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Mar
12
Black Intermarriage Patterns
Filed Under Black/African American Issues, Interracial Relationships, Race and Racism, Uncategorized by Rachel
Update: I’m closing comments on this thread.? I feel like this is no longer a discussion but a shouting match.? When cooler heads prevail I’ll open it back up.?
Sewere asked me about Black intermarriage patterns, specifically are their rates of intermarriage that vary between various black subgroups–West Indians, Afro-Latinos, Africans, and African Americans.? There was a study released just last year on this subject in the Journal of Marriage and Family. The authors Batson and Lichter tested three hypotheses using Census data from cities that contained mixed ethnic Black populations–Atlanta, Washinton DC, New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles.? The hypotheses included:
Based on the preceding discussion, our analyses are guided by the following hypotheses:
1. West Indians and Africans will be more likely than African Americans and Puerto Rican non-Whites to form interracial unions with Whites.
2. Intraracial unions among different Black populations will be uncommon but more likely than unions between any of these groups and Whites.
3. Most interracial unions will involve White women and Black men, regardless of national origin.
Here are some of the key findings of the article:
Overall, the percentages of interracial marriage with Whites differ by population subgroup, gender, and educational attainment. Puerto Rican men and women have the highest percentages of intermarriage with Whites, followed by African Americans. Although West Indians have the lowest percentages of intermarriage with Whites, they have the highest percentages of intermarriage with African Americans. Africans also have comparatively high levels of marriage with African Americans (compared with percentages with Whites). Thus, West Indians and Africans marry African Americans much more frequently than they marry Whites. Similar patterns across groups are observed for cohabiting couples. In addition, the share of interracial and intraracial cohabitation is disproportionately large in comparison to interracial and intraracial marriage.
On the gender ratio of interracial marriages:
…unions with Whites are more likely to involve Black men and White women than White men and Black women. With few exceptions, this is true for each Black population and for different levels of education and union type. For example, among highly educated couples, gender differences in interracial union with Whites are the strongest among West Indians (1.42). In other words, West Indian men are about 42% more likely to form unions with White women than are West Indian women with White men. Clearly, our results reinforce the fact that even among interracial unions involving Black immigrants, Black man/White woman couples outnumber White man/Black woman couples.
The first hypothesis was not confirmed by this data:
Contrary to our first hypothesis, our analysis showed that members of new Black immigrant groups, despite higher levels of education (especially among Africans and West Indians), are much less likely than native African Americans to form marital and cohabiting unions with Whites. A disproportionate share of Blacks, regardless of national origin, are likely to cohabit with other groups than to out-marry. Clearly, if intermarriage is our measure, social distance between Whites and all groups of Blacks is wide in the United States. At the same time, education opens the door of opportunity for greater interracial contact, friendship, romance, and marriage. But any effect of more education is largely restricted to U.S.-born Blacks. Clearly, in the case of immigrant Blacks, culture may trump education in the marriage market with Whites.
Our results reinforce results from previous studies showing that African Americans have low rates of interracial marriage in comparison with other racial minorities (Fu, 2001; Qian & Lichter, 2001). Consistent with our second hypothesis, however, we also found that the prevalence of intermarriage between African Americans and Whites is far exceeded (on a percentage basis) by intraracial union formation between African Americans and each immigrant Black group considered here. In a word, African Americans are more likely to marry or cohabit with other nonnative Blacks than Whites. We should not, however, exaggerate current rates of intraracial marriage among Blacks. Intraracial unions between African Americans and Black immigrants remain surprisingly low.
This actually surprised? my because some previous studies have indicated that intermarriage is higher among the foreign born.? However, the results of this? study? could be influenced by the sample selection.? They only chose young people 20-35, and they excluded people who migrated after the age of? 20.? Of course, the other factor is the? limited selction of metro areas, which probably inflates the rates of intermarriage (both intraracial and interracial among African Americans).? The general point is that interracial marriage is low for all of these groups, and intermarriage between the various Black subgroups is higher than interracial marriage, but lower than intraethnic/intraracial marriages.
I have downloaded a copy of the article for those who want more detailed numbers.?
Here is the citation for the article:
Batson, Christie D.? and? Daniel T. Lichter.? “Interracial and intraracial patterns of mate selection among America’s diverse Black populations.”? Journal of Marriage and Family? 68.3? (August 2006):? p658(15).
Comments
78 Responses to “Black Intermarriage Patterns”
Thanks!!!
Rachel,
I forgot to add, can you please email the articl to me. Also, do they provide a breakdown of outmarriage by group similar to the one C.N. Le did on Asian outmarriage, i.e. African-American marriage to African-American, White, Latino, Asian etc by percentages (and further separated female and male)?
“On the gender ratio of interracial marriages:
unions with Whites are more likely to involve Black men and White women than White men and Black women. With few exceptions, this is true for each Black population and for different levels of education and union type. For example, among highly educated couples, gender differences in interracial union with Whites are the strongest among West Indians (1.42). In other words, West Indian men are about 42% more likely to form unions with White women than are West Indian women with White men. Clearly, our results reinforce the fact that even among interracial unions involving Black immigrants, Black man/White woman couples outnumber White man/Black woman couples.”
The devaluation of black womanhood drives the above narrative.
-The putting of white women upon the pedestal of all that is beautiful, all that is pure (after white/European men have raped, ravaged/defiled so many non-white women the world over)
-The use of non-white women (especially black women) as so many sexual toilets, to protect the purity and sanctity of white womanhood, all the while destroying the womanhood of non-white women, treating non-white women as less than women, as if they were not born women, but born sexual objects of degradation for white/European men
-The brain-washing of weak-minded men who buy into the lie that a white woman is somehow infinitely better than a non-white woman, especially a black woman.
-The continued social segregation of black people from white people, on jobs and in residential neighborhoods, thereby perpetuating stereotypes of both groups of both women (white and black women)
Many black women know that there are many men who have bought into the lies of so-called white woman purity, when any real man can see a good woman before his eyes, no matter what her race.
A real man would see that, and a real man can be told no different. A real man thinks and sees the inherent beauty in ALL women, not just certain ones who happen to be of a different race.
That is what a real man does.
A weak man who sways and bends with the racist stereotype lies of who should be judged and valued as a woman does not stand firm against the lie that white is right, and black is bad. A weak man follows the crowd.
A strong man does not.
White supremacy lies and myths of the superiority of white women are just that.
Lies.
White women are no better than nor less than any other woman in the world, but, unfortunetely so many so-called men buy into that lie. Instead of seeing the worthy black women in their midst as human beings, they would prefer to give value to one race of women over all others.
But, it is understandable why some men of various races put the white woman on the pedestal right along with white men. They have had the image of the pure white woman drummed into their heads, shoved down their throats for so long, that it is very hard for some men to prevail against this lie.
There are some men who do not let this racist lie dictate to them what woman should, or should not be accorded dignity and humanity.
George Lucas and Melody Hobson
Stone Phillips and Debra Phillips
Peter Norton and Eileen Norton
And men who are not so famous and well-known.
It takes a strong man to prevail against all the racist filth that the white man/woman have poisoned the whole world with. The lies that white beauty is the only beauty in the world that has worth, credibility or value.
Sadly, many men are not very strong enough to see the beauty of many black women. Many men are not capable of seeing a loving, loyal, family-oriented black woman in their midst as worthy of marriage.
Good enough to lay up with, cohabit with, and use for the time being.
But, not good enough to honor with marriage.
And only a weak man who believes all the lies told for centuries on black women would not allow into his life a good and decent black woman.
More his loss.
More the pity for him for being so blind.
Ann, I am curious since the three examples of real men are all white and the three women are not white women would that mean a real man is only a man who marries other than white women?
Incidentally I thought I have seen something saying Peter Norton and Eileen Norton are now divorced.
There are some men who do not let this racist lie dictate to them what woman should, or should not be accorded dignity and humanity. I do appreciate your use of some men, however, I am bothered by the lack of black man married to white woman examples. Also I wonder why a black woman would marry a white man seeing that he is conditioned to dominate everyone, including those possible black men who cannot fight off the racist lie that dictates to them what woman should, or should not be accorded dignity and humanity. I would think every human being should be accorded dignity and humanity. But if I am wrong, I would like to know exactly who is deserving of dignity and humanity and who is not, and what criteria other than being traditionally and I think at times stereotypically put up on a pedestal determines the worth of this woman.
Chasingmoksha.
“Ann, I am curious since the three examples of real men are all white and the three women are not white women would that mean a real man is only a man who marries other than white women?”
I consider a real man someone who does not consider black women as less than just because of the lies told by white men for centuries. A man who recognizes the beauty of all women, including black women.
Yes, I used Lucas and Phillips as examples of some white men who are with black women. And yes, there are certainly many black men married to black women in this country. And there are some men of other races who are married to black women. But, the ratio of more black men married to white women vs. the number of white men married to black women, is spelled out very clearly in the information provided by Rachel’s post above. And there certainly are many decent black women in this country, no matter how much some people want to convince themselves, otherwise.
Yes, white men have turned everything they have touched into degredation. And white woman have benefitted from much of what white men have done to all non-white women over the last 500 years. And the lies that white men have created to villify and defame black women have shown no let up, and in the present, still do not show any let up.
The lie that all black women are Jezebels. Have you read of Jezebel? Do you realize what happened to Jezebel in the Bible?
