinned black women sometimes became the willing concubines of wealthy white southerners. This system, called placage, involved a formal arrangement for the white suitor/customer to financially support the black woman and her children in exchange for her long-term sexual services. The white men often met the black women at "Quadroon Balls," a genteel sex market.
The English colonists accepted the Elizabethan image of "the lusty Moor," and used this and similar stereotypes to justify enslaving blacks. In part, this was accomplished by arguing that blacks were subhumans: intellectually inferior, culturally stunted, morally underdeveloped, and animal-like sexually. Whites used racist and sexist ideologies to argue that they alone were civilized and rational, whereas blacks, and other people of color, were barbaric and deserved to be subjugated.4
The Jezebel stereotype was used during slavery as a rationalization for sexual relations between white men and black women, especially sexual unions involving slavers and slaves. The Jezebel was depicted as a black woman with an insatiable appetite for sex. She was not satisfied with black men. The slavery-era Jezebel, it was claimed, desired sexual relations with white men; therefore, white men did not have to rape black women. James Redpath (1859), an abolitionist no less, wrote that slave women were "gratified by the criminal advances of Saxons"(p. 141). This view is contradicted by Frederick Douglass (1968), the abolitionist and former slave, who claimed that the "slave woman is at the mercy of the fathers, sons or brothers of her master"(p. 60). Douglass's account is consistent with the accounts of other former slaves. Henry Bibb's (1849) master forced a young slave to be his son's concubine (pp. 98-99); later, Bibb and his wife were sold to a Kentucky trader who forced Bibb's wife into prostitution(pp . 112-116).
Slave women were property; therefore, legally they could not be raped. Often slavers would offer gifts or promises of reduced labor if the slave women would consent to sexual relations, and there were instances where the slaver and slave shared sexual attraction; however, "the rape of a female slave was probably the most common form of interracial sex"(D'Emilio & Freedman, 1988, p. 102). A slave woman explained, "When he make me follow him into de bush, what use me to tell him no? He have strength to make me"(p. 101). At the same time, black men convicted of raping white women were usually castrated, hanged, or both (Winthrop, 1961, p. 157 and n44).
People make decisions based on the options they have and the options that they perceive. The objective realities of slavery and the slaves' subjective interpretations of the institution both led female slaves to engage "voluntarily" in sexual unions with whites, especially slavers, their sons, and their overseers. A slave who refused the sexual advances of her slaver risked being sold, beaten, raped, and having her "husband" or children sold. Many slave women conceded to sexual relations with whites, thereby reinforcing the belief that black women were lustful and available.
The idea that black women were naturally and inevitably sexually promiscuous was reinforced by several features of the slavery institution. Slaves, whether on the auction block or offered privately for sale, were often stripped naked and physically examined. In theory, this was done to insure that they were healthy, able to reproduce, and, equally important, to look for whipping scars - the presence of which implied that the slave was rebellious. In practice, the stripping and touching of slaves had a sexually exploitative,5sometimes sadistic function. Nakedness, especially among women in the 18th and 19th centuries, implied lack of civility, morality, and sexual restraint even when the nakedness was forced. Slaves, of both sexes and all ages, often wore few clothes or clothes so ragged that their legs, thighs, and chests were exposed. Conversely, whites, especially women, wore clothing over most of their bodies. The contrast between the clothing reinforced the beliefs that white women were civilized, modest, and sexually pure, whereas black women were uncivilized, immodest, and sexually aberrant.
Black slave women were also frequently pregnant. The institution of slavery depended on black women to supply future slaves. By every method imaginable, slave women were "encouraged" to reproduce. Some slavers, for example, offered a new pig for each child born to a slave family, a new dress to the slave woman for each surviving infant, or no work on Saturdays to black women who produced six children (Rawick, 1972, p. 228; Gutman, 1976, p. 77). Young black girls were encouraged to have sex as "anticipatory socialization" for their later status as "breeders." When they did reproduce, their fecundity was seen as proof of their insatiable sexual appetites. Deborah Gray White, a modern historian, wrote:
Major periodicals carried articles detailing optimal conditions under which bonded women were known to reproduce, and the merits of a particular "breeder" were often the topic of parlor or dinner table conversations. The fact that something so personal and private became a matter of public discussion prompted one ex-slave to declare that "women wasn't nothing but cattle." Once reproduction became a topic of public conversation, so did the slave woman's sexual activities.(White, 1999, p. 31)
The Jezebel stereotype is contradicted by several historical facts. Although black women, especially those with brown or tan skin and "European features," were sometimes forced into prostitution for white men, "slaves had no prostitution and very little venereal disease within their communities"(D'Emilio & Freedman, 1988, p. 98). Slaves rarely chose spouses from among their blood relatives. Slavers often encouraged, and sometimes mandated, sexual promiscuity among their slaves; nevertheless, most slaves sought long-term, monogamous relationships. Slaves "married" when allowed, and adultery was frowned upon in most black "communities." During Reconstruction "slaves eagerly legitimated their unions, holding mass-marriage ceremonies and individual weddings"(p. 104).
Unfortunately for black women, Emancipation and Reconstruction did not stop their sexual victimization. From the end of the Civil War to the mid-1960s, no Southern white male was convicted of raping or attempting to rape a black woman; yet, the crime was common(White, 1999, p. 188). Black women, especially in the South or border states, had little legal recourse when raped by white men, and many black women were reluctant to report their sexual victimization by black men for fear that the black men would be lynched (p. 189).
Jezebel in the 20th Century
Don't pity Lulu - you're not getting younger yourself...laugh with your guests when they find these hilarious swizzle sticks in their drinks. ZULU-LULU will be the most popular girl at your party.
An example of the pathetic other is a banner (circa 1930s) showing a drunken African woman with the caption, "Martini Anyone?"7The message is clear: this pathetic other is too ugly, too stupid, and too different to elicit sexual attraction from reasonable men; instead, she is a source of pity, laughter, and derision.
The material objects which depict African and black women as exotic others do not portray them as physically unattractive, although they are sometimes portrayed as being socially and culturally deficient. During the first half of the twentieth century images of topless or completely nude African women were often placed in magazines and on souvenir items, planters, drinking glasses, figurines, ashtrays, and novelty items.
An analysis of Jezebel images also reveals that black female children are sexually objectified. Black girls, with the faces of pre-teenagers, are drawn with adult sized buttocks, which are exposed. They are naked, scantily clad, or hiding seductively behind towels, blankets, trees, or other objects. A 1949 postcard shows a naked black girl hiding her genitals with a paper fan. Although she has the appearance of a small child she has noticeable breasts. The accompanying caption reads: "Honey, I'se Waitin' Fo' You Down South."8The sexual innuendo is obvious.
The belief that black women are sexually promiscuous is propagated by innumerable images of pregnant black women and black women with large numbers of children. A 1947 greeting card depicting a black Mammy bears the caption: "Ah keeps right on sendin' em!" Inside is a young black woman with eight small children. The inside caption reads: "As long as you keeps on havin' em."
Black Jezebels in American Cinema
In the 1915 movie The Birth of a Nation (Griffith), Lydia Brown is a mulatto character. She is the mistress of the white character Senator Stoneman. Lydia is savage, corrupt, and lascivious. She is portrayed as overtly sexual, and she uses her "feminine wiles" to deceive the formerly good white man. Lydia's characterization was rare in early American cinema. There was a scattering of black "loose women" and "fallen women" on the big screen, but it would be another half century before the depiction of cinematic black women as sexually promiscuous would become commonplace.
By the 1970s black moviegoers had tired of cinematic portrayals of blacks as Mammies, Toms, Tragic Mulattoes, and Picaninnies. In the 1970s blacks willingly, though unwittingly, exchanged the old negative caricatures for new ones: Brutes, Bucks, and Jezebels. These new caricatures were popularized by the two hundred mostly B-grade films now labeled blaxploitation movies.
These movies supposedly depicted realistic black experiences; however, many were produced and directed by whites. Daniel J. Leab (1976), the movie historian, noted, "Whites packaged, financed, and sold these films, and they received the bulk of the big money"(p. 259). The world depicted in blaxploitation movies included corrupt police and politicians, pimps, drug dealers, violent criminals, prostitutes, and whores. In the main, these movies were low-budget, formulaic interpretations of black life by white producers, directors, and distributors. Black actors and actresses, many unable to find work in mainstream movies, found work in blaxploitation movies. Black patrons supported these movies because they showed blacks fighting the "white establishment," resisting police corruption, acting assertively, and having sex lives.
The film which ushered in the blaxploitation period was Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (Gross, Van Peebles & Van Peebles, 1971), written, directed, produced, and starred in by Melvin Van Peebles. The story centers on Sweet, an amoral and hedonistic hustler and pimp, who kills two white cops who were attacking a young black radical. He spends the rest of the movie on the lam, running from racist cops and to pimps, gangsters, bikers, and whores. Sweet's "revolutionary consciousness" is heightened because of his first hand experience with police corruption, and by the movie's end he has become a heroic, almost mythical, black revolutionary. The film ended with the message: "A BAADASSSSS ****** IS COMING BACK TO COLLECT SOME DUES."
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was originally rated X. After decades of asexual and desexualized black Tom characters, black audiences were ready for a sexually assertive black male movie character. Sweet was reared in a brothel. In one flashback scene, a ten-year-old Sweet (played by Van Peebles' real life son, Mario) is graphically taught how to make love by an older prostitute. Sweetback is slang for "large penis" and "great lovemaking ability." Much of the movie centers on Sweet's lovemaking abilities, and this movie helped promote the "black sex machine" characterization of black men common in later movies. Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song also gave impetus to cinematic portrayals of black women as Jezebel whores. According to Donald Bogle (1994), a film historian:
With the glamorization of the ghetto, however, came also the elevation of the Pimp/outlaw/rebel as folk hero. Van Peebles played up this new sensibility, and his film was the first to glorify the pimp. It failed, however, to explain the social conditions that made the pimp such an important figure. At the same time, the movie debased the black woman, depicting her as little more than a whore.(p. 236).
The movies that followed Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song increasingly limited black actresses to Jezebel type roles. Lynn Hamilton, a black actress, auditioned for the role of a "strong Angela Davis type." At the beginning of the audition she was asked if she would play nude scenes. She said of the role and character: "Here is this woman who holds all kinds of academic degrees and has a high position opening the door totally nude to admit her boyfriend, a policeman. The first thing he says is, 'Fix me some breakfast"(Knight, 1974, p. 142). She fries bacon, grease splattering, while her boyfriend fondles her breasts and buttocks.
Many black women in these blaxploitation movies functioned as "sexual fodder," legitimizing the street credentials of the black male superhero. Even when black women were the central characters of the movies, they were still portrayed as sexually aggressive, often deviants. Black actresses such as Pam Grier and Tamara Dobson built their acting careers starring in blaxploitation movies. Their characters resembled those of the male superheroes: they were physically attractive and aggressive rebels, willing and able to gain revenge against corrupt officials, drug dealers, and violent criminals. According to Donald Bogle (1994):
Like the old-style mammies, they ran not simply a household but a universe unto itself. Often they were out to clean up the ghetto of drug pushers, protecting the black hearth and home from corrupt infiltrators. Dobson and Grier represented Woman as Protector, Nurturer, Communal Mother Surrogate. Yet, these women also had the look and manner of old-style mulattoes. They were often perceived as being exotic sex objects (Grier's raw sexuality was always exploited) - yet with a twist. Although men manhandle them, Grier and Dobson also took liberties with men, at times using them as playful, comic toys.(p. 251)
The obligatory "black whore" is added to urban-themed movies, apparently to give "real life" authenticity. In the classic movie Taxi Driver (Phillips, Phillips & Scorsese, 1976), a black hooker (Copper Cunningham) has sex with a white businessman in the backseat of the taxi driven by Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro). The sex act is offered as evidence of the moral decline and decadence of America. Bickle washes his taxi after the sex act. Hazelle Goodman plays Cookie, a hooker in Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry (Doumanian & Allen, 1997). When Cookie is asked if she knows what a black hole is, she replies, "what I make my living with." In the credits listed for Dangerous Ground (Gorfil, Roodt & Roodt, 1997), Temsie Times is listed as "Black Hooker." Cathy Tyson, the niece of actress Cicely Tyson, got her first major role as a sophisticated call girl in Mona Lisa (Cassavetti, Woolley & Jordan, 1986). The racial and sexual stereotypes depicted in these and similar movies find their fuller, clearer expression in low-budget pornographic movies.
