Wed 23 Apr 2008
The black brute stereotype
Posted by abagond under America, black men, race, stereotypes, white people
The black brute stereotype (1870s - ) is one of the pictures white Americans have in their heads about black men: as savage, violent, amazingly strong and not caring about right and wrong. Black men rape and kill for no reason. They cannot control themselves. Whites do not believe that every black man is like that, but they think plenty of them are.
Willie Horton, Emmett Till and Rodney King were all seen in this light. It is why Susan Smith could blame a black man for killing her children and be believed: because black men are like that: they kill for no reason, even children!
It is why whites are afraid to walk alone in black neighbourhoods: some black man might jump out of nowhere and rape or kill them. They especially like to rape and kill complete strangers at night. It is why whites cross the street to the other side - just to be safe! As if savage killers cannot cross the street too!
When a white man kills someone, white people ask, “Why did he do it?” But when a black man kills someone they do not ask why. They already know: because he is black.
As stereotypes go, this one is pretty new: it did not arise till the 1870s, after the black slaves were freed. As slaves they were seen as simple and childlike. Once freed, they were seen as being wild and out of control.
So if blacks were not kept in line by terror and lynchings, black men would freely rape white women. What, after all, would stop them? This became the stated excuse for Jim Crow - to protect pure white women against savage black men. When Congress tried to pass a law against lynching, white Southerners blocked it in the Senate for just this reason.
As it turns out, of all the blacks who were lynched only about one in seven was guilty of raping a white woman. In the case of Emmett Till all he did was call a white woman “Baby”. That was enough for her husband and her brother to kill him, a 14-year-old boy - and get away with it.
The true brutes in Jim Crow times were white men. They raped far more women, black and white - and, in the case of black women, got away with it. They were the ones who carried out the lynchings - which were far more savage and frequent than anything blacks had the power to do.
And even today blacks are three times more likely to be physically threatened, harmed or killed because of their race than are whites. So this idea of whites as peaceful and blacks as threatening to whites is not rooted in fact. It is rooted in something else.
Yes, there are black men who are violent and savage, who do unspeakable things. But there are white men like that too. In either case, they are hardly common enough to reasonably determine one’s ideas about the ordinary people of either race.
See also:
Wed 23 Apr 2008 at 14:35:21
Once again Abagond you touch upon a topic that reverberates throughout the black community. The media is an effective tool that has fueled the stereotype of brutish black men, so much too the point that even (yes even) some black people are beginning to fall victim to this belief. I am married to a black man, a man that was raised in the hood, and saw it all growing up. He is not the violent product of, but the product despite his situation. He is the most gentle, kind, slow to angry person that I have every encountered and it is frustrating that people (white people) will still give him a wide berth when we approach. It’s sad and disgusting that those individuals are so very blind to their own indoctrinations.
Formerly known as musiq
Wed 23 Apr 2008 at 17:08:33
Excellent post Abagond.
What is sad or ironic about black men being lynched for raping or sleeping with white women is the fact that there are now so many interacial marriages and relationships between BM&WW.
I noticed the way that whites would cross the street when they came across black men when I was a teenager. In Montreal I saw something different. The white people in Montreal did not act as if every black male on the street was going to rob them.
Abagond, I saw a special on the History channel about how cocaine was outlawed because it was believed that it turned black men into brutes.
Wed 23 Apr 2008 at 18:56:40
BeautyinBaltimore
I saw that same exact special! My husband and I watched it together and could only shake our heads in wonderment. To this very day wm are the predominate users and abusers of cocaine.
Thu 24 Apr 2008 at 20:19:30
Compared to much older stereotypes of Black women by whites, the black male stereotypes are relatively new and gets far more press attention than any others. Maybe because we live in a male-dominated society or is it something else.
Steph
Fri 25 Apr 2008 at 03:12:02
I think it is the strongest of the stereotypes and by far the most damaging, not just in Jim Crow times, but even now.
It is the strongest because it is based on fear.
Deep down whites know that if a black man bashed in their brains it would not be completely undeserved. Even in their blindness, they know the history of this country, they know it was built on a crime and they know that crime has never been made right. Even Pat Buchanan has to know that. All the whitewash in the history books cannot cover over the ugly fact.