That white men, the rapists of black women, would have the audacity to call black women Jezebels after all the cruelty they have done, is an insult of the worst kind. That white women stood by, and did nothing while hearing the cries and screams of black women and girls while white men raped them during slavery, and during Jim Crow segregation, was inhumane in itself. That white women’s purity and womanhood was spared at the expense of white men’s depravity towards black women and girls, was wrong. That white women fought tooth and nail against black men getting the right to vote, nevermind their trampling on the ground the rights of black women, showed that some white women were all too happy to be put upon that pedestal the white man in his guilt created after seeing all the debasement he meted out to black women and girls.
“I am bothered by the lack of black man married to white woman examples.”
I am speaking of black women, and how racist white America’s lies have followed black women from slavery into the 21ST Century. That is why I do not mention black men.
“Also I wonder why a black woman would marry a white man seeing that he is conditioned to dominate everyone, including those possible black men who cannot fight off the racist lie that dictates to them what woman should, or should not be accorded dignity and humanity.”
Some black women have married white men, as well as men of other races who are not black. Are you saying that NO ONE is supposed to marry white men? Only white women? Asian women? Latina women? Native American women? If a white man who treats a black woman as a human, and accords her humanity and dignity in his treatment of her (and, yes, lo and behold, it is possible for some white men to rise above being born and raised “white” in this country, and be men in the truest sense—-see a woman before his eyes, and not some stereotype idea of what he has been lied to of what a black woman is supposed to be), asks her for her hand in marriage, is she supposed to spit in his face, and spurn him? I ask that men treat all women with respect as human beings, not be picky as to whom they will treat as human. I ask that white men, acknowledge the wrongs their race has done to black women, by giving to black women the same respect that white men so greedily demand that all other men give to white women. Not much chance of white men, or white America ever atoning for what white men did to black women (and black men), but, I can at least ask that black women be treated with respect and dignity. And I do not think I am asking for too much.
Then again, maybe I am.
And therein is the major problem. Some men have been too weak to accept the humanity of black women, instead preferring to believe any and all stereotype/lies/myths about black women.
“I would think every human being should be accorded dignity and humanity.”
And so do I. In the real world.
But, we do not all live in such a just and humane world.
“But if I am wrong, I would like to know exactly who is deserving of dignity and humanity and who is not, and what criteria other than being traditionally and I think at times stereotypically put up on a pedestal determines the worth of this woman.”
We are all deserving of dignity. Only some of us (white women) are given more dignity of this society more than others (black women).
Traditionally put upon a pedestal.
Most definately.
Stereotypically.
Perhaps.
But, where white and black women share gender, there the comparison ends.
White women, just like white men, have for centuries, benefitted from the debauchery and defilement of black women. From the relegating of black women to being looked upon as the mules of the world.
And they still do.
The white man from all the lies he has spun in the belief that white women are to be voraciously hoarded from all men, while he raped black women, fathering children with her, that he was not man enough to acknowledge.
And the white woman protected from rape, slander, and being called whores and cattle, just because she was white.
I am not asking that white men marry black women. I am not asking that white men date black women in droves.
I ask that men, no matter what their race, (and that would include white men, who of all people, along with white women, can not cop an attitude of superiority with a race of women white people have tried for over 400 years to rape and destroy off the face of the Earth), accept that black women have just as much right to be treated with respect, consideration and dignity just as any woman should be treated.
We did not create white supremacy, white false values of Eurocentric beauty, white lies against black beauty.
White men and women did that.
And the real truth of a how man treats a woman is in how he treats her before the whole world, whether married to her, or not.
Ann, Don’t you think this study also says that white women are less likely to be racists? I’m not sure how much internalized racism can be read into black men marrying white women but I certainly doubt it’s as much as you seem to think and it’s not like all black men are looking for wives outside of the black community, this is still fairly rare.
Chasingmoksha.
“Ann, I am curious since the three examples of real men are all white and the three women are not white women would that mean a real man is only a man who marries other than white women?
There are some men who do not let this racist lie dictate to them what woman should, or should not be accorded dignity and humanity. I do appreciate your use of some men,
Sorry if I was not clear in my original post.
By real men, I meant any man (black, white, Asian, Latino, Arabic, etc.), who sees the beauty in black women and respects them as women and human beings. Who does not kowtow to racist lies against black women.
By weak men, I meant any man (white, black, Asian, Latino, Arabic, etc.), who does not see the beauty and humanity in black women, nor respects them as women and as human beings.
Real men are found in all races.
Just as weak men are found in all races.
Hope that clarifies to you my point.
Donna Darko.
No.
I do not see where white women are any less racist than white men.
And yes, black men are not marrying white women in huge numbers.
The statistics as presented show more black men ( the numerical amount simply shows that more BM/WW marriages occur compared to BW/WM marriages), as married to white women. Some of those black men will have internalized racism. Some will not.
And most black men do marry black women. I m aware of that.
Chasingmoksha.
You asked me why would a black woman want to marry a white man who has been conditioned to be dominant over every race on the planet.
My question to you:
How do you explain black men marrying white women who come from a race who done just as much wrong towards black people as white men have? How do you explain how some black men marry women who have been elevated above the women of his own race? Am I to understand that it was only white men who did wrong to black people, and white women are wholly innocent of any wrongs against black people?
White women were not screaming, jeering members of lynch mobs? Only white men? White women did not prepare the food for the lynching spectacle? They all stayed home? White women did not cry rape when discovered by white male relatives when found in bed with a black man?
Expalin to me how white women have become absolved of the wrongs of their racist history towards not just black women, but, also towards black men? Explain to me how only white men are guilty of all wrongs towards black people, and white women are completely innocent?
Thanks for taking the time Ann. If I understand you correctly you are saying because white women have not intervened, or perhaps have not intervened enough against a force, a historical force, a force who has proven over time that his collective (white men in power) is more than willing and in fact does use force, excessive force to keep everyone else subjugated, including white women, she is to receive the majority of the blame for enabling and allowing that force to continue. It seems because the white man put the image of white women on a pedestal then it is the fault of the collective white woman regardless of whether she had any say in that white man act. To sum it up, what I am hearing is that one minority (the collective white woman), and she is still a minority regardless of what perceived share of benefits she reaps over other minorities, she is still not THE force in power, should in fact make it known that she (the collective she) is benefiting over other minorities and fight to alleviate that disproportionate share of benefits. If she does not, she deserves to be vilified. Am I getting it right?
That was Donna probably of The Silence of Our Friends. Not me, Donna Darko.
How do you explain black men marrying white women who come from a race who done just as much wrong towards black people as white men have?
I do not see, nor will I ever see white womens possible indifference toward the plight of others equal to the active oppression and torment including heinous acts of violence done by white men. Women do not have the position of power, not in the past and not in the present to inflict oppression anywhere near that of the people in power (white men).
How do you explain how some black men marry women who have been elevated above the women of his own race?
When I see a black man married to a white woman, but first assumption is to treat them both with dignity and humanity. By doing so, I extend the benefit that they are together because they see each other as humans and love and respect each other. To conclude that the black man elevated the white woman over the black woman is to conclude that the black woman had some sort of ownership rights over him simply because they share the same skin color. I do not advocate ownership by anyone therefore, I cannot possibly see how the black man falling in love and selecting the woman (with her consent and mutual love) is taking away from a black woman.
Am I to understand that it was only white men who did wrong to black people, and white women are wholly innocent of any wrongs against black people?
No one is wholly innocent of anything, it is impossible to make an assertion of absolute. However, since structural oppression seems to dictate who and who is not worthy of contempt then I would most certainly assert using that structure of power that white women are less guilty than white men.
As far as the black man rapes white woman myth. I do believe it has been cited by white women before. However, I believe the larger picture, the more accurate picture is more like the white man asserting that myth so he would not have to publicly admit that the very women (white) that he thinks he should have ownership over preferred a man other than white.
Chasingmoksha.
“If I understand you correctly you are saying because white women have not intervened, or perhaps have not intervened enough against a force, a historical force, a force who has proven over time that his collective (white men in power) is more than willing and in fact does use force, excessive force to keep everyone else subjugated, including white women, she is to receive the majority of the blame for enabling and allowing that force to continue.”
I never stated that white women were to receive the majority of the blame. Nor am I villifying her. I am stating the truth of the white women who willingly were there with the white man in cruelties done against black people.
They share equally in the culpability of participating in and condoning violence against black men, women and children.
No one forced or twisted the arms of the white women standing in lynch mobs when a black man was being tortured before being lynched. No one forced white women to stand by and watch gangs of white men gang-rape a black woman or girl, before lynching her.
Go to the following website:
http://www.withoutsanctuary.org
Click on “Jump to Main Menu”. Look through the paragraph for “gallery of photos”. Click on that.
Go to the following photos, and then tell me again, that white women were powerless to try and do ANYHING to put a stop to the sick madness that white America committed against her black citizens. Tell me again that white women were completely blameless in the viciousness done to black America by white America.
Photo 27. The lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. 1930.
White women standing in that lynch crowd are smiling. Are these the faces of un-willing women, being forced against their will to participate in a lynching? Doesn’t look like it to me.
Photo 33-34. 1911. The lynching of Laura Nelson. No white women around, but, still, this was a black woman. A fellow woman. Did her death mean just as little to white women as it did to white men? A defenseless black woman murdered along with her innocent son?
