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CHAPTER 1 His
World If a Black woman bore a child for
a white man it was against the law for her to ever tell a soul
who the father was. They all knew that resistance was not an
option. Any sort of defiance would result in the death or further
dehumanization of any or all involved in such action. Reprehensible
hell would be the upshot of protest. One slave recalls: “They
whipped my father 'cause he looked at a slave they killed and
cried.”13 Another
man had his right ear “cut off close to his head, and he had
received a hundred lashes on his back. He had beaten the overseer
for a brutal assault on my mother, and this was his punishment.”14 Yet sometimes the fragile male ego would not yield the benefit
of doubt to the victim, and some Black men found it easy to resent
and devalue the Black woman for experiencing an existence beyond
her control. Further, the Black woman’s inevitable guilt and
shame forced her to devalue herself - dismantling any hint of dignity she
could muster to reincarnate her sexual integrity. A visual depiction of this psycho-sexual
savagery heaped on the Black family can be seen in portraits
throughout history, as lightskinned children are photographed
in families with much darker parents. This way of life would
confound any man's emotional, psychological and physical stability. Just consider how most men react to
the past relationships his present girlfriend may have had. The
mere mention of an exboyfriend could elicit an angry reaction
from the average male of any race. Can you imagine living in
a world where loved ones are randomly and consistently violated
at will, while being powerless to stop it? Even circumstance oftentimes failed
to encourage the fragile male ego into concession. The mind can
be selfish and unforgiving and thoughts have no threshold for
sensitivity. Thoughts are immature and a mature thought is merely
an afterthought. Subconscious thoughts are even more devastating.
The subconscious, the father of the conspiracy, can warp imagination
and twist a normal human being into a jealous cynic. It could
lead the Black man to wander in the wilderness
of speculation about whether his woman enjoys the slave master;
he could be lead into an intellectual coma where he questions
why his wife isn't “fighting back,” or putting up resistance. Her
World As a result the Black woman dare not
spurn the Black man’s sexual advances, because his imagination
could also conclude that she prefers the oppressor over her husband.
So even if she feels soiled, she is not allowed to, because she
is now forced into the business of stroking egos ... and other
things. This often led the Black woman down a road of poor sexual
self-expression. The psychological burden of having to pleasure
those she desired and those she despised helped to collapse her
sensual priorities; turning her into a sexual mechanic unconcerned,
unfeeling, uncaring, and uninterested. She now has to fake faking
it. All of which comes without reward, salvation, or security.
If the Black man senses this he will wander, and often did, if
only with his eyes. Since he is prohibited from wandering toward
the white woman, he wanders where there is no consequence: his
daughter, niece, sister, cousin, and sometimes even back to his
mother, thereby completing the cycle begun by the oppressor.
This further devalues the Black woman in all areas of life and
was not just relegated to slave quarters; all Black women became
fair game. Age was not a deterrent. Fidelity was not even a consideration;
if the Black woman wanted exclusivity, she was not certain she
could get it. Her slave master was incorrigible, while her husband
was enticed into emulating him. A legacy that is passed on to
the children and their children and looped like a monotonous
hip-hop grove for generations. His
Journey But no wandering is more interesting
than the Black man's ultimate destination - the
white woman. After seeing the white male ravage the Black woman
it was only natural that he would want to reciprocate. Whether
it was to get even or just out of curiosity, a journey toward
the white woman will be embarked upon. It's like the classic
Richard Pryor joke, where the white guy comes to secure a liaison
with a Black prostitute and the gatekeeper barks out: “how come you motherfuckers don'
t bring no white bitches when you come up here?” You
got ours bring some of yours is the natural reaction. Market
for Atrocity The soiling of the Black woman did
not operate in a vacuum. It extended far outside the slave quarters
and further into society: “historical scholarship has confirmed
abolitionist charges that slave women were frequently abused
by white men.”15 Indeed, not all whites owned slaves, so many
whites did not have this evil, licentious luxury; still, one
did not have to own slaves to be perversely nourished by the
nectar of the Black woman. Quite the opposite became true. Slave
owners were known to lend out their “girls” to friends or relatives. It was not uncommon for a slaver to
sell, trade, let out or give as a present, a Black girl or woman
to a business colleague to settle debts or use as exchange for
profit - “Scholarship has shown that there sometimes existed a willingness
on the part of fathers and sons to share slave mistresses...
Senator James Henry Hammond, of South Carolina, was engaging
in sexual relationships with two slave women, mother and daughter.