The pornography industry remains a bastion of explicit anti-black stereotyping - raw, obscene, and increasing mainstreamed. Many of the heterosexual themed movies in the American pornographic market have white actresses; however, there are hundreds of pornographic movies that also depict black women as "sexual things" - and as "sexual animals." Internet "stores" sell videos with titles like Black Chicks in Heat, Black bytches, Hoochie Mamas, Video Sto' Ho, Black and Nasty, South Central Hookers, and Git Yo' Ass On Da Bus! In the privacy of their homes or hotel rooms, Americans can watch black actresses - Purple Passion, Jamaica, Toy, Chocolate Tye, Juicy, Jazz, Spontaneeus Xtasy, and others - "validate" the belief that black women are whores. Most of the black actresses in mainstream movies who play Jezebel roles - especially those with interracial sex scenes - are light skinned or brown skinned women; however, most of the black women in pornographic movies are brown skinned and dark skinned women.
Halle Berry won an academy award for the role of Leticia Musgrove in Monster's Ball (Daniels & Forster, 2001), a complex and haunting drama. Leticia had a sexual relationship with Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton), a racist jailer who supervised the execution of her husband. The link between Leticia's black husband's execution and her white lover was not revealed to her until the movie's end, by then she and Hank were bonded together - self-loathers, angry, defeated, drunk, grieving the loss of relatives, trying frantically to find redemption, and failing that, someone to share the emotional pain. Their initial sexual encounter followed a drunken lamentation of their failures as parents. She lost her husband, and then her son was killed. His son committed suicide, in his presence. Writhing in emotional pain, she begged, "Make me feel better." There followed one of the rawest, most intense sexual scenes in American cinematic history. Later, he gave her a truck. He named his new business venture, a service station, Leticia. He readied a room in his home, moved his racist father to a convalescent home, and after Leticia was evicted from her home he moved her into his house.
The relationship between Hank and Leticia was an updated version of the placage arrangements common in the 1800s. The first night after she moved into his home they lie in bed. He said, "I'm gonna take care of you." Leticia replied, "Good, 'cause I really need to be taken care of." In a tender moment, he went to a store to get ice cream. While he was gone she found evidence that he was involved in her husband's execution. She cried, wailed, gripped with gut-wrenching pain. He returned. She had a dazed look. He told her, "You look real pretty. Let's go out on the steps, if you want to." She followed him. Outside, she accepted a spoon, stared at his son's tombstone, and then accepted ice cream from his spoon. His last words were, "I think we gonna be alright." Angela Bassett, nominated for an academy award in 1993 (Tina Turner in What's Love Got To Do With It), rejected the role of Leticia. In an interview with Newsweek (Samuels, 2002), she said: "It's about character, darling. I wasn't going to be a prostitute on film. I couldn't do that because it's such a stereotype about black women and sexuality"(p. 55). Bassett's assessment was harsh and probably overstated. Leticia was portrayed as a "loose woman:" drinking from a bottle, slouched, legs open, later initiating sex with a man she barely knew. She ended the movie as a "kept woman," not a prostitute - her status is a function of the harsh realities of being a poor, black woman in a society that devalues the poor, the black, and women. Bassett insisted that she was not criticizing Berry so much as she was criticizing the Hollywood system for continuing to typecast black women in demeaning roles. This was a reasonable criticism. Only a handful of black actresses and actors have won academy awards, and most won because they brought depth and complexity to otherwise one-dimensional stereotypical roles: Hattie McDaniel played a Mammy in Gone With the Wind (Selznick & Fleming, 1939); Sidney Poitier played a Tom, albeit a dignified one, in Lilies of the Field (Nelson, 1964), and Denzell Washington was a rogue cop, a variant of the Brute in Training Day (Newmyer, Silver & Fuqua, 2000).
Conclusion
The Jezebel has replaced the Mammy as the dominant image of black women in American popular culture. The black woman as prostitute, for example, is a staple in mainstream movies, especially those with urban settings. The black prostitute and the black pimp supposedly give these movies cutting edge realism. Small budget pornographic movies reinforce vile sexual stereotypes of black women. These women are willing, sometimes predatory, sexual deviants who will fulfill any and all sexual fantasies. Their sexual performances tap into centuries-old images of black women as uninhibited whores. Televised music videos, especially those by gangsta rap performers, portray scantily clad, nubile black women who thrust their hips to lyrics which often depict them as 'hos, skeezers, and bytches. A half century after the American civil rights movement, it is increasingly easy to find black women, especially young ones, depicted as Jezebels whose only value is as sexual commodities.
© Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology
Ferris State University.
July, 2002
Edited 2012
The relationship between Hank and Leticia was an updated version of the placage arrangements common in the 1800s. The first night after she moved into his home they lie in bed. He said, "I'm gonna take care of you." Leticia replied, "Good, 'cause I really need to be taken care of." In a tender moment, he went to a store to get ice cream. While he was gone she found evidence that he was involved in her husband's execution. She cried, wailed, gripped with gut-wrenching pain. He returned. She had a dazed look. He told her, "You look real pretty. Let's go out on the steps, if you want to." She followed him. Outside, she accepted a spoon, stared at his son's tombstone, and then accepted ice cream from his spoon. His last words were, "I think we gonna be alright." Angela Bassett, nominated for an academy award in 1993 (Tina Turner in What's Love Got To Do With It), rejected the role of Leticia. In an interview with Newsweek (Samuels, 2002), she said: "It's about character, darling. I wasn't going to be a prostitute on film. I couldn't do that because it's such a stereotype about black women and sexuality"(p. 55). Bassett's assessment was harsh and probably overstated. Leticia was portrayed as a "loose woman:" drinking from a bottle, slouched, legs open, later initiating sex with a man she barely knew. She ended the movie as a "kept woman," not a prostitute - her status is a function of the harsh realities of being a poor, black woman in a society that devalues the poor, the black, and women. Bassett insisted that she was not criticizing Berry so much as she was criticizing the Hollywood system for continuing to typecast black women in demeaning roles. This was a reasonable criticism. Only a handful of black actresses and actors have won academy awards, and most won because they brought depth and complexity to otherwise one-dimensional stereotypical roles: Hattie McDaniel played a Mammy in Gone With the Wind (Selznick & Fleming, 1939); Sidney Poitier played a Tom, albeit a dignified one, in Lilies of the Field (Nelson, 1964), and Denzell Washington was a rogue cop, a variant of the Brute in Training Day (Newmyer, Silver & Fuqua, 2000).
Conclusion
The Jezebel has replaced the Mammy as the dominant image of black women in American popular culture. The black woman as prostitute, for example, is a staple in mainstream movies, especially those with urban settings. The black prostitute and the black pimp supposedly give these movies cutting edge realism. Small budget pornographic movies reinforce vile sexual stereotypes of black women. These women are willing, sometimes predatory, sexual deviants who will fulfill any and all sexual fantasies. Their sexual performances tap into centuries-old images of black women as uninhibited whores. Televised music videos, especially those by gangsta rap performers, portray scantily clad, nubile black women who thrust their hips to lyrics which often depict them as 'hos, skeezers, and bytches. A half century after the American civil rights movement, it is increasingly easy to find black women, especially young ones, depicted as Jezebels whose only value is as sexual commodities.
© Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology
Ferris State University.
July, 2002
Edited 2012
The Tom Caricature
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The Tom caricature portrays black men as faithful, happily submissive servants. The Tom caricature, like the Mammy caricature, was born in ante-bellum America in the defense of slavery. How could slavery be wrong, argued its proponents, if black servants, males (Toms) and females (Mammies), were contented and loyal? The Tom is presented as a smiling, wide-eyed, dark skinned server: fieldworker, cook, butler, porter, or waiter. Unlike the c00n, the Tom is portrayed as a dependable worker, eager to serve. Unlike the Brute, the Tom is docile and non-threatening to whites. The Tom is often old, physically weak, psychologically dependent on whites for approval. In his book, Toms, c00ns, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks, Donald Bogle (1994) summarizes the depiction of Toms in movies:
Legree intends to make Tom an overseer. Tom is ordered by Legree to flog a woman slave. Tom refuses. Legree strikes him repeatedly with a cowhide lash. Again, he tells Tom to beat the woman. Tom, with a soft voice, says, "the poor crittur's sick and feeble; 'twould be downright cruel, and it's what I never would do, nor begin to. Mas'r, if you mean to kill me, kill me; but, as to my raising my hand agin anyone here, I never shall, -- I'll die first" (Stowe, p. 439).
Stowe wanted to show how slavery was incongruent with Christianity. How could Christians, she wondered, buy, sell, and trade slaves? How could they offer even tacit approval of slavery? How could white Christians allow their enslaved brethren to be sold to the likes of Legree? Her book is an unabashed attack on slavery, and Tom is one of her two perfect Christian characters; Mr. St. Clare's daughter, Eva, the other. Both die, Tom as a martyr.
Legree demands information from Tom about two women runaways. He knows that Tom can help him. Tom refuses. Legree beats Tom and threatens to kill him if Tom does not help him find the women. Tom, ever the Christian, does not lie, nor does he give Legree the information. Instead, Tom says:
Despite being a model slave -- hard working, loyal, non-rebellious, and often contented -- Tom is sold, cursed, slapped, kicked, flogged, worked like a horse, then beaten to death. He never lifts a hand to hit his masters nor to stop a blow. Tom does not complain, rebel, or run away. This partially explains why the names "Uncle Tom" and "Tom" have become terms of disgust for African Americans. Tom's devotion to his master is surpassed only by his devotion to his religious faith.
Uncle Tom's Cabin sold over two million copies within two years of its publication in 1853. In the first three years after its publication, fourteen proslavery novels were written to contradict the book's antislavery messages. A more subtle undermining of Stowe's portrayal of slavery occurred on entertainment stages. By 1879 there were at least forty-nine traveling companies performing Uncle Tom's Cabin throughout the United States (Turner, 1994, p. 78). The stage versions, often called Tom Shows, differed from Stowe's book in significant ways. Little Eva was now the star; all other characters were relegated to the periphery. The violence inherent in slavery was understated. In some instances the brutality was ignored completely. Slaves were depicted as "happy darkies" living under a benevolent, paternalistic system. Legree was mean but not a brute, and in some Tom shows he was portrayed as doing Tom a favor by killing him -- since Tom could not enter heaven unless he died.
The stage Toms represented a major, and demeaning, departure from the original Uncle Tom. Stowe's Tom was an obedient, loyal, non-complaining slave, but he was not weak or docile. Tom resisted Legree. He gave his life rather than help Legree find the two women runaways. Stowe painted a slave with dignity -- a slave who dared to pity his master. Throughout the novel, Tom is venerable and kind. His theology, though simple, is fully developed and consistent. He is a man of principle. Patricia Turner, author of Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies (1994), wrote:
Cinematic Uncle Toms
Portrayals of Uncle Tom in movies also departed from Stowe's original. In 1903, Edwin S. Porter directed a twelve-minute version of Uncle Tom's Cabin. This was the first black character in an American film; ironically, Uncle Tom was played by an unnamed white actor colored with blackface makeup. Porter's Uncle Tom, like the Toms on stage, was a childlike, groveling servant. In the first quarter of the 20th century there were many cinematic adaptations of Uncle Tom's Cabin which portrayed slavery as a benevolent institution, Little Eva as an earthly angel, and blacks, especially Tom, as loyal, childlike, unthinking, and happy. In 1914, a black actor, Sam Lucas, was allowed to play the Uncle Tom role in a film (Ritchey & Daly). His advanced age -- he was seventy-two -- helped perpetuate the perception that Uncle Tom was old and physically weak. In 1927 Universal Pictures remade Uncle Tom's Cabin (Pollard) and used the black actor James B. Lowe in the title role. The Toms played by Lucas and Lowe, like the many Toms played by white actors in blackface makeup, were genial, passive, happy servants.