Photo 51. 1935. The lynching of Rubin Stacey. The females in this photo include white women and white girls, smiling. None of them look the least bit ashamed of what took place to destroy the life of this black man.
“I do not see, nor will I ever see white womens possible indifference toward the plight of others equal to the active oppression and torment including heinous acts of violence done by white men. Women do not have the position of power, not in the past and not in the present to inflict oppression anywhere near that of the people in power (white men).”
Those white women in those photos showed much indifference towards the innocent black people who were savagely murdered. Those white women, along with the white men in those photos, participated with glee in the destruction of black citizens.
“Women do not have the position of power, not in the past and not in the present to inflict oppression anywhere near that of the people in power (white men).’
You do not have to have a position of power to condone as well as be a part of oppression. Those white women in those photos were complicit in the destruction of black citizens.
The photos do not lie.
“When I see a black man married to a white woman, but first assumption is to treat them both with dignity and humanity. By doing so, I extend the benefit that they are together because they see each other as humans and love and respect each other.”
Thank you.
And I treat them also with the same regard.
“To conclude that the black man elevated the white woman over the black woman is to conclude that the black woman had some sort of ownership rights over him simply because they share the same skin color. I do not advocate ownership by anyone therefore, I cannot possibly see how the black man falling in love and selecting the woman (with her consent and mutual love) is taking away from a black woman.”
And I never stated that black women have ownership over black men.The black woman has no ownership over the black man. He has no ownership over the black woman. Any man, regardless of his race, if he is in a relationship with any woman, would be expected to treat her as a human being, and nothing less, and that certainly takes nothing away from the black woman, nor anyone else.
And I do not advocate ownership of anyone as well.
Slavery was abolished on January 1,1863.
“No one is wholly innocent of anything, it is impossible to make an assertion of absolute. However, since structural oppression seems to dictate who and who is not worthy of contempt then I would most certainly assert using that structure of power that white women are less guilty than white men.”
No assertions of absolutism were stated. I stated the actions of white women who condoned and participated in lynchings of black human beings.
White women are less guilty than white men?
Whether it was 10 white women, 100 white women, or 10,000+ white women, there have been white women who did wrong to black people, right along with the white man.
And those white women who stood by and said nothing, and did nothing, are just as guilty as the white men who did wrong.
Not speaking up, and remaining in silence is just as wrong.
And that silence that white women kept for almost 100 years during the sadistic lynching spectacles cost thousands and thousands of innocent black people their lives.
“As far as the black man rapes white woman myth. I do believe it has been cited by white women before. However, I believe the larger picture, the more accurate picture is more like the white man asserting that myth so he would not have to publicly admit that the very women (white) that he thinks he should have ownership over preferred a man other than white.”
And we’re right back where we started from.
The numerous, uncountable mass rapes done by white men to black women and girls during slavery and segregation, caused massive fear, guilt and rage in the white man.
Knowing that what he did was wrong caused him to fear and project his psychotic projections on the belief that for having raped the defenseless black women for so long, he could only think:
“What if…..? What if……?
“I’ve raped the black woman for so long. What must the black man be thinking of what I have done to the black woman for so long? What must he now want to do to the women of my race?
“What must she (the white woman) be thinking? Seeing me creep down to the slave cabin? Seeing me walk right into the black family’s home, and invade it with perversions that would sicken anyone? Seeing me force sex on the black woman, and leave behind children that the black family must now raise?”
“What must the white woman be thinking?
“Does she want the black man as much as I wanted to defile the black woman?”
Conjecture?
Maybe.
But, not too far from it.
Because of what the white man did to the black woman, generation, after generation, his massive fear of the black man raping and degrading the white woman, the way the white man raped and degraded the black woman, caused the vicious projections of the white man’s savagery onto the black man.
And from there was created the Myth of the Black Rapist.
There was never a Myth of the White Rapist.
All you have to do is look at the many different colors black people come in.
“However, I believe the larger picture, the more accurate picture is more like the white man asserting that myth so he would not have to publicly admit that the very women (white) that he thinks he should have ownership over preferred a man other than white.”
The white man publically admiited time and time again how he considered the white woman his property. No secret there.
And he publically admitted time and time again how the black woman was to be treated as his sexual victim every time he could.
The white man practiced sexual gluttony with the black and white woman. The more he crept down to the slave cabins and the sharecropper homes of segregated black people, the more he put the white woman up on the pedestal. Thereby elevating her above all women on the Earth, while degrading and defiling the black woman.
And his savage monstrous lynchings of black men bear that out.
No myth there.
Interracial relationships are fine. Two people who come together, hopefully out of love. A personal decision between two people who hopefully will spend the rest of their lives together.
But, the lies, myths and stereotypes created by white America against black America still walk amonst us.
Lies that still create misconceptions, prejudices, that are in no way leaving the collective mindset of many Americans anytime soon.
Donna Darko.
My mistake.
They share equally in the culpability of participating in and condoning violence against black men, women and children.
No one forced or twisted the arms of the white women standing in lynch mobs when a black man was being tortured before being lynched. No one forced white women to stand by and watch gangs of white men gang-rape a black woman or girl, before lynching her.
This is where we will forever disagree. If the black man or anyone else could not have defeated the white man, I do not see how the white woman was to have super human strength, tackle all of her obstacles, including her lack of collective social power and defeat the white man.
There is nothing equal between man and woman, not in this society.
Go to the following photos, and then tell me again, that white women were powerless to try and do ANYHING to put a stop to the sick madness that white America committed against her black citizens. Tell me again that white women were completely blameless in the viciousness done to black America by white America.
Completely is an absolute. I do not use absolutes. Pictures of white women in a crowd are hardly a representative of all or even most white women. And being there does not equate to having the same power to stop it as a white man or a group of white men would. If a white man can lynch a black man, or rape a black woman, or rape and lynch either, he is certainly capable of doing the same to a white woman.
The slavery examples at this point and time is academic, meaning we can only speculate what a white woman could or could not do during such a traumatic period. Not every white woman was the mistress of a plantation. It was statistically impossible. A plantation owner was typically among the upper classes in the South. Even if we were to conclude that every single white woman knew her slave master husband was raping his slaves that would still equate to an extremely small percentage of white women. Hardly an amount that could revolt against the men with guns and money and power.
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/slaveryto1863/a/abolitionists.htm
“More white women than black women were prominent in the abolitionist movement, for a variety of reasons:
although the movement of all women was restricted by social convention, white women had more freedom than black women to move about
white women were more likely to have the income to support themselves while doing abolitionist work
black women were, after the Fugitive Slave Act and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, at risk of capture and transport to the South if someone alleged (rightly or wrongly) that they were escaped slaves
white women were generally better-educated than black women were (even though not on a par with white men, with very few exceptions), including in formal oratory skills popular for the time
White women who were involved in the abolitionist movement were often connected with liberal religions like the Quakers, Unitarians, and Universalists, which taught the spiritual equality of all souls.”
“There is nothing equal between man and woman, not in this society.”
And there is nothing equal between black and white in this society.”
On the white women and abolition, I’ve got ancestors on all sides of this. Abolitionists who believed in equality. Abolitionists who still wanted segregation or else to get rid of everybody by sending them back to Africa. Slaveowners, or wives of slaveowners, who felt weird about it and didn’t know what to do. And those who were heavily into slaveowning and downright mean. One of the most famously mean was, apparently, constantly killing her husband’s mulatto babies - and blaming their mothers, not her husband. She was of course a victim of white patriarchy in her own way, although not at all in the same way as the enslaved women he raped and she had sent off to the fields and worse.
More white women than black women were prominent in the abolitionist movement, for a variety of reasons: ”
And white women suffragettes worked against the interests of both black women and black men.
Most notably Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
Of particular note was the less than genuine concern for black women and their right to the vote. White women suffragettes launched a vicious campaign that sought to undermine the enfranchisement efforts of black men, by trying to use black women as fodder to get white women the right to vote first.
White suffragettes, like Anthony and Stanton, sought to use black women for their selfish ends, also while denying black women access to the women’s asscociation conventions.
That this was Anthony and Stanton’s strategy became clear when they allied with a millianaire Democrat, George Train, who financed their feminist newspaper, “The Revolution”. Within its pages was venom of the worst kind:
“While the dominant party have with one hand lifted up TWO MILLION BLACK MEN and crowned them with honor and dignity of citizenship,” wrote Anthony, “with the other they have dethroned FIFTHTEEN MILLION WHITE WOMEN—-their own mothers and sisters, their own wives and daughters—and cast them under the heal of the lowest orders of manhood.” (1)
Stanton, ever the gracious lady, took it even further.
She wrote of a black man lynched in Tennessee for allegedly raping a white woman. The point of the story wasn’t the horrific lynching and its injustice, but, that giving black men the right to vote was virtually a licence to rape. “The Republican cry of ‘Manhood Suffrage’ creates an antagonism between black men and all women that will culminate in fearful outrages on womanhood, especially in the southern states,” she ranted.
Another sick aspect of her campaign was the use of class as well as race as a weapon.
