Black brute

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The black brute is a racist stereotype that originated in the post-bellum South of the United States. It survives to this day in something of a muted and less overt form, though it's still readily apparent when employed.

Contents

[edit] Reconstruction to the early 20th century

The black brute stereotype became dominant during the era of Reconstruction. Prior to the Civil War, black stereotypes in the media often portrayed them as dumb, docile, willing, or happy-go-lucky servants. Think Uncle Remus in Song of the South or Aunt Jemima, which were based on these earlier stereotypes (something of a spin on the noble savage). While the black brute stereotype, which portrayed blacks as uncivilized savages, was common as well, it became much more dominant over the other stereotypes after the Civil War. During Reconstruction, the white supremacists in the South developed a gargantuan persecution complex. The white supremacists spread all sorts of rumors and conspiracy theories. These rumors postulated a variety of paranoid possibilities, including blacks stealing all the whites' jobs, loss of white franchise, race war, forced mixing of the races, and the total control of the American government by blacks. These were all variations on the persistent theme of a slave or black uprising updated for the Reconstruction era.

The black brute stereotype relied on the two central themes of violence and sexuality. In regard to the former, white supremacists generally believed that blacks were inherently savage and violent and that the institution of slavery had tamed them. They feared that abolition would cause them to return to their "primitive" state and would lead to mass violence against whites in a race war. Stories of criminal acts by blacks were often exaggerated or outright fabricated by newspapers, which helped perpetuate this fear. New tensions between lower-class whites and freedmen also grew as the two groups now competed for employment. This resulted in a number of racial riots that came on the tail end of the Civil War.[1]

The forced racial mixing narrative became central to the sexual aspect of the black brute mythology. This theory first appeared in a pamphlet published in 1863 called Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, which posited that Republicans ought to bring about some kind of master race through interbreeding blacks and whites.[2] The pamphlet was later revealed to be a hoax.[3] Anti-miscegenation laws had been in place in many states dating back to pre-Revolution days. While mixed-race marriages were technically legal in some northern states, they were still considered taboo. In the belief that miscegenation was inevitable, many southern states made the penalty for mixed-race marriages or any relationship at all much harsher.

The black brute mythos managed to pack a monumental amount of bigotry into one stereotype. Not only did it rely on racism, but also religious intolerance and sexism. Before emancipation, slaves were indoctrinated into Christianity. This resulted in hoodoo, voodoo, and other folkloric religious practices that fused Christianity with traditional African religions.[4] These practices were, of course, considered Satanic, immoral, and a perversion of Christianity by whites. Whites feared that they would be the victims of curses through this "black magic."

As the stereotype portrayed blacks as virile young men, they were believed not only to have sizable endowments, but to be extremely skilled in the art of procreation as well. Even if a black man didn't fit this description, it was believed by many of the more superstitious types that he could always increase his strength or virility through magic spells anyway. It was also believed that blacks were hyper-sexual due to their "savage" nature and that ages of slavery had repressed this sexual desire, which they would inevitably seek an outlet for. Thus, it was thought that they would immediately target white women and rape them. This was sometimes known as the "Mandingo theory."[5] This also played on sexist stereotypes of the time. As the "weaker sex," women were considered to be easily tempted and possibly unable to resist the sexual advances of virile black men. White supremacists feared that the mixed race would come about through widespread rape and intermarriage of their easily seduced wives and daughters with blacks. (In reality, white-on-white rape was by far more common.) Women were thus idealized as the keepers of white racial purity but simultaneously objectified as helpless pieces of property to be protected.

The accusation of rape was often the easiest way to stir up a lynch mob and moral panics over fabricated cases of rape were common. During lynchings, castration was often employed to symbolize the destruction of the black man's sexual powers. The black brute stereotype was also a motivating force behind segregation and Jim Crow laws. These laws were thought to be necessary to mitigate criminal violence by blacks as well as to keep the maximum distance between them and white women. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan helped this ideology spread and it was exemplified in D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation.

While racial theories had existed long prior, the late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the rise of the pseudoscientific field of "raciology" or "scientific racism." This attempted to give a scientific veneer to racism by "proving" the inferiority of blacks and rationalizing their oppression. This pseudoscience simply reiterated the brute stereotype.

[edit] Modern incarnations

The stereotype was often invoked by those who demanded the criminalization of drugs. The blaxploitation genre that came about in the 1960s and '70s played heavily on this stereotype. While movies like Superfly portrayed blacks as empowered, they also continued to cast their characters as thugs involved in illegal activities like pushing drugs. Gangsta rap and interracial pornography has also been accused of perpetuating this stereotype. (Though when it comes to porn, one wonders what stereotype it doesn't perpetuate, and, per Rule 34, the answer may well be zero.)

Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, used as an element of his defense that he found the apparently fleeing Brown threatening. A grand jury declined to indict Wilson for murder.[6]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  • Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction by Forrest G. Wood [1]

[edit] Footnotes

  1. See, for example, the New Orleans and Memphis Riots of 1866.
  2. The "Miscegenation" pamphlet at the Internet Archive
  3. The Miscegenation Hoax, Museum of Hoaxes
  4. Note that hoodoo generally refers to a collection of superstitious magical practices while voodoo is a complete (syncretic) religion mixing the West African religion of Vodun with Catholicism.
  5. Mandingo Theory, eNotes
  6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown
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