Uncle Tom was not the only Tom depicted in early American movies. Indeed, the Tom character was a staple of the movie screen and, later, television shows. In the silent short film Confederate Spy (Olcott, 1910), Uncle Daniel, a Tom character, is a southern black spy. He is caught and brought before a Union firing squad. He has no regrets facing death because he "did it for massa's sake and for little massa" (Bogle, 1994, p. 6). In For Massa's Sake (Golden, 1911), a former slave is so attached to his former master that he sells himself back into slavery to help pay the white man's debts (Bogle, p. 6). The Birth of a Nation (Griffith, 1915) and Hearts in Dixie (Sloane, 1929) have numerous anti-black caricatures, including Toms who adore their masters.
In the 1930s and 1940s black male actors were limited to two stereotypical roles: c00ns such as Stepin Fetchit, Mantan Moreland, and Willie Best; and Toms, of whom the most notable were Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Clarence Muse, and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. Robinson is best known as child star Shirley Temple's dance partner. They appeared in four films together, including The Littlest Rebel (DeSylva & Butler, 1935). Robinson plays the role of Uncle Billy, a good-natured, well-mannered Tom. Temple plays Virginia Houston Cary, the feisty young daughter of Captain Cary of the Confederate Army. Captain Cary goes off to battle. The Cary plantation is invaded by Union soldiers. Virginia's mother becomes ill and soon dies. Captain Cary returns home and is taken prisoner. He is tried for treason. Uncle Billy helps little Virginia escape. The pair earn their fare to Washington by dancing and "passing the cap." Miraculously, they gain an audience with President Abraham Lincoln who pardons Virginia's father. Robinson also portrayed genial, loyal servants in The Little Colonel (DeSylva & Butler, 1935) with Temple and Lionel Barrymore, In Old Kentucky (Butcher & Marshall, 1935) with Will Rogers, and Just Around the Corner (Hempstead & Cummings, 1938) with Temple.
Clarence Muse was a graduate of the dikkinson School of Law in Philadelphia and he had formal theatrical training; nevertheless, his career is noted for portrayals of c00ns and Toms, especially the latter. He played Tom roles in Show Boat (Laemmle & Whale, 1936), Follow Your Heart (Levine & Scotto, 1936), Zanzibar (Douglas & Schuster, 1940), Heaven Can Wait (Lubitsch, 1943), Joe Palooka in the Knockout (Chester & Le Borg, 1947), and Riding High (Capra, 1950). The Tom role, like most of the early black stereotypes, suggested that blacks were one-dimensional. Muse's Toms were thoughtful and often articulate servants. Bogle calls him the "dignified, humanized tom" (1994, p. 54).
Eddie Anderson played the Tom role in Jezebel (Wyler, 1938) and You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (Cowan & Marshall, 1939), but he is best known as Jack Benny's raspy voiced manservant Rochester. The pair appeared in movies, for example, Love Thy Neighbor (Sandrich, 1940), and The Meanest Man in the World (Perlberg & Lanfield, 1943), radio programs, and a long-running television program. Their on-screen relationship was characterized by good natured struggles, with Rochester often besting his "Boss." Rochester was one of the first black characters to "show up" his white employer; nevertheless, the role still fits into the Tom stereotype, albeit with elements of shrewdness and rebellion.
The 1930s and 1940s were the heyday for cinematic Tom depictions. Virtually every film that dealt with slavery included Toms. The still popular Gone With the Wind (Selznick & Fleming, 1939) included the Tom character Pork, a pathetic man, his back stooped, his speech halted, afraid of whites, yet desiring, above all, to please them. Pork is a marginal character. In later movies Toms would be even more marginalized, many lacking names. c00ns played the role of comic relief. Toms symbolized wealth. Producers who wanted to show that a family had "old money" often surrounded the family with black servants. Toms also suggested a nostalgic social order. Toms represented the supposed "good ol' days" before the civil rights and black power movements.
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Always as toms are chased, harassed, hounded, flogged, enslaved, and insulted, they keep the faith, n'er turn against their white massas, and remain hearty, submissive, stoic, generous, selfless, and oh-so-very kind. Thus they endear themselves to white audiences and emerge as heroes of sorts. (pp. 5-6)
Legree intends to make Tom an overseer. Tom is ordered by Legree to flog a woman slave. Tom refuses. Legree strikes him repeatedly with a cowhide lash. Again, he tells Tom to beat the woman. Tom, with a soft voice, says, "the poor crittur's sick and feeble; 'twould be downright cruel, and it's what I never would do, nor begin to. Mas'r, if you mean to kill me, kill me; but, as to my raising my hand agin anyone here, I never shall, -- I'll die first" (Stowe, p. 439).
Stowe wanted to show how slavery was incongruent with Christianity. How could Christians, she wondered, buy, sell, and trade slaves? How could they offer even tacit approval of slavery? How could white Christians allow their enslaved brethren to be sold to the likes of Legree? Her book is an unabashed attack on slavery, and Tom is one of her two perfect Christian characters; Mr. St. Clare's daughter, Eva, the other. Both die, Tom as a martyr.
Legree demands information from Tom about two women runaways. He knows that Tom can help him. Tom refuses. Legree beats Tom and threatens to kill him if Tom does not help him find the women. Tom, ever the Christian, does not lie, nor does he give Legree the information. Instead, Tom says:
Mas'r if you was sick, or in trouble, or dying, and I could save ye, I'd give ye my heart's blood; and if taking every drop of blood in this poor old body would save your precious soul, I'd give'em freely, as the Lord gave His for me. O, Mas'r! don't bring this great sin on your soul! It will hurt you more than 'twill me! Do the worst you can, my troubles'll be over soon; but, if ye don't repent, yours won't never end. (p. 508)
Uncle Tom's Cabin sold over two million copies within two years of its publication in 1853. In the first three years after its publication, fourteen proslavery novels were written to contradict the book's antislavery messages. A more subtle undermining of Stowe's portrayal of slavery occurred on entertainment stages. By 1879 there were at least forty-nine traveling companies performing Uncle Tom's Cabin throughout the United States (Turner, 1994, p. 78). The stage versions, often called Tom Shows, differed from Stowe's book in significant ways. Little Eva was now the star; all other characters were relegated to the periphery. The violence inherent in slavery was understated. In some instances the brutality was ignored completely. Slaves were depicted as "happy darkies" living under a benevolent, paternalistic system. Legree was mean but not a brute, and in some Tom shows he was portrayed as doing Tom a favor by killing him -- since Tom could not enter heaven unless he died.
Further marked inconsistencies are discernible between the values and principles of the reconstructed Uncle Tom and Stowe's original hero. Both are devout, stalwart Christians. Both are unflinching in their loyalty. But the reconstructed Uncle Toms are passive, docile, unthinking Christians. Loyal and faithful to white employers, they are duplicitous in their dealings with fellow blacks. Stowe's Tom is a proactive Christian warrior. He does more than accept God's will, he endeavors to fulfill it in all of his words and deeds. He is loyal to each of his white masters, even the cruel Simon Legree. Yet his allegiance to his fellow slaves is equally strong. (p. 73)
By depicting his ability to save a child's life and work long days in the field, she delivers a brave, physically capable hero whose abilities contradict the lazy slave stereotype then being actively promoted by pro-slavery Southerners. The elderly, stooped-over, slow-moving Uncle Tom of contemporary popular culture could never have fulfilled the political ends sought by Stowe. (p. 73)
Cinematic Uncle Toms
Portrayals of Uncle Tom in movies also departed from Stowe's original. In 1903, Edwin S. Porter directed a twelve-minute version of Uncle Tom's Cabin. This was the first black character in an American film; ironically, Uncle Tom was played by an unnamed white actor colored with blackface makeup. Porter's Uncle Tom, like the Toms on stage, was a childlike, groveling servant. In the first quarter of the 20th century there were many cinematic adaptations of Uncle Tom's Cabin which portrayed slavery as a benevolent institution, Little Eva as an earthly angel, and blacks, especially Tom, as loyal, childlike, unthinking, and happy. In 1914, a black actor, Sam Lucas, was allowed to play the Uncle Tom role in a film (Ritchey & Daly). His advanced age -- he was seventy-two -- helped perpetuate the perception that Uncle Tom was old and physically weak. In 1927 Universal Pictures remade Uncle Tom's Cabin (Pollard) and used the black actor James B. Lowe in the title role. The Toms played by Lucas and Lowe, like the many Toms played by white actors in blackface makeup, were genial, passive, happy servants.
Uncle Tom was not the only Tom depicted in early American movies. Indeed, the Tom character was a staple of the movie screen and, later, television shows. In the silent short film Confederate Spy (Olcott, 1910), Uncle Daniel, a Tom character, is a southern black spy. He is caught and brought before a Union firing squad. He has no regrets facing death because he "did it for massa's sake and for little massa" (Bogle, 1994, p. 6). In For Massa's Sake (Golden, 1911), a former slave is so attached to his former master that he sells himself back into slavery to help pay the white man's debts (Bogle, p. 6). The Birth of a Nation (Griffith, 1915) and Hearts in Dixie (Sloane, 1929) have numerous anti-black caricatures, including Toms who adore their masters.
Clarence Muse was a graduate of the dikkinson School of Law in Philadelphia and he had formal theatrical training; nevertheless, his career is noted for portrayals of c00ns and Toms, especially the latter. He played Tom roles in Show Boat (Laemmle & Whale, 1936), Follow Your Heart (Levine & Scotto, 1936), Zanzibar (Douglas & Schuster, 1940), Heaven Can Wait (Lubitsch, 1943), Joe Palooka in the Knockout (Chester & Le Borg, 1947), and Riding High (Capra, 1950). The Tom role, like most of the early black stereotypes, suggested that blacks were one-dimensional. Muse's Toms were thoughtful and often articulate servants. Bogle calls him the "dignified, humanized tom" (1994, p. 54).
Eddie Anderson played the Tom role in Jezebel (Wyler, 1938) and You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (Cowan & Marshall, 1939), but he is best known as Jack Benny's raspy voiced manservant Rochester. The pair appeared in movies, for example, Love Thy Neighbor (Sandrich, 1940), and The Meanest Man in the World (Perlberg & Lanfield, 1943), radio programs, and a long-running television program. Their on-screen relationship was characterized by good natured struggles, with Rochester often besting his "Boss." Rochester was one of the first black characters to "show up" his white employer; nevertheless, the role still fits into the Tom stereotype, albeit with elements of shrewdness and rebellion.
The 1930s and 1940s were the heyday for cinematic Tom depictions. Virtually every film that dealt with slavery included Toms. The still popular Gone With the Wind (Selznick & Fleming, 1939) included the Tom character Pork, a pathetic man, his back stooped, his speech halted, afraid of whites, yet desiring, above all, to please them. Pork is a marginal character. In later movies Toms would be even more marginalized, many lacking names. c00ns played the role of comic relief. Toms symbolized wealth. Producers who wanted to show that a family had "old money" often surrounded the family with black servants. Toms also suggested a nostalgic social order. Toms represented the supposed "good ol' days" before the civil rights and black power movements.
They were mild-mannered toms, throwbacks to the humanized Christian servants of the 1930s. When insulted or badgered, the Poitier character stood by and took it. He knew the white world meant him no real harm. He differed from the old servants only in that he was governed by a code of decency, duty, and moral intelligence. There were times in his films when he screamed out in rage at the injustices of a racist white society. But reason always dictated his actions, along with love for his fellow man. (p. 176)
Poitier's Toms are best described as "Enlightened Toms." In many of his films he is the smartest, most articulate character -- and, more importantly, the one who delves into the philosophical issues: egalitarianism, humanitarianism, and altruism. Moreover, he acts upon these philosophical musings. He is a paragon of saintly virtue, sacrificing for others, who, not coincidentally, are often white.