In announcing her candidacy for a New York congressional seat in 1866, Stanton introduced the idea that middle-class women (white) should be enfranchised to stave off the poor, the immigrants, AND the blacks. She told her potential constituents:
“In view of the fact that the Freedmen of the South and the millions of foreigners now crowding our shores, most of whom represent neither property, education, nor CIVILIZATION, are all the progress of events to be enfranchised, the best interests of the nation demand that we outweigh this incoming pauperism, ignorance and degradation, with the wealth, education, and refinement of the women of the republic (white women).” (1)
And “educational requirements of course would eliminate the vast majority of blacks and immigrants, both men and women——including the great Sojourner Truth herself.
So much for sisterhood, huh?
White women were sympathetic to the plight of black women?
No way, no how. White women had only their own selfish interests at heart, not those of black men, and most definately not those of black women.
Go to this link and get a very different viewpoint on feminism:
http://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2007/01/02/the-origns-of-black-feminism
1. “When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America”, by Paula Giddings, Willaim Morrow and Company, 1984.
The corrected link for the feminism link is as follows:
http://kathmanduk2.wordpress.com/2007/01/02/the-origins-of-black-feminism/
Ann, I’ve bookmarked this thread because I learn so much from you.
“The slavery examples at this point and time is academic, meaning we can only speculate what a white woman could or could not do during such a traumatic period.”
Here are some examples of how white women treated black women and children under slavery, pointing out what a white woman “could or would not do during such a traumatic period”:
“Document 55
Beatings on Washdays
[Norman Yetman, ed., "Voices From Slavery" (New York: Holt, Rhinehart, 1970), Jacob Branch (1937), 9. 39]
“The right of masters to punish slaves was guranteed by the legal code and the Texas Constitution.”
“My poor mama! Every washday old Missy give her the beatin’. She couldn’t keep the flies from speckin’ the clothes overnight. Old Missy get up soon in the mornin’, before Mama have time get them specks off. She snort and say, “Renee, I’se going to teach you how to wash.” Then she beat Mama with the cowhide. Look like she cut my mama in two. Many’s a time I edges up and tries to take some them licks off my mama.” (1)
“Document 57
Inhumanity
[J. Mason Brewer, ed., "An Historical Outline of the Negro inTravis County" (Austin: Negro History Class of Samuel Huston College, Summer 1940), interview with a former Travis County slave, p. 14]
“I remember seeing my mother beat all over the head and back one day as she was sweeping the floor, because she asked her mistress to let her go see my little sick brother who was in our little cabin near the big house. She swept as the blows fell hard and fast, and my little brother lay there in the cabin all day long deathly sick until he died.” (1)
Document 47
Rape of a Teenager
[Ruthe Winegarten, "I Am Annie Mae: The Personal Story of a Black Texas Woman" (Austin: Rosegarden Press, 1983), p. 9]
“Many teenagers were raped, like Matilda (Tildy) Boozie Randon of Washington County, whose story was recalled by her granddaughter, Annie Mae Hunt, in 1977.
“Grandma say that she were near 13 years old, behind the barn tee-teein’ when Young Mawster come up behind her . . . .He put his hand up under her dress, and said, “Lay down, Tildy.” . . . And so this thing happened, and her stomach began to get big. One day, Grandma and Old Mistress, they was puttin’ up the clean clothes. Old Mistress had a pair of socks. . . in her hand. She said, “Tildy, who been messin’ with you down there?” Grandma say, “Young Mawster.” Old Mistress ran to her, and crammed these socks in her mouth and say, “Don’t you never tell nobody. If you do, I’ll skin you alive.” (1)
1. “Black Texas Women: A Sourcebook Documents, Biographies, Timeline”
by, Ruthe Winegarten, et. al., University of Texas Press, Austin, 1996.
Chasingmoksha,
Except history provides us with too many examples of when race to changes the equation. Emitt Till anyone?
So why haven’t we heard about all the southern white women who were actively engaged in ending slavery?
So now these abolitionist white women are more representative of white women than the thousands of others who were not? I mean God only knows that black women in slavery did nothing but give birth to, fed, suffered, wept, bled and died to keep their children and families alive in the face of the seemingly unsurmountable system of slavery… But thank goodness for the those white abolitionist who did more than black women to end slavery… God bless de great white women who saved us all!!!
If the need to think that white women are deserving of most of the blame while black men (the victim), black women (the victim), and white men (the oppressor), and to an extent Britian (benefactor of the oppresson) stood helpless by, there is nothing for me to say to change your mind. Emmit Till could not have happened without men, both white and black. Needing to blame the white woman proves nothing but sexism is alive and well and thriving in 2007. Perhaps even a reason for a justification to rape her.
So now these abolitionist white women are more representative of white women than the thousands of others who were not?
Here is another example of inferring based on an absolute. I never stated or implied that white women are more than anyone else. I simply gave a voice to a space where I felt the white woman was being unfairly vilified. It is this either/or, if I win, you lose that will get the division between people forever going.
I think it is way too simple to divide the world into oppressors and oppressed. If there is anything that intermarriage demonstrates it is the fact that race is complex and it interacts with other forms of discrimination. A simple white man=oppressor, white women=victim, blackman=victim, black woman=victim equation is an extreme oversimplfication of how the intersections of race and gender operate. For example, we can find cases and situations where white men challenged racism or sexism or where black women were compicit in racism and sexism. They may not be the norm, but they exist, nonetheless. Then we have Black men and White women who are both advantaged and disadvantaged based on their race and/or gender and the situation gets even murkier.
To say that a group or an individual member of a group cannot discriminate at because they are oppressed on one dimension denies any agency. That is the problem with many of these debates. Almost everyone has some agency, even if the degree of it varies.
On the issue of abolitionists, there were many black abolitionists whose life stories and activism have not received their due credit. This is partly because black abolitionist had to operate below the radar because they could be killed for their work.
For those interested in the work of Black abolitionists you can browse the Black Abolitionist Archives, which is maintained by a former professor of mine.
To say that a group or an individual member of a group cannot discriminate at because they are oppressed on one dimension denies any agency.
Exactly.
Hence the reason I stated earlier I think in the other thread of why and how speaking structurally is dangerous. Speaking structurally tends to imply a desire to turn the structure upside down and simply replace the faces of the positions, –bottom becomes the top, the top becomes the bottom.
On the other hand, I find when one unsuccessfully attempts to deviate from the structure it is easily seen as a disproportionate detour that paints a distorted picture of who the oppressor/oppressed is/was and provides room for insupportable revisions.
Ann
What do Today’s White Women have to do with Yesterday’s slavery and segregation? It seems that you have a problem with alot of Black men who marry interracially or am I wrong? Do we count ouselves out of the catigory of real men if we choose a White woman as our spouse? Please tell me when you support Black men in IRs. I love reading your post but I don’t like feeling the anti Blackmman IR vibe. Am I misreading you again? I have been guilty of that before so I don’t want to misjudge what you think. Thankyou. These are some of the statments which I also need clarifacation. Ill just read your previous post agian if you don’t reply to try to understand what you mean.
:They share equally in the culpability of participating in and condoning violence against black men, women and children.:
:No one forced or twisted the arms of the white women standing in lynch mobs when a black man was being tortured before being lynched. No one forced white women to stand by and watch gangs of white men gang-rape a black woman or girl, before lynching her.:
Mike Reynolds.
“What do Todays White Women have to do with Yesterdays slavery and segregation?
I have a problem with some people discounting the history of white men and white women in this country.
That white men did rape and impregnate black women and girls, mostly by force, is well documented by historians, both white and black.
That white women did abuse and mistreat black women who were raped/impregnated by white men, and that white women did participate in lynch mobs is well documented by historians, both white and black.
And Mike Reynolds, do not forget the white women who still walk among the living who have done wrong to black people of the Civil Rights Movement. White women who spit in the faces of black children who braved the gauntlet of angry racist white mobs across the South to desegregate white schools. Are you saying these white women are now innocent? That what they did was okay in your eyes?
To say that the white man is the only entity involved in crimes against humanity towards black people is a lie.
There were white women who did wrongs to black women during slavery.
There are still living, white women who did wrongs to black people during segregation.
To put all the blame on white men is to believe in a lie. That white men are deserving of a huge portion of the blame for wrongs done to black people is undeniable. But, there were some white women who were equally to blame for wrongs done towards black people, as I documented above.
“It seems that you have a problem with alot of Black men who marry interracially or am I wrong?”
Yes, you are wrong.
That is what you perceive. I do not have a problem with BM/WW IRs. I do have a problem if the black man marries the white woman and mistreats her, and abuses her. I do have a problem with the black man who says, “I’m marrying a white woman to get back at the white man”.
Any man who uses a woman to get back at someone is beyond less than a man. Any man who abuses a woman, whether married to her or not, just because she is of a race that has wronged his race, is less than a man.
“Do we count ouselves out of the catigory of real men if we choose a White woman as our spouse?”
No.
You count yourself out of the category of real men if you use a woman, just because of her race. If you marry a white woman and lay up on her (as some black men have), and live off of her, or is not man enough to go out and get a job, but, expects her to take care of you, then you (in the plural sense), are not a real man in my eyes.
If you (in the plural sense) get a white woman pregnant and do not take care of the children you have with her, then you (in the plural sense), are not a man.
If you (in the plural sense), does not honor your marriage vows to her but instead break them, then you (in the plural sense) are not a man.
Real men do not do such things to women, whether the woman is white, or black.
