She is a “conniving temptress who cannot be trusted.” Accusing Black women of these traits and calling them “Jezebels” also attempts to connect Black women to the infamous “treacherous” queen in the Bible called “Jezebel,” who is accused of having “turned the heart of her husband, King Ahab, away from the worship of the one true God and righteous living.” The Jezebel stereotype is “synonymous with promiscuity,” having “an insatiable sexual appetite,” and “someone who uses sex to manipulate men,” Ladson-Billings writes. Jezebel is a slave construct and stereotype that paints Black women as evil and immoral. This practice dates back to slavery, she notes, and is a bully tactic to intimidate Black women who enter the mainstream space and to try to force them to “shrink themselves, to not get that blowback” or “to stay silent” when Black women have every right to speak out or “to swallow their anger,” even when Black women have good cause to be angry. Tamara Winfrey Harris, a Black woman and author of The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America, has stated that the tactic of depicting Black women as “angry” and “mad Black women” describes the use of this language. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a white woman. Kamala Harris as “angry,” “nasty” and a “mad woman.” He said she was “probably nastier than even Pocahontas to Joe Biden” during the Democratic debates, referring to Sen. “Aunt Ester” character in “Sanford & Son.”Īccording to David Pilgrim, the “Sapphire” name is a “slur, insult and label designed to silence dissent and critique.”īlair Kelly, associate professor of history at North Carolina State University, associates the “angry Black woman” trope to minstrel shows in the 19th century, when white men painted their faces black and mocked African Americans.įormer President Donald Trump referred to then-Sen. The reality is that slaveholders sold Black women’s children and husbands away, which caused unimaginable grief and understandable anger.” The Sapphire construct suggests that Black women are the reason for the “enmity between Black men and women.” The “Sapphire” name traces its origins to the 1950s television character on the Amos and Andy show.Īccording to West, during slavery the standard for femininity for white women (“passivity,” “frailty” and “domesticity”) did not apply to Black women: “They (Black women) were characterized as strong, masculinized workhorses who labored with men in the fields or as aggressive women who drove their children and partners away with their overbearing natures. Sapphire is a construct that labels Black women as “stubborn, bitchy, bossy and hateful.” She “lacks the requisite femininity to make her attractive to any man,” Ladson-Billings writes. A jolly, smiling, fiercely loyal Mammy was created so we could believe slavery was a humane institution.ĭeborah Gray White states that even the name “Mammy” is “steeped in material sentiment. Mammy is steeped with imagery of “surrogate mistress and mother.” Hattie McDaniel played a fictional “Mammy” in Gone with the Wind. … In response, they ran away or helped other slaves escape, fought back when punished, and in some cases poisoned slave owners.Īccording to West, the Mammy stereotype was a lie. Enslaved women often were beaten, overworked and raped. West adds: “There is little historical evidence to support the existence of a subordinate nurturing, self-sacrificing Mammy figure. Mammy is generally characterized, as a “grossly overweight,” “jolly,” “unattractive dark-complexioned woman,” and “asexual - living only to serve the master, mistress and their children.” She is “even neglectful of her own children and family while simultaneously overly solicitous toward whites.” The mammy image is the old Aunt Jemima, the Black woman wearing the kerchief on her head and wearing an apron perpetually smiling on a pancake box. “Mammy” is a slavery construct of Black women that “distorts the notion of caregiver,” Ladson-Billings wrote. West, as well as many others, have written that these stereotypes originated in American slavery and continue. The three are the “Mammy,” “Sapphire” and “Jezebel” stereotypes. The “Jezebel” stereotype is one of three pernicious racist and sexist stereotypes that have been used to rationalize and justify slavery and to spur racist and sexist perceptions and treatment of Black women. According to Baptist News Global, two pastors called Vice President Kamala Harris “Jezebel.” Another Black woman has been called “Jezebel,” a racial stereotype and slur that historically and persistently has been used to obfuscate the truth, promote and justify racial inequality and sexual violence against Black women.
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