Morgan Freeman's character, Hoke, in Driving Miss Daisy (Zanuck, Zanuck & Beresford, 1989) is reminiscent of Poitier's Homer Smith in Lilies of the Field. Neither Hoke nor Homer has a life apart from whites. We know little of either character's experiences or hopes. They live to solve the problems of the white characters; and, of course, both are desexed. Although neither Hoke nor Homer Smith is a fully developed character, both are preferable to Big George in Fried Green Tomatoes (Avnet, Kemer & Avnet, 1991). Big George is a pliant, obedient, one-dimensional servant, a relic.
Commercial Toms
Rastus was created in 1893 by Emery Mapes, one of the owners of North Dakota's Diamond Milling Company.2 He wanted a likable image to help sell packages of "breakfast porridge." Mapes, a former printer, remembered the image of a black chef among his stock of old printing blocks. He made a template of the chef and named the product Cream of Wheat. The original logo showed a black chef holding a skillet in one hand and a bowl of Cream of Wheat in the other (Siegel, 1992). This logo was used until the 1920s when Mapes, impressed by the "wholesome" looks of a Chicago waiter serving him breakfast, created a new chef. The waiter was paid five dollars to pose as the second Rastus in a chef's hat and jacket. The image of this unknown man has appeared, with only slight modifications, on Cream of Wheat boxes for almost ninety years.
Maybe Cream of Wheat
aint got no vitamines.
I dont know what them
things is. If they's bugs
they aint none in Cream of
Wheat but she's sho' good
to eat and cheap. Costs 'bout
1¢ fo a great big dish.
Uncle Tom as Opprobrium
In many African American communities "Uncle Tom" is a slur used to disparage a black person who is humiliatingly subservient or deferential to white people. Derived from Stowe's character, the modern use is a perversion of her original portrayal. The contemporary use of the slur has two variations. Version A is the black person who is a docile, loyal, religious, contented servant who accommodates himself to a lowly status. Version B is the ambitious black person who subordinates himself in order to achieve a more favorable status within the dominant society. In both instances, the person is believed to overly identify with whites, in Version A because of fear, in Version B because of opportunism. This latter use is more common today.
"Uncle Tom," unlike most anti-black slurs, is primarily used by blacks against blacks. Its synonyms include "oreo," "sell-out," "uncle," "race-traitor," and "white man's negro." It is an in-group term used as a social control mechanism. Garth Baker-Fletcher (1993) has said,
The "Uncle Tom" appellation is the feared curse of every African American who is compelled to work under whites, while simultaneously holding a position of authority over other African Americans. Thus "Uncle Tom" can be pulled out by blacks as a superior ideological weapon to enforce patterns of racial unity against the perceived threats of a white boss. (p. 39)
Black public figures who oppose affirmative action or busing are often accused of pleasing whites only to elevate themselves -- socially, politically, and economically. They publicly say about race what conservative whites dare not say: crime and welfare are black phenomena, affirmative action is reverse discrimination, and white racism is not the cause of black problems. They wear the "Uncle Tom" label as a badge -- at least publicly. To their opponents these men represent Version B Uncle Toms.
Sports champions, especially those who publicly express conservative political views, run the risk of being labeled "Uncle Toms." After retiring from baseball, Jackie Robinson wrote a newspaper column about civil rights issues. He was vilified in the black community when he announced that he was a "Rockefeller Republican." Arthur Ashe, the tennis champion and human rights activist, was called an "Uncle Tom" for playing in the South African Open tennis tournament in 1973. His participation was seen as supporting apartheid. Muhammad Ali routinely berated his black opponents as "Uncle Toms." In 1965 Ali fought Floyd Patterson, a devout Christian and staunch integrationist. Patterson used these words to criticize Ali for becoming a Black Muslim:
Cassius Clay [Ali's former name] is disgracing himself and the Negro race. No decent person can look up to a champion whose credo is "hate whites." I have nothing but contempt for the Black Muslims and that for which they stand. The image of a Black Muslim as the world heavyweight champion disgraces the sport and the nation. Cassius Clay must be beaten and the Black Muslims' scourge removed from boxing. (Goldberg, 1997)
In recent years the "Uncle Tom" slur has been directed against Christopher Darden, the black member of the prosecution's team in the O.J. Simpson murder trial; Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer; Karl Malone, the Utah Jazz basketball player; and Colin Powell. Cornell West, the author of Race Matters (1993) and a lifelong civil rights activist, was called an "Uncle Tom" by the African United Front (1993) because of his "support" of Jews. The "Uncle Tom" slur has even been appropriated by other ethnic groups to exert in-group pressures on their members. A Native American, for example, who is believed to be too friendly with or admiring of whites, is called an "Uncle Tomahawk"; Chinese Americans use the term "Uncle Tong." Even W.E.B. DuBois, arguably the greatest, most sustained civil rights voice of the 20th Century, was called an "Uncle Tom" -- by Marcus Garvey, who added that DuBois was "purely and simply a white man's ******" (Williams, 1997).4
© Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology
Ferris State University
Dec., 2000
Edited 2012
The Golliwog Caricature
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The Golliwog (originally spelled Golliwogg) is the least known of the major anti-black caricatures in the United States. Golliwogs are grotesque creatures,1 with very dark, often jet black skin, large white-rimmed eyes, red or white clown lips, and wild, frizzy hair.2 Typically, it's a male dressed in a jacket, trousers, bow tie, and stand-up collar in a combination of red, white, blue, and occasionally yellow colors. The golliwog image, popular in England and other European countries, is found on a variety of items, including postcards, jam jars, paperweights, brooches, wallets, perfume bottles, wooden puzzles, sheet music, wall paper, pottery, jewelry, greeting cards, clocks, and dolls. For the past four decades Europeans have debated whether the Golliwog is a lovable icon or a racist symbol.
The Golliwog began life as a story book character created by Florence Kate Upton. Upton was born in 1873 in Flushing, New York, to English parents who had emigrated to the United States in 1870. She was the second of four children. When Upton was fourteen, her father died and, shortly thereafter, the family returned to England. For several years she honed her skills as an artist. Unable to afford art school, Upton illustrated her own children's book in the hope of raising tuition money.
In 1895, her book, entitled The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls, was published in London. Upton drew the illustrations, and her mother, Bertha Upton, wrote the accompanying verse. The book's main characters were two Dutch dolls, Peg and Sarah Jane, and the Golliwogg. The story begins with Peg and Sara Jane, on the loose in a toy shop, encountering "a horrid sight, the blackest gnome." The little black "gnome" wore bright red trousers, a red bow tie on a high collared white shirt, and a blue swallow-tailed coat. He was a caricature of American black faced minstrels -- in effect, the caricature of a caricature. She named him Golliwogg.
The Golliwogg was based on a Black minstrel doll that Upton had played with as a small child in New York. The then-nameless "Negro minstrel doll" was treated roughly by the Upton children. Upton reminiscenced: "Seated upon a flowerpot in the garden, his kindly face was a target for rubber balls..., the game being to knock him over backwards. It pains me now to think of those little rag legs flying ignominiously over his head, yet that was a long time ago, and before he had become a personality.... We knew he was ugly!" (Johnson).
Upton's Golliwogg character, like the rag doll which inspired it, was ugly. He was often drawn with paws instead of hands and feet. He had a coal black face, thick lips, wide eyes, and a mass of long unruly hair.3 He was a cross between a dwarf-sized black minstrel and an animal. The appearance was distorted and frightening (MacGregor, p. 125).
Florence Upton's ugly little creation was embraced by the English public. The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls was immensely popular in England, and Golliwogg became a national star. The second printing of the book was retitled The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg. For the next fourteen years, Bertha and Florence Upton created twelve more books featuring the Golliwogg and his adventures, traveling to such "exotic" places as Africa and the North Pole, accompanied by his friends, the Dutch Dolls ("Golliwog History", n.d.). In those books the Uptons put the Golliwogg first in every title.
The Uptons did not copyright the Golliwogg, and the image entered into public domain. The Golliwogg name was changed to Golliwog, and he became a common toyland character in children's books. The Upton Golliwogg was adventurous and sometimes silly, but, in the main, gallant and "lovable," albeit, unsightly. Later Golliwogs were often unkind, mean-spirited, and even more visually hideous.
The earliest Golliwog dolls were rag dolls made by parents for their children. Many thousands were made. During the early twentieth century, many prominent doll manufacturers began producing Golliwog dolls. The major Golliwog producers were Steiff, Schuco, and Levin, all three Germany companies, and Merrythought and Deans, both from Great Britain. The Steiff Company is the most notable maker of Golliwog dolls. In 1908 Steiff became the first company to mass produce and distribute Golliwog dolls. Today, these early Steiff dolls sell for $10,000 to $15,000 each, making them the most expensive Golliwog collectibles. Some Steiff Golliwogs have been especially offensive, for example, in the 1970s they produced a Golliwog who looked like a wooly haired gorilla. In 1995, on the 100th anniversary of the Golliwog creation, Steiff produced two Golliwog dolls, including the company's first girl Golliwog.
James Robertson & Sons, a British manufacturer of jams and preserves, began using the Golliwog as its trademark in the early 1900s. According to the company's promotional literature, it was in the United States, just before World War I, that John Robertson (the owner's son) first encountered the Golly doll. He saw rural children playing with little black rag dolls with white eyes. The children's mothers made the dolls from discarded black skirts and blouses. John Robertson claimed that the children called the dolls "Golly" as a mispronunciation of "Dolly." He returned to England with the Golly name and image.
By 1910 the Golly appeared on Robertson's product labels, price lists, and advertising material. Its appeal led to an enormously popular mail-away campaign: in return for coupons from their marmalade, Robertson's sent brooches (also called pins or badges) of Gollies playing various sports. The first brooch was the Golly Golfer in 1928 ("Gollies Through History," n.d.). In 1932 a series of fruit badges (with Golly heads superimposed onto the berries) were distributed. In 1939 the popular brooch series was discontinued because the metal was needed for the war effort,4 but by 1946 the Golly returned. In 1999 a Robertson spokesperson said, "He's still very popular. Each year we get more than 340,000 requests for Golly badges. Since 1910 we have sent out more than 20 million" (Clark). The Robertson Golly has also appeared on pencils, knitting patterns, playing cards, aprons, and children's silverware sets.
Robertson pendant chains were introduced in 1956, and, soon after, the design of all Robertson Gollies changed from the Old Golly with pop eyes to the present Golly with eyes looking to the left. The words "Golden Shred" were removed from his waistcoat, his eyes were straightened, and his smile was broadened ("And There's Even More: history", n.d.).
During the first half of the twentieth century, the Golliwog doll was a favorite children's soft toy in Europe. Only the Teddy Bear exceeded the Golliwog in popularity. Small children slept with their black dolls. Many white Europeans still speak with nostalgic sentiment about their childhood gollies. Sir Kenneth Clark, the noted art historian, claimed that the Golliwogs of his childhood were, "examples of chivalry, far more persuasive than the unconvincing Knights of the Arthurian legend" (Johnson, n.d., p. 3). The French composer Claude Debussy was so enthralled by the Golliwogs in his daughter's books that one movement of his Children's Corner Suite is entitled "The Golliwog's Cakewalk" (Johnson, n.d., p. 3). The Golliwog was a mixture of bravery, adventurousness, and love -- for white children.
In the 1960s relations between blacks and whites in England were often characterized by conflict. This racial antagonism resulted from many factors, including: the arrival of increasing numbers of colored immigrants; minorities' unwillingness to accommodate themselves to old patterns of racial and ethnic subordination; and, the fear among many whites that England was losing its national character. British culture was also influenced by images -- often brutal -- of racial conflict occurring in the United States.