“Please tell me when you support Black men in IRs.”
By saying “Hello”, to them when I see a BM/WW couple. By being pleasant to them when I see them sometimes coming to my place of employment.
By not saying anything hateful or disparaging remarks to them. (I guess I’m weird like that, having never said or gone out of my way to harm, cat-call or disrespect a BM/WW IR couple. Sorry, for being such a horrible person by not attacking BM/WW IRs, whether in private, or public. I can’t help it. I’ve always thought too well of myself. Not to mention, that I never know if I will find myself in an IR. And as a result of that way of thinking, I have never gone out of my way to show callous disregard towards another human being. I guess I’m just too evolved for my own good.)
“These are some of the statments which I also need clarifacation. Ill just read your previous post agian if you dont reply to try to understand what you mean.
“They share equally in the culpability of participating in and condoning violence against black men, women and children.:
:No one forced or twisted the arms of the white women standing in lynch mobs when a black man was being tortured before being lynched. No one forced white women to stand by and watch gangs of white men gang-rape a black woman or girl, before lynching her.: ”
White women have been documented as doing harm to black men and women.
There is historical documentation to prove it.
Those white women in those lynch mob photos are just as culpable as the white men who burned, tortured and lynched those black men. Are you saying those women in those photos are innocent of the crime of murder without due process of law? The 14TH Amendment does protect U.S. citizen’s rights to life, and a fair trial, the last time I read it.
The white women I cited in my above post did physical harm to black women and children. Are you saying that those women are innocent of the wrongs they did in the cases I presented as documented proof?
Rachel.
“For example, we can find cases and situations where white men challenged racism or sexism or where black women were compicit in racism and sexism. They may not be the norm, but they exist, nonetheless. Then we have Black men and White women who are both advantaged and disadvantaged based on their race and/or gender and the situation gets even murkier.”
Yes, it gets murky and slippery as all get out.
That is what sex and race has done to the social fabric of America, a legacy that continues to vex and torment.
I agree that there could be some instances where black women have had to be complicit in racism and sexism due to the conditions under which they lived (slavery and segregation). And people have to learn and understand the realities of slavery, what it was, and of what black people went through, especially black women. And there have been white men who have challenged racism (William Llyod Garrison) in the past, and today, Herbert Aptheker and James W. Loewen.
And there have been white women who have challenged racism, most notably, Jesse Daniel Ames in her Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching.
Yes, these people get lost in the discussion of how the effect of the legacy that slavery and segregation have left behind for us the living still continues to cause dissent and consternation.
And yes, there have black men who have used their male gender to align with white men against both black, and white women, to further sexism.
I went to the site you linked, clicked on “People”, and found no mention of two people I consider very important to the abolition movement. Or, maybe I just overlooked their names, but after browsing it, I found no mention of the following abolitionists:
-Maria Stewart. She spoke on just about every major issue of concern to black Americans of her generation—abolition, colonization, the expansion of rights for free people of color, the necessity of educational and occupational opportunities for black Americans, racial unity, racial pride, and self-determination. During her later life, she became a teacher in New York and eventually established two free schools for free black children in Washington, D.C.
-David Walker. A revolutionary man if there ever was one. His “incendiary” pamphlet, commonly known as “An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World”, (the less well-known title being, “David Walker’s Appeal, In Four Articles: Together With A Preamble To The Coloured Citizens Of The World, But In Particular, And Very Expressly, To Those Of The United States Of America”), written just two years before Nat Turner’s slave rebellion, was published exhorting slaves to unite against their masters, and overthrow the racist slave system.
I know I’m being picky. I’m not ragging on you.
This woman and this man made a tremendous impact in the area of abolition, during their time. I just feel that these two people are very prominent in the study of the abolition movement, and no list of abolitionist should leave them out.
REFERENCES:
“Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia”, by Darlene Clark Hine, Carlson Publishing, Inc., 1993.
“Revolt Against Chivalry: Jesse Daniel Ames and the Women’s Campaign Against Lynching”, by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, Columbia University Press, 1979.
“White Men Challenging Racism: 35 Personal Stories”, by Cooper Thompson, Emmett Schaefer, and Harry Brod, 2003.
Thankyou.
Real men are Heroes who put women and children, especially their own first! Your definition of a real man seems to square up with my own. I now know not to underestimate your opinion sorry for the times that I have.
I would add to your list that real men avoid at all cost making a baby out of wedlock and a few others. Real men take care of their mothers and Divorce is a last resort. I would also add that real men pay above and beyond their child support and allimony when they are separated from thier children and the mother of their children.
Ann the above is for you.
I’m still reading through the comments but this one caught my eye and I had to do a doubletake
Chasingmoksha said,
Did anyone see this accusatory rubbish for what it is or was it just me?
Rachel.
On the issue of how slavery had to have affected black women and girls.
I understand that for some people it is hard to understand, and just as hard, to begin to imagine what it must have been like for a black woman living in the hell of slavery.
Cna you imagine what it must have been like for a black woman or a young black girl, to have her first sexual experience, and it is forced on her? On a constant, daily basis?
Can anyone imagine that?
Can anyone imagine what should be the most important, the most joyful, the most blessed event in a woman’s life, the impending arrival of a new baby, only to have it scarred and degraded by the act of rape?
Rape committed against you because you are not only a slave, but held in bondage because the law of the land said that you should be a slave because of the color of your skin? Because of your race?
To carry that child in your body, close to your heart, feeling her, or him, growing and developing in you, all the while knowing, fearing, that this innocent baby may not survive your pregnancy because you, his slave mother, is beaten daily by the lash if you do not work hard or fast enough?
Knowing that if your baby that has been forced on you, will be subject to the whims of the slavemaster, who in his greed, would sell his own son or daughter to the highest bidder?
Knowing that you were under constant attack from the slave mistress who in her jealous anger and hatred, took her rage out on you, because of what her white husband did to you (raping and impregnating you against your will), and to her (breaking his marriage vows)? Because you as a black woman, was an easy target for her displaced rage and anger?
Can you imagine living under such sadistic conditions?
Can anyone imagine the black slave mother giving birth to her child, feeling the birth pains, knowing that within 24-48 hours, she will be expected to get up before sunrise to go to the fields to work under the hot sun, when she should be recuperating from childbirth?
All the while the white man is creating lies that he will weave as a deadly web against your character, integrity and image. Lies that will haunt your black female descendants well into the 21ST Century?
Breeder.
Whore.
Jezebel.
Slut.
Unrapeble.
Under such horrific conditions, it is no surprise that some black slave women went mad.
You made the comment:
“For example, we can find cases and situations where white men challenged racism or sexism or where black women were compicit in racism and sexism.”
I am sure that there may have been black women who did what they had to do to survive under a system that considered them not only as sub-human, but worse than that, a system that did not consider them as women.
No one will ever know all of what black slave women suffered and endured in the cruelties and atrocities of the “peculiar institution.”
During the time of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he instituted a program under the WPA, where government people went out to record the narratives of black men and women who survived slavery, before they passed away.
If you read some of these narratives, closely, you will realize that there is much that these black women suffered at the hands of rapist white men, and much of that they could not bring themselves to tell anyone of all of the inhumane and unspeakable things done to them by white males.
Much of their suffering, and the knowledge of how it affected them, they took to the grave with them.
Yes, my speaking up for the black women of slavery and segregation may upset and anger people.
So be it.
Those black women suffered torments we in the present day can only use our wildest imagination trying to comprehend, and fully understand.
I’ll give those black women the benefit of a doubt, knowing that what they had to endure, and what their daughters, and grandaughters, just one to two generations out of slavery had to overcome, and set themselves on the path to uplift themselves from a brutal and degrading system that sought to destroy black women in both body, mind and spirit, gives me admiration for the women of my race who have survived overwhelming odds in this country that has sought for so long to destroy them.
Sewere.
“Did anyone see this accusatory rubbish for what it is or was it just me?”
“Needing to blame the white woman proves nothing but sexism is alive and well and thriving in 2007. Perhaps even a reason for a justification to rape her.”
Yes, I read that.
I guess that little 15-year-old black malechild, Emmit Till, was attempting to rape Carolyn Bryant when he innocently whistled at her in Money, Mississippi.
I guess two grown white men torturing, beating and murdering a young black boy, and then, weighting his body down with a 75-lb cotton gin fan, were just execising their rights as fine and upstanding white men who, when confronted with a young child who could not defend himself against those two savages, decided that Emmit had no right to live.
Because of white men’s guilt in the brutality they committed against black women during slavery, and segregation, ALL black males were rapists in their eyes.
Even a little child who went down South to visit relatives.
A little child who had the misfortune to learn just how sadistic, psychotic and evil humans could be.
Humans who gave no sanctity to the value of black human life.
Even if it was the life of a little 15-year-old black boy.
“I think it is way too simple to divide the world into oppressors and oppressed. If there is anything that intermarriage demonstrates it is the fact that race is complex and it interacts with other forms of discrimination. A simple white man=oppressor, white women=victim, blackman=victim, black woman=victim equation is an extreme oversimplfication of how the intersections of race and gender operate.”
Yes!
Did anyone see this accusatory rubbish for what it is or was it just me?
Nothing accusatory about it. I was seeing if I was getting the sentiment right. You know how words come across the computer. We all have our own schemas.
