The objectification of the black woman in America as we all know started circa 16th century with the trans Atlantic slave trade. However, the clearest objectification that may easily forget is of course the episode of Sara Bhartman aka the Black Hottentots. This African woman upon her death was pretty much the victim of taxidermy. She was an exhibit of the 19th century worlds fair I believe for her large sexual genitals all for the lusty white men to see. Historically, there has been this fixation that African Americans have an uncontrollable sexual prowess and appetite and needless to say this runs both ways. White men wanted black women in a depersonalized manner strictly for sexual domination. This easily plays into the notions of what Cannall sites as Hegemonic masculinity where anything less than being White, Male and Heterosexual is deemed inferior and deviant. This leads to the notion that anything deviant must be controlled and if not controlled, eliminated. This could then explain why Black men during the days of American slavery were castrated en mass. We should also remember that the black man too was held in a lustful gaze by the white woman. This was more so a tactic of spite fu#$%ing. White women held the notion that if my husband can do this (creeping) then I can do the same but better. And surely they did. I mean it must have been hell to go to your wife’s birth and see a dark skinned child pop out of the womb. (Surprise Surprise!) But back to this issue of objectification, African Americans have frequently been the targets of objectification by the powers of white masculinity, and the larger structures of hegemony or cultural domination. It plays very well into the Black Sexual politics that Patricia Hill-Collins speaks of. Monkey see monkey do. It is a cycle that continues on and that is partially because of the Marxist component that envelopes everything, that being capitalism. If there is money to be made at exploitation then by all means lets start the presses. Now going back to this ideology of objectification and exploitation, lets remember that this cycle requires two to make it work. The exploiter and the exploited. Many times we wish to throw up the flag of oppression (namely white oppression) without examining our role within the larger structures. For example, this thread discussed the idea of the media making influences within behavior. Gerberner talked about that with his theory on cultivation, meaning if one has enough exposure to certain media elements then there would be some type of effect- the basic cause effect relationship with media as the variable. The problem with that though comes in from internalization, self actualization, and a host of other social economic factors which relate to where one is particularly in one’s hierarchy of needs? Does one look to television of for self definitions? Does one seek media messages for social instruction.? Does media facilitate a social construction of reality? I think in a Bizaro world it would without question. However, I think in our world the societal structures manifest out of basic need. For example, if I show you a Tylenol commercial when you have a tooth ache, you might go buy Tylenol as opposed Bayer. If you are hungry, and I show you a Big Mac, and you have a choice between the whopper and the big mac, chances are you will choose the big mac. So going back to this situation, looking exclusively at the societal presets, is the alleged victim of this crime is already in a state where she is in greater need of money and she has something can easily use for quick turn around, its no wonder then that she may have felt that stripping may have been the lesser of the evils to subsidize her education. The problem in this episode again comes back to the depersonalization, dehumanization and hegemonic masculinity allowed to run unchecked. Because of this, the alleged perpetrators were able to view this woman as a Stripper, commodity, a product. In their eyes, what they paid for, they didn’t get. So in turn, they lodged a complaint with the person whom the business transaction was initiated. She is not human to them for a variety of reasons. One she is a black woman. Again, through the definition of hegemonic masculinity, she is subordinated, inferior and displaying some degree of agency, therefore adjacent to deviant. She was supposed to strip, don’t say anything just strip. In their eyes again it was breech of contract for this object [stripper] animal [stripper] concubine [stripper] not to do what they said. The biggest issue on the plate for me is how many white student strippers there are in comparison. For some reason, I just don’t UNC, Duke, NC State, Meredith or Appalachian Students stripping to help pay for school. This is were T and I had the disagreement. He thinks they do. I personally think the UNC Systems needs to address the economic disparities between the schools HBCUs and TWIs to see the results. Could this be a pattern worthy of inquiry? I think so because the schools are very different. UNC has an endowment in the billions therefore allowing a higher number of scholarships and grants for their student population. Just looking at NCCU’s website today, they are asking students to pay a 300 dollar increase in tuition. The student demographic has changed to really to exclude those demographic changes. You can’t really have a child and go to school without a time job and the part time jobs are barely paying above the minimum wage. As an alum of NCCU I have to be critical in the sense that just as duke let the activity of the lacrosse players go unchecked, NCCU’s department of finical aid has gone unchecked, the development department has gone unchecked, the liaisons to the UNC system have gone unchecked. I venture to say that there are more cases like this that have gone one longer than anyone things—meaning students using the underground economy to subsidize their education.
Thank you for your indulgence.
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