In this climate the Golliwog doll and other Golliwog emblems were seen as symbols of racial insensitivity. Many books containing Golliwogs were withdrawn from public libraries, and the manufacturing of Golliwog dolls dwindled as the demand for Golliwogs decreased. Many items with Golliwog images were destroyed. Despite much criticism, James Robertson & Sons did not discontinue its use of the Golliwog as a mascot. The Camden Committee for Community Relations led a petition drive for signatures to send to the Robertson Company. The National Committee on Racism in Children's Books also publicly criticized Robertson's use of the Golly in its advertising. Other organizations called for a boycott of Robertson's products; nevertheless, the company has continued to use the Golliwog as its trademark in many countries, including the United Kingdom, although it was removed from Robertson's packaging in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong.
In many ways the campaign to ban Golliwogs was similar to the American campaign against Little Black Sambo. In both cases racial minorities and sympathetic whites argued that these images demeaned blacks and hurt the psyches of minority children. Civil rights organizations led both campaigns, and white civic and political leaders eventually joined the effort to ban the offensive caricatures. In the anti-Golliwog campaign, numerous British parliamentarians publicly lambasted the Golliwog image as racist, including, Tony Benn, Shirley Williams, and David Owen (MacGregor, 1992, p. 29).
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The Golliwog began life as a story book character created by Florence Kate Upton. Upton was born in 1873 in Flushing, New York, to English parents who had emigrated to the United States in 1870. She was the second of four children. When Upton was fourteen, her father died and, shortly thereafter, the family returned to England. For several years she honed her skills as an artist. Unable to afford art school, Upton illustrated her own children's book in the hope of raising tuition money.
In 1895, her book, entitled The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls, was published in London. Upton drew the illustrations, and her mother, Bertha Upton, wrote the accompanying verse. The book's main characters were two Dutch dolls, Peg and Sarah Jane, and the Golliwogg. The story begins with Peg and Sara Jane, on the loose in a toy shop, encountering "a horrid sight, the blackest gnome." The little black "gnome" wore bright red trousers, a red bow tie on a high collared white shirt, and a blue swallow-tailed coat. He was a caricature of American black faced minstrels -- in effect, the caricature of a caricature. She named him Golliwogg.
The Golliwogg was based on a Black minstrel doll that Upton had played with as a small child in New York. The then-nameless "Negro minstrel doll" was treated roughly by the Upton children. Upton reminiscenced: "Seated upon a flowerpot in the garden, his kindly face was a target for rubber balls..., the game being to knock him over backwards. It pains me now to think of those little rag legs flying ignominiously over his head, yet that was a long time ago, and before he had become a personality.... We knew he was ugly!" (Johnson).
Florence Upton's ugly little creation was embraced by the English public. The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls was immensely popular in England, and Golliwogg became a national star. The second printing of the book was retitled The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg. For the next fourteen years, Bertha and Florence Upton created twelve more books featuring the Golliwogg and his adventures, traveling to such "exotic" places as Africa and the North Pole, accompanied by his friends, the Dutch Dolls ("Golliwog History", n.d.). In those books the Uptons put the Golliwogg first in every title.
The Uptons did not copyright the Golliwogg, and the image entered into public domain. The Golliwogg name was changed to Golliwog, and he became a common toyland character in children's books. The Upton Golliwogg was adventurous and sometimes silly, but, in the main, gallant and "lovable," albeit, unsightly. Later Golliwogs were often unkind, mean-spirited, and even more visually hideous.
The earliest Golliwog dolls were rag dolls made by parents for their children. Many thousands were made. During the early twentieth century, many prominent doll manufacturers began producing Golliwog dolls. The major Golliwog producers were Steiff, Schuco, and Levin, all three Germany companies, and Merrythought and Deans, both from Great Britain. The Steiff Company is the most notable maker of Golliwog dolls. In 1908 Steiff became the first company to mass produce and distribute Golliwog dolls. Today, these early Steiff dolls sell for $10,000 to $15,000 each, making them the most expensive Golliwog collectibles. Some Steiff Golliwogs have been especially offensive, for example, in the 1970s they produced a Golliwog who looked like a wooly haired gorilla. In 1995, on the 100th anniversary of the Golliwog creation, Steiff produced two Golliwog dolls, including the company's first girl Golliwog.
James Robertson & Sons, a British manufacturer of jams and preserves, began using the Golliwog as its trademark in the early 1900s. According to the company's promotional literature, it was in the United States, just before World War I, that John Robertson (the owner's son) first encountered the Golly doll. He saw rural children playing with little black rag dolls with white eyes. The children's mothers made the dolls from discarded black skirts and blouses. John Robertson claimed that the children called the dolls "Golly" as a mispronunciation of "Dolly." He returned to England with the Golly name and image.
By 1910 the Golly appeared on Robertson's product labels, price lists, and advertising material. Its appeal led to an enormously popular mail-away campaign: in return for coupons from their marmalade, Robertson's sent brooches (also called pins or badges) of Gollies playing various sports. The first brooch was the Golly Golfer in 1928 ("Gollies Through History," n.d.). In 1932 a series of fruit badges (with Golly heads superimposed onto the berries) were distributed. In 1939 the popular brooch series was discontinued because the metal was needed for the war effort,4 but by 1946 the Golly returned. In 1999 a Robertson spokesperson said, "He's still very popular. Each year we get more than 340,000 requests for Golly badges. Since 1910 we have sent out more than 20 million" (Clark). The Robertson Golly has also appeared on pencils, knitting patterns, playing cards, aprons, and children's silverware sets.
Robertson pendant chains were introduced in 1956, and, soon after, the design of all Robertson Gollies changed from the Old Golly with pop eyes to the present Golly with eyes looking to the left. The words "Golden Shred" were removed from his waistcoat, his eyes were straightened, and his smile was broadened ("And There's Even More: history", n.d.).
In the 1960s relations between blacks and whites in England were often characterized by conflict. This racial antagonism resulted from many factors, including: the arrival of increasing numbers of colored immigrants; minorities' unwillingness to accommodate themselves to old patterns of racial and ethnic subordination; and, the fear among many whites that England was losing its national character. British culture was also influenced by images -- often brutal -- of racial conflict occurring in the United States.
In this climate the Golliwog doll and other Golliwog emblems were seen as symbols of racial insensitivity. Many books containing Golliwogs were withdrawn from public libraries, and the manufacturing of Golliwog dolls dwindled as the demand for Golliwogs decreased. Many items with Golliwog images were destroyed. Despite much criticism, James Robertson & Sons did not discontinue its use of the Golliwog as a mascot. The Camden Committee for Community Relations led a petition drive for signatures to send to the Robertson Company. The National Committee on Racism in Children's Books also publicly criticized Robertson's use of the Golly in its advertising. Other organizations called for a boycott of Robertson's products; nevertheless, the company has continued to use the Golliwog as its trademark in many countries, including the United Kingdom, although it was removed from Robertson's packaging in the United States, Canada, and Hong Kong.
In many ways the campaign to ban Golliwogs was similar to the American campaign against Little Black Sambo. In both cases racial minorities and sympathetic whites argued that these images demeaned blacks and hurt the psyches of minority children. Civil rights organizations led both campaigns, and white civic and political leaders eventually joined the effort to ban the offensive caricatures. In the anti-Golliwog campaign, numerous British parliamentarians publicly lambasted the Golliwog image as racist, including, Tony Benn, Shirley Williams, and David Owen (MacGregor, 1992, p. 29).
The claim that Golliwogs are racist is supported by literary depictions by writers such as Enid Blyton. Unlike Florence Upton's, Blyton's Golliwogs were often rude, mischievous, elfin villains. In Blyton's book, Here Comes Noddy Again (1951), a Golliwog asks the hero for help, then steals his car. Blyton, one of the most prolific European writers, included the Golliwogs in many stories, but she only wrote three books primarily about Golliwogs: The Three Golliwogs (1944), The Proud Golliwog (1951), and The Golliwog Grumbled (1955). Her depictions of Golliwogs are, by contemporary standards, racially insensitive. An excerpt from The Three Golliwogs is illustrative:
Ten Little ******s is the name of a children's poem, sometimes set to music, which celebrates the deaths of ten Black children, one-by-one. The Three Golliwogs was reprinted as recently as 1968, and it still contained the above passage. Ten Little ******s5 was also the name of a 1939 Agatha Christie novel, whose cover showed a Golliwog lynched, hanging from a noose.
The Golliwog's reputation and popularity were also hurt by the association with the word wog. Apparently derived from the word Golliwog,6 wog is an English slur against dark-skinned people, especially Middle or Far East foreigners. During World War II the word wog was used by the British Army in North Africa, mainly as a slur against dark-skinned Arabs. In the 1960s the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, one of the most noted regiments in the British Army, wore a Robertson's golly brooch for each Arab they had killed ("And There's Even More: Golly", n.d.) After the war, wog became a more general slur against brown-skinned people. As a racial epithet, it is comparable to ****** or spic, though its usage extends beyond any single ethnic group. Dark-skinned people in England, Germany, and Australia are derisively called wogs.7 In the year 2000, a British police officer was fired for referring to an Asian colleague as a wog ("British policeman", 2000). The association of wog with racial minorities is also seen with the word wog-box, which is slang for a large portable music box, the European counterpart of the ghetto blaster. The wog-box is also called a "Third World briefcase" (Green, 1984, p. 309).
Some Golliwog supporters tried to distance themselves from the wog slur by dropping it from the word golliwog. James Robertson & Sons, for example, has always referred to its golliwog as "Golly." In the late 1980s, when the anti-Golliwog campaign reached its height, many small manufacturers of the golliwogs began using the names Golly or Golli, instead of Golliwog. Not surprisingly, the words Golliwog, Golly, and Golli are now all used as racially descriptive terms, although they are not as demeaning as wog.
Golliwog is a racial slur in Germany, England, Ireland, Greece, and Australia. Interestingly, it is sometimes applied to dark-skinned whites, as well as brown-skinned persons. Golliwog is also a common name for black pets, especially dogs, in European countries -- much as ****** was once popular as a pet name. Golliwog was also the original name of the rock band Credence Clearwater Revival. They sometimes performed the song "Brown-Eyed Girl" (not the Van Morrison tune), dressed in white afros. This is not to suggest that they were racists, only to show that golliwogs were a part -- albeit, a small one -- in American culture ("Brief History", n.d.).
The Golliwog celebrated its 100 year anniversary in 1995. Golliwog collectibles, which always had a loyal following, again boomed on the secondary market. This popularity continues today and is evidenced by numerous eBay and Yahoo internet auctions and the presence of several international Golliwog organizations. A pro-Golliwog viewpoint can be found at the International Golliwog Collectors Club's website: www.teddybears.com/golliwog/direct.html. Many collectors, primarily though not exclusively whites, contend that the anti-Golliwog movement represents political correctness at its worst. They argue that the Golliwog is just a doll, and that the original Florence Upton creation was not racist, intentionally or unintentionally -- this is reminiscent of the claims about Helen Bannerman's Little Black Sambo (Read the Picaninny Caricature essay on this website for a more in-depth discussion of Little Black Sambo).
Critics of the Golliwog have launched a new attack. They are trying to get the image removed from all newly published children's books, and they are trying to force businesses to not use the Golliwog as a trademark. The black Trinidadian writer, Darcus Howe, said, "English [white] people never give up. Golliwogs have gone and should stay gone. They appeal to White English sentiment and will do so until the end of time." Gerry German, of the Working Group Against Racism in Children's Resources, was quoted in The Voice, a black newspaper, as saying: "I find it appalling that any organization in this day and age can produce anything which would commemorate the golliwog. It is an offensive caricature of Black people" (Clark, 1999).
The Golliwog was created during a racist era. He was drawn as a caricature of a minstrel -- which itself represented a demeaning image of blacks. There is racial stereotyping of black people in Florence Upton's books, including The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls -- such as the black minstrel playing a banjo on page 45. It appears that the Golliwog was another expression of Upton's racial insensitivity. Certainly later Golliwogs often reflected negative beliefs about blacks -- thieves, miscreants, incompetents. There is little doubt that the words associated with Golliwog -- Golly, Golli, Wog, and Golliwog, itself -- are often used as racial slurs. Finally, the resurgence of interest in the Golliwog is not found primarily among children, but instead is found among adults, some nostalgic, others with financial interests.
© Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology
Ferris State University
Nov., 2000
Edited 2012
Once the three bold golliwogs, Golly, Woggie, and ******, decided to go for a walk to Bumble-Bee Common. Golly wasn't quite ready so Woggie and ****** said they would start off without him, and Golly would catch them up as soon as he could. So off went Woogie and ******, arm-in-arm, singing merrily their favourite song -- which, as you may guess, was Ten Little ****** Boys.(p. 51)
The Golliwog's reputation and popularity were also hurt by the association with the word wog. Apparently derived from the word Golliwog,6 wog is an English slur against dark-skinned people, especially Middle or Far East foreigners. During World War II the word wog was used by the British Army in North Africa, mainly as a slur against dark-skinned Arabs. In the 1960s the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, one of the most noted regiments in the British Army, wore a Robertson's golly brooch for each Arab they had killed ("And There's Even More: Golly", n.d.) After the war, wog became a more general slur against brown-skinned people. As a racial epithet, it is comparable to ****** or spic, though its usage extends beyond any single ethnic group. Dark-skinned people in England, Germany, and Australia are derisively called wogs.7 In the year 2000, a British police officer was fired for referring to an Asian colleague as a wog ("British policeman", 2000). The association of wog with racial minorities is also seen with the word wog-box, which is slang for a large portable music box, the European counterpart of the ghetto blaster. The wog-box is also called a "Third World briefcase" (Green, 1984, p. 309).
Some Golliwog supporters tried to distance themselves from the wog slur by dropping it from the word golliwog. James Robertson & Sons, for example, has always referred to its golliwog as "Golly." In the late 1980s, when the anti-Golliwog campaign reached its height, many small manufacturers of the golliwogs began using the names Golly or Golli, instead of Golliwog. Not surprisingly, the words Golliwog, Golly, and Golli are now all used as racially descriptive terms, although they are not as demeaning as wog.
Golliwog is a racial slur in Germany, England, Ireland, Greece, and Australia. Interestingly, it is sometimes applied to dark-skinned whites, as well as brown-skinned persons. Golliwog is also a common name for black pets, especially dogs, in European countries -- much as ****** was once popular as a pet name. Golliwog was also the original name of the rock band Credence Clearwater Revival. They sometimes performed the song "Brown-Eyed Girl" (not the Van Morrison tune), dressed in white afros. This is not to suggest that they were racists, only to show that golliwogs were a part -- albeit, a small one -- in American culture ("Brief History", n.d.).
Critics of the Golliwog have launched a new attack. They are trying to get the image removed from all newly published children's books, and they are trying to force businesses to not use the Golliwog as a trademark. The black Trinidadian writer, Darcus Howe, said, "English [white] people never give up. Golliwogs have gone and should stay gone. They appeal to White English sentiment and will do so until the end of time." Gerry German, of the Working Group Against Racism in Children's Resources, was quoted in The Voice, a black newspaper, as saying: "I find it appalling that any organization in this day and age can produce anything which would commemorate the golliwog. It is an offensive caricature of Black people" (Clark, 1999).
The Golliwog was created during a racist era. He was drawn as a caricature of a minstrel -- which itself represented a demeaning image of blacks. There is racial stereotyping of black people in Florence Upton's books, including The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls -- such as the black minstrel playing a banjo on page 45. It appears that the Golliwog was another expression of Upton's racial insensitivity. Certainly later Golliwogs often reflected negative beliefs about blacks -- thieves, miscreants, incompetents. There is little doubt that the words associated with Golliwog -- Golly, Golli, Wog, and Golliwog, itself -- are often used as racial slurs. Finally, the resurgence of interest in the Golliwog is not found primarily among children, but instead is found among adults, some nostalgic, others with financial interests.
© Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology
Ferris State University
Nov., 2000
Edited 2012
The Tragic Mulatto Myth
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Lydia Maria Child introduced the literary character that we call the tragic mulatto1 in two short stories: "The Quadroons" (1842) and "Slavery's Pleasant Homes" (1843). She portrayed this light skinned woman as the offspring of a white slaveholder and his black female slave. This mulatto's life was indeed tragic. She was ignorant of both her mother's race and her own. She believed herself to be white and free. Her heart was pure, her manners impeccable, her language polished, and her face beautiful. Her father died; her "negro blood" discovered, she was remanded to slavery, deserted by her white lover, and died a victim of slavery and white male violence. A similar portrayal of the near-white mulatto appeared in Clotel (1853), a novel written by black abolitionist William Wells Brown.
A century later literary and cinematic portrayals of the tragic mulatto emphasized her personal pathologies: self-hatred, depression, alcoholism, sexual perversion, and suicide attempts being the most common. If light enough to "pass" as white, she did, but passing led to deeper self-loathing. She pitied or despised blacks and the "blackness" in herself; she hated or feared whites yet desperately sought their approval. In a race-based society, the tragic mulatto found peace only in death. She evoked pity or scorn, not sympathy. Sterling Brown summarized the treatment of the tragic mulatto by white writers:
Most tragic mulattoes were women, although the self-loathing Sergeant Waters in A Soldier's Story (Jewison, 1984) clearly fits the tragic mulatto stereotype. The troubled mulatto is portrayed as a selfish woman who will give up all, including her black family, in order to live as a white person. These words are illustrative:
Imitation of Life, based on Fannie Hurst's best selling novel, traces the lives of two widows, one white and the employer, the other black and the servant. Each woman has one daughter. The white woman, Beatrice Pullman (played by Claudette Colbert), hires the black woman, Delilah, (played by Louise Beavers) as a live-in cook and housekeeper. It is the depression, and the two women and their daughters live in poverty -- even a financially struggling white woman can afford a mammy. Their economic salvation comes when Delilah shares a secret pancake recipe with her boss. Beatrice opens a restaurant, markets the recipe, and soon becomes wealthy. She offers Delilah, the restaurant's cook, a twenty percent share of the profits. Regarding the recipe, Delilah, a true cinematic mammy, delivers two of the most pathetic lines ever from a black character: "I gives it to you, honey. I makes you a present of it." While Delilah is keeping her mistress's family intact, her relationship with Peola, her daughter, disintegrates.
Peola is the antithesis of the mammy caricature. Delilah knows her place in the Jim Crow hierarchy: the bottom rung. Hers is an accommodating resignation, bordering on contentment. Peola hates her life, wants more, wants to live as a white person, to have the opportunities that whites enjoy. Delilah hopes that her daughter will accept her racial heritage. "He [God] made you black, honey. Don't be telling Him his business. Accept it, honey." Peola wants to be loved by a white man, to marry a white man. She is beautiful, sensual, a potential wife to any white man who does not know her secret. Peola wants to live without the stigma of being black -- and in the 1930s that stigma was real and measurable. Ultimately and inevitably, Peola rejects her mother, runs away, and passes for white. Delilah dies of a broken heart. A repentant and tearful Peola returns to her mother's funeral.
Audiences, black and white (and they were separate), hated what Peola did to her mother -- and they hated Peola. She is often portrayed as the epitome of selfishness. In many academic discussions about tragic mulattoes the name Peola is included. From the mid-1930s through the late 1970s, Peola was an epithet used by blacks against light-skinned black women who identified with mainstream white society. A Peola looked white and wanted to be white. During the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement, the name Peola was an insult comparable to Uncle Tom, albeit a light-skinned female version.
Fredi Washington, the black actress who played Peola, was light enough to pass for white. Rumor has it that in later movies makeup was used to "blacken" her skin so white audiences would know her race. She had sharply defined features; long, dark, and straight hair, and green eyes; this limited the roles she was offered. She could not play mammy roles, and though she looked white, no acknowledged black was allowed to play a white person from the 1930's through the 1950's.
Imitation of Life was remade in 1959 (Hunter & Sirk). The plot is essentially the same; however, Peola is called Sara Jane, and she is played by Susan Kohner, a white actress. Delilah is now Annie Johnson. The pancake storyline is gone. Instead, the white mistress is a struggling actress. The crux of the story remains the light-skinned girl's attempts to pass for white. She runs away and becomes a chorus girl in a sleazy nightclub. Her dark skinned mother (played by Juanita Moore) follows her. She begs her mother to leave her alone. Sara Jane does not want to marry a "colored chauffeur"; she wants a white boyfriend. She gets a white boyfriend, but, when he discovers her secret, he savagely beats her and leaves her in a gutter. As in the original, Sara Jane's mother dies from a broken heart, and the repentant child tearfully returns to the funeral.
Peola and Sara Jane were cinematic tragic mulattoes. They were big screen testaments to the commonly held belief that "mixed blood" brought sorrow. If only they did not have a "drop of Negro blood." Many audience members nodded agreement when Annie Johnson asked rhetorically, "How do you explain to your daughter that she was born to hurt?"
Were real mulattoes born to hurt? All racial minorities in the United States have been victimized by the dominant group, although the expressions of that oppression vary. Mulattoes were considered black; therefore, they were slaves along with their darker kinsmen. All slaves were "born to hurt," but some writers have argued that mulattoes were privileged, relative to dark-skinned blacks. E.B. Reuter (1919), a historian, wrote:
Reuter's claim that mulattoes were held in higher regard and treated better than "pure blacks" must be examined closely. American slavery lasted for more than two centuries; therefore, it is difficult to generalize about the institution. The interactions between slaveholder and slaves varied across decades--and from plantation to plantation. Nevertheless, there are clues regarding the status of mulattoes. In a variety of public statements and laws, the offspring of white-black sexual relations were referred to as "mongrels" or "spurious" (Nash, 1974, p. 287). Also, these interracial children were always legally defined as pure blacks, which was different from how they were handled in other New World countries. A slaveholder claimed that there was "not an old plantation in which the grandchildren of the owner [therefore mulattos] are not whipped in the field by his overseer" (Furnas, 1956, p. 142). Further, it seems that mulatto women were sometimes targeted for sexual abuse.
According to the historian J. C. Furnas (1956), in some slave markets, mulattoes and quadroons brought higher prices, because of their use as sexual objects (p. 149). Some slavers found dark skin vulgar and repulsive. The mulatto approximated the white ideal of female attractiveness. All slave women (and men and children) were vulnerable to being raped, but the mulatto afforded the slave owner the opportunity to rape, with impunity, a woman who was physically white (or near-white) but legally black. A greater likelihood of being raped is certainly not an indication of favored status.
The mulatto woman was depicted as a seductress whose beauty drove white men to rape her. This is an obvious and flawed attempt to reconcile the prohibitions against miscegenation (interracial sexual relations) with the reality that whites routinely used blacks as sexual objects. One slaver noted, "There is not a likely looking girl in this State that is not the concubine of a White man..." (Furnas, 1956, p. 142). Every mulatto was proof that the color line had been crossed. In this regard, mulattoes were symbols of rape and concubinage. Gary B. Nash (1974) summarized the slavery-era relationship between the rape of black women, the handling of mulattoes, and white dominance:
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White writers insist upon the mulatto's unhappiness for other reasons. To them he is the anguished victim of divided inheritance. Mathematically they work it out that his intellectual strivings and self-control come from his white blood, and his emotional urgings, indolence and potential savagery come from his Negro blood. Their favorite character, the octoroon, wretched because of the "single drop of midnight in her veins," desires a white lover above all else, and must therefore go down to a tragic end.(Brown, 1969, p. 145)
Most tragic mulattoes were women, although the self-loathing Sergeant Waters in A Soldier's Story (Jewison, 1984) clearly fits the tragic mulatto stereotype. The troubled mulatto is portrayed as a selfish woman who will give up all, including her black family, in order to live as a white person. These words are illustrative:
Don't come for me. If you see me in the street, don't speak to me. From this moment on I'm White. I am not colored. You have to give me up.
