Blackness Flashcards
Blackness
- Blackness represents the “other”, abnormality or counternormativity
seen as
* excessively masculine/violent
* naturally athletic
* less intellectual
* instinctual
* animalistic
* overly sexualized
unaplogetic Blackness:
* an act of racial self-realization
- Blackness changes based on White definitions
Unapologetically Black
- people who don’t shrink themselves to fit in
- Rubs against notions of whiteness
- fearful for white supremacists
Capitalize the B
use Black to reference individuals, people, and communities who are Black
Black is a synonym (however imperfect) of African American
* recognition of Black people as an actual political group within civil society
white in lower cases
* because whiteness is an unstable social construct that continuously mutates in order to maintain white supremacy
Harlem Globetrotters
Globetrotter overall record
* 1465 wins to 118 losses
- owner of the team mandated their signature entertaining tricks in order to keep games closer in score
- the tricks then also fed into stereotype that black athletes were more about showmanship than discipline and team
- Blackness of Globetrotters pitted against the constructed white values of discipline, hard work and responsibility
- athletic talent was distilled down to witchcraft instead of hard work and dedication
- when they traveled over seas they were treated as kings
Giannis Antetokounmpo
NBA was measuring his body
* best one that NBA had ever seen
Spent a day and measured him and then wrote an article
* didn’t include any quotes from him
* only important part of the article is focused on his body
* called him “freak and nature”
* Don’t talk how his successes are also from hard work
Black Bodies as Objects
- Giannis Antetokounmpo: The Geek Freak
- freak shows have a racist history of displaying racialized bodies for public amusement
- Sara Baartmann: the “Hottentot Venus”
- Black bodies have historically been used as objects of ridicule or for scientific scrutiny
- We talk ABOUT black bodies but we talk TO white athletes
Sara Baartment
sold into slavery
- used in “freak shows”
- to show her big boobs
- prostituted to dying white men in Cape town
- epitome of colonial exploitation and racism
- circus made possible through exploitation of Black bodies
- 1500 people paid to see the autopsy of her
- reducing black people to objects for White consumption and fascination
fearing the black body
1800s Americans are concerned with white women being too thin
* american women in general are still thought to be sallow and scrawny
- fatness becomes connected to Blackness
- Stoutness
- corpulence
- surplusage of flesh
- “are never desirable, except among African savages”
Blackness as a contradiction
we cheer for Black bodies but rage against Black voices
to be Black in Western society is to be both superhuman and subhuman; invisible and hypervisible
- we want to be entertained by Black athletes but once they have something to say we are not interested
Black Hair
Black hair is a sign of unapologetic Blackness
Racism: trying to straighten hair to fit in leads to alopecia and this affects Black people bc of the hair products they have to use to do this
respectability politics
dominant group gets to decide what is respectable
used to attempt to counter stereotypical/racist ideas of Blackness (or brownness)
can be used by the dominant group to select “worthy” BIPOC individuals to include
can be used by the marginalized group to gain entry into whiteness
relates to the performance of one’s race: How you speak, dress, take up space
Limits of respectability politics
- compromising who you are to dress and act repectably
- when we find out about a sexual assault case and ask what the woman was wearing
- lack of context
what is respectful is decided by white people
* when Kavernick started kneeling - people said it was disrespectful
digital blackface
when non-black people co-opt online expressions of Black imagery, slang, catchphrases or culture to convey comic relief or express emotions
cultural appropriation
* white people pretending to be Black for white people’s entertainment
be aware of what is reproduced by certain imagery
* “aint nobody got time for that”
displays of emotion stereotyped as aggresion
microaggressions
- everyday subtle “put-downs” and insults that communicate intentional and unintentional hostilities
- reproduce feeling of othering and difference
- result in physical health problems and self esteem
environmental microaggression
- pictures and statues of only white men
- lack of diversity in workplace