He later gave both women to his legitimate son, Harry, who was
also apparently involved in an affair with the daughter and who
had fathered a child by her, as the elder Hammond admitted he
may have also done.”16 Remember, Black people were not allowed to officially be married
because they had to remain mobile instruments of exchangeable
capital. The term husband I used earlier was to loosely connect
the Black man to the mother of his children. He may not have
been her 'husband' nor she his 'wife' but they were a family,
and that family could be broken apart at the whim of the slave
master. It was here that this human juggling took on a new life
in the area of sex. Perverse
Duties Picking cotton and cleaning houses
were not the only value of a female slave the job description
was substantially broader and there was no union. As a result,
she became a commodity to be traded, sold, and whored to satisfy
a variety of hungers in the white male's appetite. Essentially,
some of the first pimps may have been sitting presidents. Her
humanity had no value but her vagina often carried a high price especially
since it was unlimited. The Black woman was even used as a rite
of sexual passage for young white boys: “David, [Newsome] at
seventeen, may have welcomed the presence of a female slave his
age. It is possible that he might have hoped to share her sexual
favours.”17 Even today this
is still in practice. Various white religious groups celebrate
coming of age rituals by having young Black strippers perform
at their ceremonies. I interviewed a number of adult entertainers
who told shocking stories of devout, God-fearing people soliciting
sex for their young men - prices can be commanded as high as $5,000. Black women were not just used for
sex but also as a source of nourishment for white children. In
order for white women to keep their figures in tact and remain “pure” - she “also gave her children to “Black Mammies” to suckle and nurture,
because according to the myth of sacred white womanhood, the
white woman was above such “nasty” things as attending to the
biological functions and needs of child rearing.” 18 Oftentimes
the Black woman became the mother figure in the children’s lives.
It was not unusual for her to discipline or scold a young white
child in her care. This practice continues today as Black nannies
saturate white America’s homes taking care of the day-to-day
operations. Many West Indian women get their first dollars in
the United States by taking care of young white children. Blurred
Vision So in addition to receiving the ultimate
protection from her white counterparts, the white woman was placed
on a pedestal and even had normal biological functions performed
for her. She was dressed in the finest clothes, sprayed with
the most delightful fragrances and held up as a model of matriarchal
supremacy. Her Black counterpart served her from the bottom of
the pedestal. Relegated
to a laboring slut, every inch of the Black woman was used for
toil without compensation. Her head to carry heavy loads, her
breasts to feed white children, her hands to pick cotton, wash
clothes and till soil, her legs as transport through this torture,
and her privates to pacify and pleasure her persecutors in order
to preserve her people. The Black woman was so degraded, disrespected
and despised that she was even reduced to a belly warmer for
her mistresses and masters on cold nights. They would have to
drape their warm bodies over the cold feet of whites to secure
their comfort. One remarkable example of the way Black women
were reduced is that of “...an old woman, who for seventy years
faithfully served her master. She had become almost helpless
from hard labor and disease. Her owners moved to Alabama, and
the old black woman was left to be sold to anybody who would
give twenty dollars for her.”19 What is even more pathological is the sick vermin that would actually
purchase her for twenty dollars in this climate, I'm sure that
there was a transaction concerning the old lady. This thankless
existence only served to further fog the spectacles of the Black
male and dull his image of his woman. It has also had an effect
on those on the outside looking in. Disrespect for the Black
woman is not exclusive to the Black male. One way or another
everyone has come to the conclusion that the Black woman ain't
shit. Her sexual as well as her intellectual integrity was always
in question. Like the old woman who was put on the auction block
after seventy years of service, every Black woman faces the similar
dilemma of depicted as being only good for sex and toil. It is
as if her mind and midriff are one in the same. A young Black professional woman I
interviewed attended a conference where the speaker was trying
to use the audience to make a point. His strategy was to find
an individual who would provide the wrong answer to a question
so that he can make his case. How did he believe he could guarantee
this? By calling on a Black person. He believed that choosing
a Black person, especially a Black woman, would guarantee an
incorrect answer. He chose the wrong Sister and she answered
so correctly and confidently that it blew his whole presentation.
He was shocked by her sheer informative and confident delivery
and was so certain of her incompetence that he had no plan B. Another glaring example of this can
be seen in an interaction I had with a twenty-two-year-old, white
stripper from a well-known club in NYC. We shared a dressing
room while waiting to tape segments of a popular television show.
As many Black people have come to realize, it is difficult to
sit in the same room with a white person and the O.J. Simpson
case not come out of nowhere. Sometimes you hear news discussion
programs and talk shows where the host has some sort of Tourette's
O.J. tick and it just comes out. It shows up in movies and TV
shows to the point of nausea.
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