Imitation of Life, based on Fannie Hurst's best selling novel, traces the lives of two widows, one white and the employer, the other black and the servant. Each woman has one daughter. The white woman, Beatrice Pullman (played by Claudette Colbert), hires the black woman, Delilah, (played by Louise Beavers) as a live-in cook and housekeeper. It is the depression, and the two women and their daughters live in poverty -- even a financially struggling white woman can afford a mammy. Their economic salvation comes when Delilah shares a secret pancake recipe with her boss. Beatrice opens a restaurant, markets the recipe, and soon becomes wealthy. She offers Delilah, the restaurant's cook, a twenty percent share of the profits. Regarding the recipe, Delilah, a true cinematic mammy, delivers two of the most pathetic lines ever from a black character: "I gives it to you, honey. I makes you a present of it." While Delilah is keeping her mistress's family intact, her relationship with Peola, her daughter, disintegrates.
Peola is the antithesis of the mammy caricature. Delilah knows her place in the Jim Crow hierarchy: the bottom rung. Hers is an accommodating resignation, bordering on contentment. Peola hates her life, wants more, wants to live as a white person, to have the opportunities that whites enjoy. Delilah hopes that her daughter will accept her racial heritage. "He [God] made you black, honey. Don't be telling Him his business. Accept it, honey." Peola wants to be loved by a white man, to marry a white man. She is beautiful, sensual, a potential wife to any white man who does not know her secret. Peola wants to live without the stigma of being black -- and in the 1930s that stigma was real and measurable. Ultimately and inevitably, Peola rejects her mother, runs away, and passes for white. Delilah dies of a broken heart. A repentant and tearful Peola returns to her mother's funeral.
Audiences, black and white (and they were separate), hated what Peola did to her mother -- and they hated Peola. She is often portrayed as the epitome of selfishness. In many academic discussions about tragic mulattoes the name Peola is included. From the mid-1930s through the late 1970s, Peola was an epithet used by blacks against light-skinned black women who identified with mainstream white society. A Peola looked white and wanted to be white. During the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Power Movement, the name Peola was an insult comparable to Uncle Tom, albeit a light-skinned female version.
Imitation of Life was remade in 1959 (Hunter & Sirk). The plot is essentially the same; however, Peola is called Sara Jane, and she is played by Susan Kohner, a white actress. Delilah is now Annie Johnson. The pancake storyline is gone. Instead, the white mistress is a struggling actress. The crux of the story remains the light-skinned girl's attempts to pass for white. She runs away and becomes a chorus girl in a sleazy nightclub. Her dark skinned mother (played by Juanita Moore) follows her. She begs her mother to leave her alone. Sara Jane does not want to marry a "colored chauffeur"; she wants a white boyfriend. She gets a white boyfriend, but, when he discovers her secret, he savagely beats her and leaves her in a gutter. As in the original, Sara Jane's mother dies from a broken heart, and the repentant child tearfully returns to the funeral.
Peola and Sara Jane were cinematic tragic mulattoes. They were big screen testaments to the commonly held belief that "mixed blood" brought sorrow. If only they did not have a "drop of Negro blood." Many audience members nodded agreement when Annie Johnson asked rhetorically, "How do you explain to your daughter that she was born to hurt?"
Were real mulattoes born to hurt? All racial minorities in the United States have been victimized by the dominant group, although the expressions of that oppression vary. Mulattoes were considered black; therefore, they were slaves along with their darker kinsmen. All slaves were "born to hurt," but some writers have argued that mulattoes were privileged, relative to dark-skinned blacks. E.B. Reuter (1919), a historian, wrote:
In slavery days, they were most frequently the trained servants and had the advantages of daily contact with cultured men and women. Many of them were free and so enjoyed whatever advantages went with that superior status. They were considered by the white people to be superior in intelligence to the black Negroes, and came to take great pride in the fact of their white blood....When possible, they formed a sort of mixed-blood caste and held themselves aloof from the black Negroes and the slaves of lower status. (p. 378)
According to the historian J. C. Furnas (1956), in some slave markets, mulattoes and quadroons brought higher prices, because of their use as sexual objects (p. 149). Some slavers found dark skin vulgar and repulsive. The mulatto approximated the white ideal of female attractiveness. All slave women (and men and children) were vulnerable to being raped, but the mulatto afforded the slave owner the opportunity to rape, with impunity, a woman who was physically white (or near-white) but legally black. A greater likelihood of being raped is certainly not an indication of favored status.
The mulatto woman was depicted as a seductress whose beauty drove white men to rape her. This is an obvious and flawed attempt to reconcile the prohibitions against miscegenation (interracial sexual relations) with the reality that whites routinely used blacks as sexual objects. One slaver noted, "There is not a likely looking girl in this State that is not the concubine of a White man..." (Furnas, 1956, p. 142). Every mulatto was proof that the color line had been crossed. In this regard, mulattoes were symbols of rape and concubinage. Gary B. Nash (1974) summarized the slavery-era relationship between the rape of black women, the handling of mulattoes, and white dominance:
Though skin color came to assume importance through generations of association with slavery, white colonists developed few qualms about intimate contact with black women. But raising the social status of those who labored at the bottom of society and who were defined as abysmally inferior was a matter of serious concern. It was resolved by insuring that the mulatto would not occupy a position midway between white and black. Any black blood classified a person as black; and to be black was to be a slave.... By prohibiting racial intermarriage, winking at interracial sex, and defining all mixed offspring as black, white society found the ideal answer to its labor needs, its extracurricular and inadmissible sexual desires, its compulsion to maintain its culture purebred, and the problem of maintaining, at least in theory, absolute social control. (pp. 289-290)
I'm a really muscular guy so I've been typecast as the "brute"
My freshman year, "friends" of mine would try to act like I was taking advantage of chicks while they were the ones who would come onto me (yes they were white). They'd try to paint it as some rapey situation. They just couldn't accept that those chicks were coming on to me instead of their
pale asses. I lost a potential hookup because of that.
My freshman year, "friends" of mine would try to act like I was taking advantage of chicks while they were the ones who would come onto me (yes they were white). They'd try to paint it as some rapey situation. They just couldn't accept that those chicks were coming on to me instead of their
pale asses. I lost a potential hookup because of that.
George M. Fredrickson (1971), author of The Black Image in the White Mind, claimed that many white Americans believed that mulattoes were a degenerate race because they had "White blood" which made them ambitious and power hungry combined with "Black blood" which made them animalistic and savage. The attributing of personality and morality traits to "blood" seems foolish today, but it was taken seriously in the past. Charles Carroll, author of The Negro a Beast (1900), described blacks as apelike. Regarding mulattoes, the offspring of "unnatural relationships," they did not have "the right to live," because, Carroll said, they were the majority of rapists and killers (Fredrickson, 1971, p. 277). His claim was untrue but widely believed. In 1899 a southern white woman, L. H. Harris, wrote to the editor of the Independent that the "negro brute" who rapes white women was "nearly always a mulatto," with "enough white blood in him to replace native humility and cowardice with Caucasian audacity" (Fredrickson, 1971, p. 277). Mulatto women were depicted as emotionally troubled seducers and mulatto men as power hungry criminals. Nowhere are these depictions more evident than in D. W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation (1915).
The Birth of a Nation is arguably the most racist mainstream movie produced in the United States. This melodrama of the Civil War and Reconstruction justified and glorified the Ku Klux Klan. Indeed, the Klan of the 1920s owes its existence to William Joseph Simmons, an itinerant Methodist preacher who watched the film a dozen times, then felt divinely inspired to resurrect the Klan which had been dormant since 1871. D. W. Griffith based the film on Thomas Dixon's anti-black novel The Clansman (1905) (also the original title of the movie). Griffith, following Dixon's lead, depicted his black characters as either "loyal darkies" or brutes and beasts lusting for power and, worse yet, lusting for white women.
The Birth of a Nation tells the story of two families, the Stonemans of Pennsylvania, and the Camerons of South Carolina. The Stonemans, headed by politician Austin Stoneman, and the Camerons, headed by slaveholder "Little Colonel" Ben Cameron, have their longtime friendship divided by the Civil War. The Civil War exacts a terrible toll on both families: both have sons die in the war. The Camerons, like many slaveholders, suffer "ruin, devastation, rapine, and pillage." The Birth of a Nation depicts Radical Reconstruction as a time when blacks dominate and oppress whites. The film shows blacks pushing whites off sidewalks, snatching the possessions of whites, attempting to rape a white teenager, and killing blacks who are loyal to whites (Leab, 1976, p. 28). Stoneman, a carpetbagger, moves his family to the South. He falls under the influence of Lydia, his mulatto housekeeper and mistress.
Austin Stoneman is portrayed as a naive politician who betrays his people: whites. Lydia, his lover, is described in a subtitle as the "weakness that is to blight a nation." Stoneman sends another mulatto, Silas Lynch, to "aid the carpetbaggers in organizing and wielding the power of the vote." Lynch, owing to his "white blood," becomes ambitious. He and his agents rile the local blacks. They attack whites and pillage. Lynch becomes lieutenant governor, and his black co-conspirators are voted into statewide political offices. The Birth of a Nation shows black legislators debating a bill to legalize interracial marriage -- their legs propped on tables, eating chicken, and drinking whiskey.
Silas Lynch proposes marriage to Stoneman's daughter, Elsie. He says, "I will build a black empire and you as my queen shall rule by my side." When she refuses, he binds her and decides on a "forced marriage." Lynch informs Stoneman that he wants to marry a white woman. Stoneman approves until he discovers that the white woman is his daughter. While this drama unfolds, blacks attack whites. It looks hopeless until the newly formed Ku Klux Klan arrives to reestablish white rule.
The Birth of a Nation set the standard for cinematic technical innovation -- the imaginative use of cross-cutting, lighting, editing, and close-ups. It also set the standard for cinematic anti-black images. All of the major black caricatures are in the movie, including, mammies, sambos, toms, picaninnies, c00ns, beasts, and tragic mulattoes. The depictions of Lydia -- a cold-hearted, hateful seductress -- and Silas Lynch -- a power hungry, sex-obsessed criminal -- were early examples of the pathologies supposedly inherent in the tragic mulatto stereotype.
Mulattoes did not fare better in other books and movies, especially those who passed for white. In Nella Larsen's novel Passing (1929), Clare, a mulatto passing for white, frequently is drawn to blacks in Harlem. Her bigoted white husband finds her there. Her problems are solved when she falls to her death from a sixth story window. In the movie Show Boat (Laemmle & Whale, 1936), a beautiful young entertainer, Julie, discovers that she has "Negro blood." Existing laws held that "one drop of Negro blood makes you a Negro." Her husband (and the movie's writers and producer) take this "one drop rule" literally. The husband cuts her hand with a knife and sucks her blood. This supposedly makes him a Negro. Afterward Julie and her newly-mulattoed husband walk hand-in-hand. Nevertheless, she is a screen mulatto, so the movie ends with this one-time cheerful "white" woman, now a Negro alcoholic.
Lost Boundaries is a book by William L. White (1948), made into a movie in 1949 (de Rochemont & Werker). It tells the story of a troubled mulatto couple, the Johnsons. The husband is a physician, but he cannot get a job in a southern black hospital because he "looks white," and no southern white hospital will hire him. The Johnsons move to New England and pass for white. They become pillars of their local community -- all the while terrified of being discredited. Years later, when their secret is discovered, the townspeople turn against them. The town's white minister delivers a sermon on racial tolerance which leads the locals, shamefaced and guilt-ridden, to befriend again the mulatto couple. Lost Boundaries, despite the white minister's sermon, blames the mulatto couple, not a racist culture, for the discrimination and personal conflicts faced by the Johnsons.