[...] Black Intermarriage Patterns - Rachels Tavern New study on intermarriage patterns. Findings include: “West Indians and Africans will be more likely than African Americans and Puerto Rican non-Whites to form interracial unions with Whites.” (tags: interracialrelationships marriage race ethnicity) [...]
Chasingmoksha said,
You mean the one where someone critiques your equating white women struggles to the struggle of black women? And the only comeback you have is to equate that criticism to reasons for raping white women? Have you seriously no comprehension of how foul and racist that accusation is?
Chasingmoksha.
Did I hit a nerve?
People are so used to seeing white men being given a drubbing for the wrongs that the white race has done. But, no one seems to have the courage to state the facts of what some white women have done wrong to black men, women and children.
Is it that white women are not used to being shown, when presented with evidence, that there have been white women who have committed atrocities against black human beings?
Is it that white women are not used to being. . . . . .called out on the carpet?
I stated the truth, and I know that the truth hurts. But, the truth such as all truths, shall not be trampled under lies anymore.
That there were white women who did wrong towards black people has been written about via literary documentation, via photography by news reporters who followed lynching mobs to their places of brutal savagery, and via the medium we know of as television, which filmed during the Civil Rights Movement, the psychotic behaviour of white women screaming, yelling and hurling dangerous objects at black civil rights workers and innocent black children.
People’s image of the white woman as not having anyone in her sex of her race as not having done any kind of wrong to black people, is a glossed over image that tells lies, untruths, and half-truths.
Yes, there were some white women who gave a damn whether black women, men and children lived lives of safety and security. And they did what they could to alleviate a hellish situation that black people did not create. A hellish situation that only white people created. But, just as surely as there were white women, some of whom tried to do right by black people, there most certainly were some white women who went hellbent out of their way to commit whatever kind of sick, sadistic act of cruelty they could against a black person.
The color problem in America has always been white people.
And it still is.
“How do you explain black men marrying white women who come from a race who done just as much wrong towards black people as white men have? How do you explain how some black men marry women who have been elevated above the women of his own race? Am I to understand that it was only white men who did wrong to black people, and white women are wholly innocent of any wrongs against black people?”
Maybe because he did not marry the “race of white women” but rather as an individual human being who he regards with respect based on a deep knowledge of her personality, and her refusal also to see him as just a “black” man, but rather as an individual who treats her with equality and respect. Certainly, it is possible to live in the here and know with “AGENCY” as admin stated. This means, changing the world through ourselves and our daily actions, not living in the past where we cannot change things, but by trying to be a better, wife, mother, sister, daughter, father, husband, brother, son….a better PERSON, on a soulful level, not a superficial level. And if a black man chooses to marry a white woman (as an equal) then that is one more man who has not allowed himself to be brainwashed into the idea that humanity must be divided along superficial lines. At some point in our life, we must look not backwards, but take our knowledge of history as a part of our philosophy of life, and then act as if we want to and will change history through our daily lives. Or else we will remain chained to that past, paralyzed, and unable build a new world.
“At some point in our life, we must look not backwards, but take our knowledge of history as a part of our philosophy of life, and then act as if we want to and will change history through our daily lives. Or else we will remain chained to that past, paralyzed, and unable build a new world.”
And many people do take their understanding of history to see beyond the lies, and untruths that have caused a wedge between many people throughout the history of this country. Many people see every day in working with various races that all black women are not the lies and stereotypes that have been perpetuated against them, and neither are white women, white men, or people of other races, the lies and stereotypes said about them.
Black women have just as much right not to be held as gatekeepers of the black community.
They have just as much right to marry whomever they wish as well, and if they marry a white man, they too should not be questioned of it either.
If a black woman wishes to marry a white man, or a man of another race, she should be no more taken to task for it anymore than a black man who marries a white woman.
There are many black women who live with agency. They do it every day.
Recognizing and acknowledging history does not paralyze you. Running from history does. And confronting the realities of history, and coming to terms with its legacy, frees you to go on with your life.
You cannot free yourself from the past if you are not willing to confront it.
Once you accept, and learn, from the good and the bad, then you truly move on.
And there are many black women who are capable of building a new world, along with everyone else who lives in this country.
Always have been.
Deleted repeat comment. See full comment below.
(DOUBLE POSTING ALERT: Rachel can you please delete the previous entry, it had a few errors which I’ve hopefully taken care of in this one.)
Rachel said,
But I think Chasingmoksha is claiming that white women were completely powerless and nor where did they have the collective strength to be active participants in the practice and propagation of slavery (at one point in time) and white supremacy (as it exists today) BECAUSE of the fact that a sexist society of white males oppresses white women (as if the two cancel each other out). She later posits that white women were more active in abolitionist movement than black women (as if black women and not been long agitating for the freedom of their kin by the mere fact of their existence as enslaved beings). Next, she flips the script to say that our criticism of her falsely equating slavery (black folks=victims) and sexism (white women=victims) into, black folks as victims = white women as victims, is primarily because were looking to lay the blame solely on white women. The last straw was to disingenuously equate my criticism with possible motive to rape white women (as if there could be no other valid reason). Anyone who is familiar with history (barring the psychopathic ruminations of Eldridge Cleaver - whose idea never sold to any black empowerment movement ) as well as contemporary crime statistics knows such vile and racist reasoning were drummed up for the sole purpose to continue to enslavement of black men.
All this rubbish has completely taken me off the focus of the post at hand. My interest in the Black marriage stats was to get an idea of the magnitude of what’s going on and how it impacts our lives. My main concern are the accusations of “race-traitor” and “self-hatred” hurled at black men and the even more vicious sexist overtones of “loose” and “gold digger” hurled at black women who are in interracial pairings. From what I’ve been able to gather from the article (I’m still taking a deep look at the methodology the author used) it seems that there are far less interracial/exogamous pairings than same-race/endogamous pairings. Coupling this with your quantitative assessment, it seems that the above-mentioned accusations are over-hyped and cannot necessarily be a major factor in the lack of partners for black women.
All of this goes back to the question, what impact does interracial parings have on the black community and can such be described as an issue? The information provided here shows what I already suspected, that asides from the very few individual black men (and to an almost negligible extent black women) who denigrate potential black partners as less desirable than potential non-black partners (all of whom I will go toe to toe with when I hear them unload their worthless opinions), interracial marriages are for the most part neutral to - not positive or negative in impact, as I believe it should - the black community.
My support of communities of people of color and by extension all pairings which involve people of color will continue to be to agitate for
1. An end to the racism that is embedded within the legal system that continues to show bias against Black and Latino men by incarcerating them at astronomical rates.
2. Enforcement of policies that break down barriers to opportunities for people of color.
3. An increase in the number and diversity of positive images of black women, Asian men, black men, Asian women (and minority couples.. speaking of which, does anyone even realize that images of minority gay couples [black-black, Asian-Asian] are almost non-existent) as well as realistic images of interracial pairings as couples who just want to live and go about there day to day lives (and their individual struggles in a racialized society).
Sewere said, “But I think Chasingmoksha is claiming that white women were completely powerless and nor where did they have the collective strength to be active participants in the practice and propagation of slavery (at one point in time) and white supremacy (as it exists today) BECAUSE of the fact that a sexist society of white males oppresses white women (as if the two cancel each other out).”
Yes. I was trying to say that I do not agree with that way of thinking. I guess I should have made that clearer.
Sewere said, “My main concern are the accusations of race-traitor and self-hatred hurled at black men and the even more vicious sexist overtones of loose and gold digger hurled at black women who are in interracial marriages. From what Ive been able to gather from the article …, it seems that the above-mentioned accusations are over-hyped and cannot necessarily be a major factor in the lack of partners for black women.”
Yes, they are way over hyped, as they represent a very small percentage of marriages involving African Americans. The obsessive focus on IR’s in some circles take away from some of the larger factors that lower the number of black/black marriages. For example the high incarceration rate of black men, which can be directly connected to racial bias in the war on drugs, take away far more marriageable black men than intermarriage.
Sewere said, “.. asides from the very few individual black men (and to a fewer extent black women) who denigrate potential black partners as less desirable than potential non-black partners.”
Yeah, and there really aren’t many of those folks, and I would venture to say that there are more Blacks married to other Blacks who spout this nonsense about white women or white men are better. I remember a few occasions where a guy I know had a couple Black male relatives who told him that it would be nice for him to date a white woman because “they don’t cause trouble,” and these guys were married to black women. Nevertheless, there are very few Blacks who thinks whites make better partners than blacks.
Sewere said, “…interracial marriages are for the most part neutral to - not positive or negative in impact, as I believe it should - the black community.”
In the US, yes. I can’t really speak to other nations. The other important point to note is that Latinos, Asians, and American Indians have way higher rates intermarriage. Black intermarriage rates are low.
Rachel said,
I wasn’t sure at first but thanks for clarifying
Rachel said,
And far more of these people who have internalized racism such that they continue to apply the proxy to white “brown paper bag” and “good hair” test to their interactions and choices for pairings.
That’s a good point, racism plays into intramarriage choices and interracial marriage choices. I know someone, who purposely sought out a light skinned guy because she wanted her kids to have “light skin and good hair.” The person wanted a black man, but he had to be light with curly hair.
