Black Sexual Politics
Black Sexual Politics
The book Black Sexual Politics by Patricia Hill Collins is a work of critical theory that discusses the way that race, class and gender intersect to affect the lives of African American men and women in many different ways, but with similar results. The book explores the way that new forms of racism can work to oppress black people, while filling them with messages of liberation. The book also examines the way sexual politics are based on American ideas and the ideals of masculinity, femininity and the appropriate expression of sexuality that works to repress gay and straight, male and female. Collins work also proposes a libratory politics for black Americans, centered around honest dialogue about the way stereotypical imagery and limiting racist and sexist ideology have harmed African Americans in the past, and how African Americans might progress beyond these ideas and their manifestations to become active change agents in their own communities. In Part I, "African Americans and the New Racism," introduces the conceptual framework for analyzing black sexual politics in the United States, recognizing the crucial link between black political economy and gender relations. The new racism reveals the "past-in-present" aspect of racial formation whereby traditional and colonial ideas of racial domination persist today with real material effects such as the widespread violence of unemployment, incarceration, and environmental pollution. In chapter one, Collins argues that black bodies are everywhere in the mass media and are very sexualized. African American men and women are seen as being more sexually deviant and participate in “bad” sexual acts. Thus being said it makes it harder for African American woman and man to obtain an individual sexual power especially since the individual is so closely linked to the collective group. In chapter two, Collins alludes to the idea that African Americans born after the 1950s and 1960s should have had a
The book Black Sexual Politics by Patricia Hill Collins is a work of critical theory that discusses the way that race, class and gender intersect to affect the lives of African American men and women in many different ways, but with similar results. The book explores the way that new forms of racism can work to oppress black people, while filling them with messages of liberation. The book also examines the way sexual politics are based on American ideas and the ideals of masculinity, femininity and the appropriate expression of sexuality that works to repress gay and straight, male and female. Collins work also proposes a libratory politics for black Americans, centered around honest dialogue about the way stereotypical imagery and limiting racist and sexist ideology have harmed African Americans in the past, and how African Americans might progress beyond these ideas and their manifestations to become active change agents in their own communities. In Part I, "African Americans and the New Racism," introduces the conceptual framework for analyzing black sexual politics in the United States, recognizing the crucial link between black political economy and gender relations. The new racism reveals the "past-in-present" aspect of racial formation whereby traditional and colonial ideas of racial domination persist today with real material effects such as the widespread violence of unemployment, incarceration, and environmental pollution. In chapter one, Collins argues that black bodies are everywhere in the mass media and are very sexualized. African American men and women are seen as being more sexually deviant and participate in “bad” sexual acts. Thus being said it makes it harder for African American woman and man to obtain an individual sexual power especially since the individual is so closely linked to the collective group. In chapter two, Collins alludes to the idea that African Americans born after the 1950s and 1960s should have had a