Racial Purity

From the historical readings of this week, one thing which has stood out the most is the concept of racial purity and consideration of black bodies as a threat to it. This fear of racial purity was evident in the miscegenation laws which prohibited interracial marriages. It also involved framing men as rapists. The enforcement of miscegenation laws and protection of white racial purity was justified by violence which involved lynching of black men. In her work, Ida B. Wells points out the very paradox of the miscegenation laws as she argues, “they leave the white man free to seduce all the colored girls he can, but it is death to the colored man who yields to the force and advances of a similar attraction in white women” (p.54). For this very
It is crucial to note the double standards of patriarchy in which the burden of protecting racial purity falls upon white men by controlling white women’s bodies and sexualities. Whereas throughout the history, from slavery to segregation, white men have continued to exploit black women using their sexuality. Ronald Takaki notes this early subjugation of black women during slavery as aside from being exploited for labor, “their bodies were regarded as property to be used to satisfy the erotic pleasures of their masters” (p.112). This sexual exploitation of black women was also used as a tool to increase the slave labor force, resulting in increasing population of biracial children. However, this was not considered a threat to racial purity. This system of patriarchy creates a notion in which white femininity is associated it with purity, while black femininity is characterized as impure. Thus, allowing white men to continue to sexually exploit black women’s bodies without any consequences while simultaneously controlling white women’s bodies and
Ida B. Well once against notes the racist framing of black masculinity where narratives of rape were claimed as, “It was not a sudden yielding to a fit of passion, but the consummation of a devilish purpose which has been seeking and waiting for the opportunity” (pg.62). This narrative not only legitimized white fear but further instigated violence in order to punish black men who dared to prey on defenseless white women. Such accounts of violence were evident in the lynching as narrated by James Baldwin, “Then the crowd rushed forward, tearing at the body with their hands, with knives, with rocks, with stones, howling and cursing” (p.1760). Richard Yarborough further notes how the threat of white male violence further made black men complicit in the continued sexual exploitation of black women at the hands of white men, “I walked ahead of the girl, ashamed to face her” (p.13). This system of racism creates a notion in which violence of white, hegemonic masculinity is justified to subjugate black masculinity as black men are stereotyped to be savages and rapists. It furthermore disempowers black men within their own community as they are unable to protect their own