(PS- Don’t even get me started on the Nigerians spout this colorist crap. My partner is really dark, and other Nigerians/Igbos don’t even think he’s Nigerian/Igbo. Actually, he from a mixed marriage Edo/Igbo with an Igbo father. Now there another type of Black intermarriage we could talk about. You go to Nigeria, and you rarely see people from different ethnic groups marry.)
Rachel said,
My mom, who is Ekiti-Yoruba got so much shit because she married my father, an Ijebu-Yoruba man.. Yup, same shit happens even within ethno-lingual groups…. Anyone want to guess how I got into anti-racism? (Hint: Being at the receiving end of ethnic slurs can be a quite the motivator).
I see my typos–I need to remember the word “is”
Long week.
On those white women - I thought it was well established that they were in an ambiguous position within sexism/patriarchy and racism/white supremacy, because of their gender/race combination? That they were/are conscious of that to a variety of degrees? That they negotiated that ambiguous power situation in a variety of ways? Positioned themselves politically in a variety of ways?
But I think Chasingmoksha is claiming that white women were completely powerless
As I said previously many times before and will maintain, I do not speak or think in absolutes. When absolutes are inferred in my dialogue, I no longer feel a need to continue. The discussion becomes manipulated and counter productive.
Oh, and one more thing, Brownwhyte.
Telling a black person to stop talking of the history of black Americans in this country is just one more example of shutting down the discussion of race in this country.
If you can tell a black person to cease speaking of white America’s treatment of black people, then you should also be ready to tell Native Americas they cannot speak of their people’s history in this country. You should also be ready to tell Latinos they cannot speak of their history in this country. You should also be ready to tell Asians they cannot speak of their history in this country.
It is more than alright for many people to hear of everyone else’s history in America, but, under no circumstances is it alright for black people to speak up for themselves.
And as for your statement that people can change the world around them, but, should not face up to and acknowledge their history of this country, shows your inability to grasp, to comprehend, to understand that the two are not mutually exclusive.
It is possible to speak of black people’s history in this country, and work towards goals of enlightenment and cooperation with other races.
Believe me, the two can be done.
Black women do it all the time. Black women married to black men. Black women married to white men. Black women married to men of other races.
Thee are some people of other races who do speak the truth of white America. And that is alright with many people.
But let a black person, especially a black woman, speak the truth, then the full force of disagreement comes down on her.
For who else, more often than not, will tell you the truth most of the time, if not a black woman?
Professor Zero said, “I thought it was well established that they were in an ambiguous position within sexism/patriarchy and racism/white supremacy, because of their gender/race combination? That they were/are conscious of that to a variety of degrees? That they negotiated that ambiguous power situation in a variety of ways? Positioned themselves politically in a variety of ways?”
I agree with that. I do not agree with the idea that white women were/are powerless to engage in racism. CM says she’s not saying that, so I’ll take her at her word.
However, I also think that when it comes to these isms we are all at some point or another active agents of discrimination or passive participants in racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, classism. Sometimes it is just by our lack of action when we see these things, and sometimes it is us directly reaffirming these isms.
I feel like many people spand way too much time trying to prove that they are not racist, sexist, heterosexist, classist, ableist, etc. It’s almost like there is a cheap thrill some folks get out of feeling powerless and therefore innocent. Now I’m not saying that there are not some folks who have more power than others based on these systems of social inequality, but if we count all levels of discrimination–individual, small group, direct institutional, and indirect institutional. We all end up reinforcing these at some point.
“I agree with that. I do not agree with the idea that white women were/are powerless to engage in racism.”
White women are the ultimate enablers of racism in the United States. We’d be living in a different country if they did as much anti-racist work as feminist.
Donna, What do you mean here by ultimate enablers? If you mean enabler in the sense that we have been the acolytes in racist rituals, I agree. In terms of power to enforce racism, I think it is pretty clear that through out history white women have not had the same power to enforce racism as their male counterparts; however, I also think we need to add the class factor into all of this. This race and gender alone debate is just too simple.
Actually, the model minority house slaves or Asian Americans are the ultimate enablers. I’m talking about Patricia Hill Collins plantation metaphor where white wives of white men had more power to end slavery than men of color.
Who besides white men do you think has more power to end racism, Rachel? House slaves or house pets (white women)?
I think white women have more power to end racism because we’re still operating under the Plantation Metaphor.
Prof Zero said,
No one is saying that every INDIVIDUAL African-American has it worse off than every INDIVIDUAL white woman but how can one compare this negotiation and maneuvering within a white identity to slavery, to Jim Crowe, and the general experiences of African-Americans (especially African-American women) in more contemporary times?
CM ends with,
In order words, she doesn’t feel the need to address her suppositions, defacto denials of historical positions and foul accusations. Just take your ball and go home.
In response to Donna’s question:
When I talk about racism and whites, generally speaking, I focus on whites as a collective and I don’t break it down by gender because I think all whites a culpable in racism.
However, if we want to be complex (and realistic) we cannot deny that white women and white men participated in racism in ways that were often different. For example, white women were disenfranchised until 1920, so we were not making the actual laws, so we played a role in upholding those laws in other ways beyond voting for legislators or being legislators.
I am NOT saying white women were not or are not culpable in racism; I am saying that white women’s racism has been exercised in a different way than white men. The plantation metaphor that Donna and Ann have invoked exemplifies this.
Incidentally, I disagree with you on the feminism point. My sense is that most white women are not feminist, even if they are sympathetic to feminist principles. However, I do get your point that many of these white women feminists recognize sexism but do not recognize racism. Or in some cases they are way more attuned to sexism than racism.
Sewere said, “No one is saying that every INDIVIDUAL African-American has it worse off than every INDIVIDUAL white woman but how can one compare this negotiation and maneuvering within a white identity to slavery, to Jim Crowe, and the general experiences of African-Americans (especially African-American women) in more contemporary times?”
I think we are talking past each other on this thread. I agree with Professor Zero’s contention that white women occupy an ambiguous position (and black men if we are discussing sexism). Maybe ambiguous is not the best word there, I’m trying to come up with a better word that exemplifies how white women are simultaneous marginalized and centered.
However in terms of my own comments, I am not making the comparision of white women to black men or women under slavery. That takes us right back to the opression Olympics way of thinking.
In my own view, saying that white women were equally powerful to white men in the antebellum period does not coincide with fact, and saying white women did not engage in racism during the antebellum period does not coincide with fact. Not to mention the glaring ommission of class in that analogy.
We still operate under the Plantation Metaphor where white women and men of color are simultaneously marginalized and centered. I think white wives influence their white husbands’ political views. Rachel, do you think is a flawed concept? They didn’t protest white men’s slavery and white feminists today don’t protest white male progressives’ racism but if they did, it would be a different world.
There were many white women were abolitionists and there are many white female allies of poc but these are generalizations.
Look at any university. White male president, white female secretaries or help meets, women and men of color cooks and janitors.
I mention the university because it is supposedly the most enlightened place in any country.
Ann,
I think you are referring to where I stated “At some point in our life, we must look not backwards” when you state, “And as for your statement that people can change the world around them, but, should not face up to and acknowledge their history of this country, shows your inability to grasp, to comprehend, to understand that the two are not mutually exclusive.”
I think you are inferring more than I intended to imply, and took my words somewhat out of context, because that phrase was followed by the statement “but take our knowledge of history as a part of our philosophy of life, and then act as if we want to and will change history through our daily lives. Or else we will remain chained to that past, paralyzed, and unable build a new world.”
The thrust of what I am trying to say is that if history is our R&D, then “what are we going to do about it” should always be right behind the historical facts in any discussion. I need to feel more positive about race. Spending too much of my mental time on the worst of our history tends to prevent my from doing what I need to do to change things. I know that there is an infinite amount of suffering and pain that occured in our history, and large amounts of history that I don’t know in intricate detail, but I think I DO know enough to know what I need to do to reconcile myself with the history of our country. One thing I can’t do is change the behavior of those white women from those photos.
I do not think that we should stop telling the truth or discussing the reality, but I feel sometimes we get so caught up in what happened that we really cannot change, that it might interfere with our ability to stay in a positive frame of mind. Alternatively, I DO think that our children especially and those who would deny the truth which you discuss, MUST speak of and learn about our history, for our children must know where they came from, and people who would deny the truth need it more than any other. It is our duty to pass on what we do know, however there will always be a limit to our knowledge of history, for our paradigm of the present looking at the past will always be somewhat distorted. Another point: we cannot change the past, so if we hash out history to the point where we are just spending time arguing over who was the worst oppressed or the worst oppressor, by definition, that could be time we spend interacting with others in a positive and loving way, perhaps changing their misconceptions about who “black women”, “white women” and “black men” are.
One of my black students in a moment of irritation made a comment to me today about “white people” and “black people”, and I told him, I am not “white people” (and I don’t represent them) and he is not “black people” (and I don’t expect him to represent them), but rather we are each unique individuals. I simply refuse to categorize any person I meet based on the visual cues given to me. Even if my mind spontaneously tries to inject a stereotype, which it does, I TRY to consciously evaluate that, and make myself step back mentally. There is always more about a person that I don’t know as an individual because they are unique than there ever will be that I “think” I know just because I see the color of their skin.
Rachel.
“My sense is that most white women are not feminist, even if they are sympathetic to feminist principles. However, I do get your point that many of these white women feminists recognize sexism but do not recognize racism.