In 1958 Natalie Wood starred in Kings Go Forth (Ross & Daves), the story of a young French mulatto who passes for white. She becomes involved with two American soldiers on leave from World War II. They are both infatuated with her until they discover that her father is black. Both men desert her. She attempts suicide unsuccessfully. Given another chance to live, she turns her family's large home into a hostel for war orphans, "those just as deprived of love as herself" (Bogle, 1994, p. 192). At the movie's end, one of the soldiers is dead; the other, missing an arm, returns to the mulatto woman. They are comparable, both damaged, and it is implied that they will marry.
The mulatto women portrayed in Show Boat, Lost Boundaries, and Kings Go Forth were portrayed by white actresses. It was a common practice. Producers felt that white audiences would feel sympathy for a tortured white woman, even if she was portraying a mulatto character. The audience knew she was really white. In Pinky (Zanuck & Kazan, 1949), Jeanne Crain, a well-known actress, played the role of the troubled mulatto. Her dark-skinned grandmother was played by Ethel Waters. When audiences saw Ethel Waters doing menial labor, it was consistent with their understanding of a mammy's life, but when Jeanne Crain was shown washing other people's clothes audiences cried.
Even black filmmakers like Oscar Micheaux made movies with tragic mulattoes. Within Our Gates (Micheaux, 1920) tells the story of a mulatto woman who is hit by a car, menaced by a con man, nearly raped by a white man, and witnesses the lynching of her entire family. God's Step Children (Micheaux, 1938) tells the story of Naomi, a mulatto who leaves her black husband and child and passes for white. Later, consumed by guilt, she commits suicide. Mulatto actresses played these roles.
Fredi Washington, the star of Imitation of Life, was one of the first cinematic tragic mulattoes. She was followed by women like Dorothy Dandridge and Nina Mae McKinney. Dandridge deserves special attention because she not only portrayed doomed, unfulfilled women, but she was the embodiment of the tragic mulatto in real life. Her role as the lead character in Carmen Jones (Preminger, 1954) helped make her a star. She was the first black featured on the cover of Life magazine. In Island in the Sun (Zanuck & Rossen, 1957) she was the first black woman to be held -- lovingly -- in the arms of a white man in an American movie. She was a beautiful and talented actress, but Hollywood was not ready for a black leading lady; the only roles offered to her were variants of the tragic mulatto theme. Her personal life was filled with failed relationships. Disillusioned by roles that limited her to exotic, self-destructive mulatto types, she went to Europe, where she fared worse. She died in 1965, at the age of forty-two, from an overdose of anti-depressants.
Today's successful mulatto actresses -- for example, Halle Berry, Lisa Bonet and Jasmine Guy -- owe a debt to the pioneering efforts of Dandridge. These women have great wealth and fame. They are bi-racial, but their statuses and circumstances are not tragic. They are not marginalized; they are mainstream celebrities. Dark-skinned actress -- Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Bassett, Alfre Woodard, and Joie Lee -- have enjoyed comparable success. They, too, benefit from Dandridge's path clearing.
The tragic mulatto was more myth than reality; Dandridge was an exception. The mulatto was made tragic in the minds of whites who reasoned that the greatest tragedy was to be near-white: so close, yet a racial gulf away. The near-white was to be pitied -- and shunned. There were undoubtedly light skinned blacks, male and female, who felt marginalized in this race conscious culture. This was true for many people of color, including dark skinned blacks. Self-hatred and intraracial hatred are not limited to light skinned blacks. There is evidence that all racial minorities in the United States have battled feelings of inferiority and in-group animosity; those are, unfortunately, the costs of being a minority.
The tragic mulatto stereotype claims that mulattoes occupy the margins of two worlds, fitting into neither, accepted by neither. This is not true of real life mulattoes. Historically, mulattoes were not only accepted into the black community, but were often its leaders and spokespersons, both nationally and at neighborhood levels. Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Elizabeth Ross Hayes,2 Mary Church Terrell,3 Thurgood Marshall, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan were all mulattoes. Walter White, the former head of the NAACP, and Adam Clayton Powell, an outspoken Congressman, were both light enough to pass for white. Other notable mulattoes include Langston Hughes, Billie Holiday, and Jean Toomer, author of Cane (1923), and the grandson of mulatto Reconstruction politician P.B.S. Pinchback.
There was tragedy in the lives of light skinned black women -- there was also tragedy in the lives of most dark skinned black women -- and men and children. The tragedy was not that they were black, or had a drop of "Negro blood," although whites saw that as a tragedy. Rather, the real tragedy was the way race was used to limit the chances of people of color. The 21st century finds an America increasingly more tolerant of interracial unions and the resulting offspring.
© Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology
Ferris State University
Nov., 2000
Edited 2012
The Birth of a Nation is arguably the most racist mainstream movie produced in the United States. This melodrama of the Civil War and Reconstruction justified and glorified the Ku Klux Klan. Indeed, the Klan of the 1920s owes its existence to William Joseph Simmons, an itinerant Methodist preacher who watched the film a dozen times, then felt divinely inspired to resurrect the Klan which had been dormant since 1871. D. W. Griffith based the film on Thomas Dixon's anti-black novel The Clansman (1905) (also the original title of the movie). Griffith, following Dixon's lead, depicted his black characters as either "loyal darkies" or brutes and beasts lusting for power and, worse yet, lusting for white women.
The Birth of a Nation tells the story of two families, the Stonemans of Pennsylvania, and the Camerons of South Carolina. The Stonemans, headed by politician Austin Stoneman, and the Camerons, headed by slaveholder "Little Colonel" Ben Cameron, have their longtime friendship divided by the Civil War. The Civil War exacts a terrible toll on both families: both have sons die in the war. The Camerons, like many slaveholders, suffer "ruin, devastation, rapine, and pillage." The Birth of a Nation depicts Radical Reconstruction as a time when blacks dominate and oppress whites. The film shows blacks pushing whites off sidewalks, snatching the possessions of whites, attempting to rape a white teenager, and killing blacks who are loyal to whites (Leab, 1976, p. 28). Stoneman, a carpetbagger, moves his family to the South. He falls under the influence of Lydia, his mulatto housekeeper and mistress.
Austin Stoneman is portrayed as a naive politician who betrays his people: whites. Lydia, his lover, is described in a subtitle as the "weakness that is to blight a nation." Stoneman sends another mulatto, Silas Lynch, to "aid the carpetbaggers in organizing and wielding the power of the vote." Lynch, owing to his "white blood," becomes ambitious. He and his agents rile the local blacks. They attack whites and pillage. Lynch becomes lieutenant governor, and his black co-conspirators are voted into statewide political offices. The Birth of a Nation shows black legislators debating a bill to legalize interracial marriage -- their legs propped on tables, eating chicken, and drinking whiskey.
Silas Lynch proposes marriage to Stoneman's daughter, Elsie. He says, "I will build a black empire and you as my queen shall rule by my side." When she refuses, he binds her and decides on a "forced marriage." Lynch informs Stoneman that he wants to marry a white woman. Stoneman approves until he discovers that the white woman is his daughter. While this drama unfolds, blacks attack whites. It looks hopeless until the newly formed Ku Klux Klan arrives to reestablish white rule.
The Birth of a Nation set the standard for cinematic technical innovation -- the imaginative use of cross-cutting, lighting, editing, and close-ups. It also set the standard for cinematic anti-black images. All of the major black caricatures are in the movie, including, mammies, sambos, toms, picaninnies, c00ns, beasts, and tragic mulattoes. The depictions of Lydia -- a cold-hearted, hateful seductress -- and Silas Lynch -- a power hungry, sex-obsessed criminal -- were early examples of the pathologies supposedly inherent in the tragic mulatto stereotype.
Mulattoes did not fare better in other books and movies, especially those who passed for white. In Nella Larsen's novel Passing (1929), Clare, a mulatto passing for white, frequently is drawn to blacks in Harlem. Her bigoted white husband finds her there. Her problems are solved when she falls to her death from a sixth story window. In the movie Show Boat (Laemmle & Whale, 1936), a beautiful young entertainer, Julie, discovers that she has "Negro blood." Existing laws held that "one drop of Negro blood makes you a Negro." Her husband (and the movie's writers and producer) take this "one drop rule" literally. The husband cuts her hand with a knife and sucks her blood. This supposedly makes him a Negro. Afterward Julie and her newly-mulattoed husband walk hand-in-hand. Nevertheless, she is a screen mulatto, so the movie ends with this one-time cheerful "white" woman, now a Negro alcoholic.
Lost Boundaries is a book by William L. White (1948), made into a movie in 1949 (de Rochemont & Werker). It tells the story of a troubled mulatto couple, the Johnsons. The husband is a physician, but he cannot get a job in a southern black hospital because he "looks white," and no southern white hospital will hire him. The Johnsons move to New England and pass for white. They become pillars of their local community -- all the while terrified of being discredited. Years later, when their secret is discovered, the townspeople turn against them. The town's white minister delivers a sermon on racial tolerance which leads the locals, shamefaced and guilt-ridden, to befriend again the mulatto couple. Lost Boundaries, despite the white minister's sermon, blames the mulatto couple, not a racist culture, for the discrimination and personal conflicts faced by the Johnsons.
Even black filmmakers like Oscar Micheaux made movies with tragic mulattoes. Within Our Gates (Micheaux, 1920) tells the story of a mulatto woman who is hit by a car, menaced by a con man, nearly raped by a white man, and witnesses the lynching of her entire family. God's Step Children (Micheaux, 1938) tells the story of Naomi, a mulatto who leaves her black husband and child and passes for white. Later, consumed by guilt, she commits suicide. Mulatto actresses played these roles.
Fredi Washington, the star of Imitation of Life, was one of the first cinematic tragic mulattoes. She was followed by women like Dorothy Dandridge and Nina Mae McKinney. Dandridge deserves special attention because she not only portrayed doomed, unfulfilled women, but she was the embodiment of the tragic mulatto in real life. Her role as the lead character in Carmen Jones (Preminger, 1954) helped make her a star. She was the first black featured on the cover of Life magazine. In Island in the Sun (Zanuck & Rossen, 1957) she was the first black woman to be held -- lovingly -- in the arms of a white man in an American movie. She was a beautiful and talented actress, but Hollywood was not ready for a black leading lady; the only roles offered to her were variants of the tragic mulatto theme. Her personal life was filled with failed relationships. Disillusioned by roles that limited her to exotic, self-destructive mulatto types, she went to Europe, where she fared worse. She died in 1965, at the age of forty-two, from an overdose of anti-depressants.
Today's successful mulatto actresses -- for example, Halle Berry, Lisa Bonet and Jasmine Guy -- owe a debt to the pioneering efforts of Dandridge. These women have great wealth and fame. They are bi-racial, but their statuses and circumstances are not tragic. They are not marginalized; they are mainstream celebrities. Dark-skinned actress -- Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Bassett, Alfre Woodard, and Joie Lee -- have enjoyed comparable success. They, too, benefit from Dandridge's path clearing.
There was tragedy in the lives of light skinned black women -- there was also tragedy in the lives of most dark skinned black women -- and men and children. The tragedy was not that they were black, or had a drop of "Negro blood," although whites saw that as a tragedy. Rather, the real tragedy was the way race was used to limit the chances of people of color. The 21st century finds an America increasingly more tolerant of interracial unions and the resulting offspring.
© Dr. David Pilgrim, Professor of Sociology
Ferris State University
Nov., 2000
Edited 2012
its amazing how these stereotypes persist today.I'm a really muscular guy so I've been typecast as the "brute"
My freshman year, "friends" of mine would try to act like I was taking advantage of chicks while they were the ones who would come onto me (yes they were white). They'd try to paint it as some rapey situation. They just couldn't accept that those chicks were coming on to me instead of their
we still tolerate
aunt jemima
uncle ben
black women being cast as sapphires in movies
jezebel glorification (love and hip hop/scandal)
sapphires vs c00ns on the Maury show with the brutes to protect the white truth deliverer (lie detector and dna tests)
morgan freeman's fukking career
we need to change this shyt breh's. its truly depressing that we have been bred to hate ourselves and our people. we deal with this shyt every fukking day in our lives, and muhfukkers still have the nerve to say that racism is dead.
you think we blacks dont wish racism was dead?