True. Of course they are not feminist. That is very obvious in their crass, inept, callous disregard for the life experiences of non-white women.
If it was not for the racist behaviour of many white women during the first wave of feminism, and the last two waves as well, feminism as we know it today, would be an entirely different animal.
And Rachel, we have to be honest.
White women then, and today, refuse to acknowledge the impact RACISM and SEXISM have on black, Asian, Native American and Latina women. White women are still playing this tired old crapped out game, that we, the “Other” women are damn sick to death of having to put up with.
Facts have to be faced.
There are some white women who can’t wait to assume the position of Massa. And if it means more continued stomping on the backs of black women and others, believe me, there are some white women who are more than happy to go that route.
You may give chasingmoksha the benefit of a doubt when you made this comment:
“I do not agree with the idea that white women were/are powerless to engage in racism. CM says shes not saying that, so Ill take her at her word.”
But, that’s your perogative. She said it in post after post, Rachel, that white women were in no way capable of doing wrong to black people, even when I presented evidence/proof that they were culpable in wrongs done to black people. She refused to believe when presented with evidence that white women did commit acts of cruelty against black people. And just what difference does it make what type of act of cruelty it was? Cruelty is cruelty, no matter who does it, no matter what degree.
Then to add hateful insult to injury, she insulted the many black women ( Maria Stewart, Harriet Jacobs, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, et. al.) who did fight as feminist to abolish slavery. And her insulting comments about black women not having education enough to be feminists was sick and despicable. As if white women carried black women on their backs to abolish slavery. If anything, it is white women who rode the backs of black women in the abolition campaign, and most especially, in the suffrage movement. And, pardon my language, white women found a way to fuck that up. White women have been taking credit for way too many aspects of major movements in America, Rachel, and it’s high time they stopped and finally gave recognition to the many black women and men who made the most impact in this country, especially concerning the abolition of slavery, and the early days of feminism.
And as for people being the following:
“I feel like many people spand way too much time trying to prove that they are not racist, sexist, heterosexist, classist, ableist, etc. Its almost like there is a cheap thrill some folks get out of feeling powerless and therefore innocent.”
I can assure you, many black women did not get a cheap thrill out of being raped by a piece of human feces that had the nerve, after raping you, to turn around and label you a “Jezebel” after forcing his syphilitic sperm into you. I can assure that many black people did fight against slavery/segregation in every way they could, just short of having their lives destroyed by white people who thought that black America was going to go on forever paying for white America’s ease.
I am sure that there were white women, on the other hand, who definately got a cheap thrill out of being powerless. One of the reasons why some of them did not mind being put upon that pedestal and staying there, no matter how many black women were raped to keep the white woman there, no matter how many black men were lynched to keep the white woman there, is because they could stay on that pedestal and not be degraded and destroyed by men they laid down with night after night, after night.
And as for victim Olympics, you know Rachel, I do not see how black people speaking of the atrocities that white America (which includes both white men and white women; can’t have one without the other), qualifies in your eyes as victim Olympics.
Are you saying that black people should just (which is what I have gathered from chasingmoksha), that black people should just shut up where their history is concerned in this country? Is telling the truth so horrible to non-black people that all people can do is call telling the truth of what white men and women in this country some kind of victim Olympics?
I know that white women do not share the same history with me. They never have, they never will.
Many of them cannot, even in this day and age, understand what black women experience in this country. A black woman is 35 TIMES MORE likely to be raped than a white woman. A black woman’s life, body and mind is more vulnerable in this country than a white woman’s. A black woman is least protected in this country than a white woman.
So don’t tell me that speaking of the harsh realities of black women is some game of victim Olympics. It’s bad enough what black women have suffered, and still suffer in this hellhole, without our pain and suffering, that many of us are only now giving voice to, is steadily tirvialized and disregarded as so much insignificance in many people’s eyes.
“When I talk about racism and whites, generally speaking, I focus on whites as a collective and I dont break it down by gender because I think all whites a culpable in racism.”
Yes.
White women have stood in the shadows for too long hoping that no one would remember or discover that they could have done more to work towards destroying both slavery and segregation. They’ve stood in the shadows hoping that all eyes would remain on the white man. But, no, that’s not going to happen anymore.
It took almost 80 years before some white women finally opened up their mouths and developed backbones to finally start working with black women to end lynchings, instead of all the fighting and beating against black women they did for so long.
So many lives that did not have to end.
But, that is what happens when some people have to decide whether or not to develop some guts to be real men, or real women.
Not to mention growing a conscious, and using it.
Donna Darko.
“Who besides white men do you think has more power to end racism, Rachel? House slaves or house pets (white women)?
The house pets. If they have the guts. If they are so secure in the fact that they are not the ones being raped daily, if they are so secure that they are not the ones being defiled daily, if they are not the ones being forcibly impregnated, then they will not lift a finger in any way to try and stop the depravity going on around them. And that is what the white woman did during slavery and segregation. It was not happening to her. Better that it happened to those nasty, ol’ Jezebels instead of her. Better that she, the white woman, was safe and secure from the degradations the white man visited upon the defenseless black women.
Degredations the white man would have visited upon the white woman if there was not the black woman around to take the full brunt of all the filth, perversions and abombinations the white man could dish out. I am sure there were some white women who secretly thought to themselves in their own perverse way:
“Better her (black woman), than me (white woman).”
Sadly, many white women were content to stay the house pet.
Meant less hell in her life, especially if a whole lot of that hell could be pushed onto the shoulders of black women.
Ann, I’m going to take this discussion to a separate post, and later this evening I will respond to both you and Donna.
And her insulting comments about black women not having education enough to be feminists was sick and despicable.
You need to back up this lie? Where did I say this?
She said it in post after post, Rachel, that white women were in no way capable of doing wrong to black people, even when I presented evidence/proof that they were culpable in wrongs done to black people. She refused to believe when presented with evidence that white women did commit acts of cruelty against black people.
Another lie. I never said white women were incapable. I maintained the position and still do that they (white women) were not equal to white men. Period.
And her insulting comments about black women not having education enough to be feminists was sick and despicable.
You need to back up this lie? Where did I say this?
“white women were generally better-educated than black women were (even though not on a par with white men, with very few exceptions),”
She said it in post after post, Rachel, that white women were in no way capable of doing wrong to black people, even when I presented evidence/proof that they were culpable in wrongs done to black people. She refused to believe when presented with evidence that white women did commit acts of cruelty against black people.
“Another lie. I never said white women were incapable. I maintained the position and still do that they (white women) were not equal to white men. Period.”
Go to the following photos, and then tell me again, that white women were powerless to try and do ANYHING to put a stop to the sick madness that white America committed against her black citizens. Tell me again that white women were completely blameless in the viciousness done to black America by white America.
Completely is an absolute. I do not use absolutes. Pictures of white women in a crowd are hardly a representative of all or even most white women. And being there does not equate to having the same power to stop it as a white man or a group of white men would. If a white man can lynch a black man, or rape a black woman, or rape and lynch either, he is certainly capable of doing the same to a white woman.”
Pictures of white women in those lynch mobs were very representative at the time of white women who benefitted from white men destroying black people.
Any black man who came too close to a white woman was as good as dead if he so much as looked at her. And white women knew this. White women knew that with only a word from them, a black man could be torn to pieces.
Just on her word alone.
No questions asked.
So, you tell me, where white women did not have equal power to destroy black men, as well as black women?
White wives have influence over their white husbands’ political views. Conservative, anti-feminist white wives convince their white husbands (or confirm their husbands views) feminism is for ingrates because women should be happy with their lot (as house pets). I’ve noticed conservative men online who say their wives are anti-feminist. Women have a lot less in the world and to feel better about themselves can be racist or sexist. Conservative white wives are often more racist than their husbands. I think they influence their husbands or at least enable them to be racist or sexist.
Ok, this discussion is rapidly going nowhere, and I can see several distortions and stereotypes being promoted and rather than any dialogue or debate.
Not to mention that we have moved way away from the original post.
Y’all are really depressing me here. I don’t even know where to begin with this.
I would like to reference a few older threads in relation to this discussion:
More on Racism and Racists
A Few Note on the Language of Race and Stereotyping
white women were generally better-educated than black women were (even though not on a par with white men, with very few exceptions),
This is not my quote!
chasingmoksha said,
March 13, 2007 @ 9:33 pm
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/slaveryto1863/a/abolitionists.htm
More white women than black women were prominent in the abolitionist movement, for a variety of reasons:
although the movement of all women was restricted by social convention, white women had more freedom than black women to move about
white women were more likely to have the income to support themselves while doing abolitionist work
black women were, after the Fugitive Slave Act and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, at risk of capture and transport to the South if someone alleged (rightly or wrongly) that they were escaped slaves
white women were generally better-educated than black women were (even though not on a par with white men, with very few exceptions), including in formal oratory skills popular for the time
White women who were involved in the abolitionist movement were often connected with liberal religions like the Quakers, Unitarians, and Universalists, which taught the spiritual equality of all souls.
NOTICE THE QUOTATION MARKS! This was from a website. NOTICE THE PRECEDING LINK! A site I used to show that there were in fact white women who fought against slavery.
[...] of African-American and African pairings are African-American women and African men. The link is here. (Photo credit: Nigeria’s Next Top Model, “Where’s Tyra” comment by [...]