More on Black Romance

I went a Google-hunting for a few links to Black romance reviews until I find find time on my tuffet to write some myself, and I found a very interesting article by Gwendolyn Osborne, aka “The Word Diva,” on AALBC.com. In her examination of Black romance, It’s All About Love, Osborne examines the stereotypes and issues facing romance, but more specifically, Black romance and the Black readers of romance novels. In short, Black romance fights the preconceptions about romance, as well as preconceptions and prejudices about Black women, and Black relationships. Note: I don’t know when this article was written, so if these quotes are profoundly out of date, I apologize.

Drawing from quotes from authors like Beverly Jenkins as well as from romance readers, Osborne examines the growth of the Black romance subgenre, and the social realities faced both by readers and by the characters within the novels:

[Renee A. Redd, director of Northwestern University’s Women’s Center, says] “They [romance novels] offer a substitute for those who have resigned to never really being able to find a fulfilling love in their actual lives. The reality of a dearth of available straight Black men for straight Black women is a disconcerting and painful issue before us. For a long time we have lived with the idea of the strong Black woman, who by implication can do without a romantic relationship if she must, but the truth is that she would rather not.”

This acknowledgement the social reality of the lack of marriageable African American men denotes the difference between sister-girl fiction and romance fiction, says second-generation romance reader Jean Dalton of New York City. “In Waiting to Exhale, four educated and successful Black women sat around complaining about Black men who were unable to commit, preferred white women, unemployed, incarcerated, gay, adulterous or sexually inadequate, etc. African-American romance heroines are more in charge of their futures. They aren’t sitting around waiting to exhale.”

Black romance heroines are located within a unique – and important – social and political culture, both in the fiction worlds they inhabit, and as part of the world inhabited by their readers.

While the theme of many contemporary romances relies heavily on the self-actualization of the heroine, Black romances also navigate a minefield as they struggle to portray Black protagonists that are very, very different from the majority of images of Black relationships portrayed in popular entertainment media:

As Emma Rodgers of Dallas’ Black Images Book Bazaar says, “African-American romance novels are so popular because they reflect the values of the majority of the Black community [better] than most other types of media. The men and women are educated professionals, gainfully employed . . . or are entrepreneurs, upwardly mobile. The women are independent, career-minded with goals. Both are law-abiding citizens. Readers seldom see these images reflected on the evening news or in the daily paper.”

But soft! What criticism from scholars through yonder window breaks? It is the critics, and they don’t like the sex. No, seriously: the idea of sexual content in a Black romance is a target of some sharp criticism, because the “the open sexual expression in romance novels can only reinforce negative stereotypes about Black women’s sexuality. Renee Redd says, ‘I think most Black women still believe that the sexual expressiveness allowed the women in romance novels and to women of other races is not equally extended to Black women.’”

Plus, there’s that lovely old romance=porn accusation, which of course raises it’s engorged and stupid head everywhere it goes. Hooray for Shareta Caldwell who, like many readers of romance, can actually tell the difference between romance novels and pornography: “Romances portray love, romance, and sensuality in an positive adult manner.  In romance novels, a man puts a woman’s pleasure first. This is not the case in pornography.”

Jennifer Coates of Chicago enjoys the committed relationships depicted in African-American romances. “In other media, we see intimate relationships being treated casually—like a handshake, but not that personal. The romance, the courting, the mystery seems to have disappeared from contemporary literature.” Coates cites Beverly Jenkins’ Night Song among her favorites because the interaction between the hero and heroine “demonstrates their appreciation and love for one another and solidified their relationship for me, elevating their sharing and mutual respect from a by-product, to the backbone of their intimate exchanges.”

Osborne’s article also examines cover art – a graceful curtsey to Ms. Osborne because, well, that’s just plain awesome and important. Boy howdy, is it important. Black romances not only face criticism as to their content, but also the cover art – whether it’s “Black enough” or “too Black.” One article cited featured a quote from an unnamed magazine publisher who stated that romance covers featuring Black characters in “Afrocentric styles” might make white readers uncomfortable. This same publisher said that covers without people would be preferable.

(White reader Sarah says: “What a bunch of unmitigated poppycock.”)

Readers cited in the article disagree: “Shareta Caldwell says, ‘I like it when there are Black faces on the books, especially if the cover is an accurate portrait of the character in the book. That is the reason I picked up Beverly Jenkins’ Indigo. I loved the picture. And I don’t like the idea of fooling people by not having real Black people on the front. If White readers can’t get past the braids, locks, bald-heads, and Black skin on the cover, then how are they going to get through the book?’”

Osborne’s examination of Black romance ends with an assessment that the genre is evolving as more authors publish in mainstream fiction, and as new authors enter the genre. But the various influences entering Black romance concerned one reader, who is unwilling to see what she views as a more courtship-and-commitment focused narrative become more influenced by “hip-hop values:” “Courtship, marriage, commitment and sex are definitely seen differently by this generation,” says reader Jeanette Cogdell who, according to the article, reviews books at Romance In Color.

Which generation, I wonder. Osborne’s final statement, that “Readers are drawn to the romance genre because the stories provide an escape and are devoid of racial conflict, gratuitous sex and profanity,” undermines and contradicts some of the statements made by readers and writers in the article itself, especially that the stories are devoid of sex or acknowledgment of racial conflict. But Osborne’s examination brought my attention to elements of Black romance that I hadn’t known about. The evolving image of Black in American popular culture is an issue that’s been examined with greater focus, it seems, in the past few years, but is the idea of books focusing on female sexual experience going to underscore or somehow validate negative sexual stereotypes of Black women? If scholars and critics distrust Black romance for its focus on Black female sexuality, what would the appropriate venue be for an exploration of the topic? Already erotica received a big boost in it’s turgid longevity by the strength and backlist of writers like Noire and Zane – I wonder what those same scholars and critics would say about the influence of those writers on the erotica market as a whole.

 

 

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  1. Danish says:

    How do people feel about the AA sections in bookstores? Most non-AA readers never even browse the section, thus aren’t even exposed to these works as an option. However, lots of our customers request the AA section (or urban romance). 

    Is this respectful or segregation?

  2. Suze says:

    Okay, first of all:

    He may be confusing “white” with “quiet.”

    He can’t possibly have spent any time around white women if he’s that confused.  Yeah, I’m a loud bitch, baby!

    Also,

    Because from what I’ve seen of “hop hop” culture (admittedly not a whole lot), it seems that promiscuity in men is glorified a great deal, and women who are willing to wear skimpy clothing and shake their ass, etc etc are the ideal.

    You can’t get accurate information from music videos.  Back when they first started airing, music videos showed big-haired, skin-tight-and-artfully-ripped pants-wearing, mascara-ed, skinny rockers living in post-apocalyptic streets with skinny tarts, er, “video vixens” as being the Metal Ideal.  (Chainmail bikinis, so very practical when fighting off mutants.)  Promiscuous men, women willing to wear skimpy clothing and shake their asses.

    It’s the Rock n Roll Dream, and it never changes, regardless of the style of music or the colour of the musician.  The gender of the musician, sure, but if it’s a man, you have not know he wants to be promiscuous with lots of semi-nekkid wimmin.

  3. Suze says:

    Er, please read “you have to know” where it says “you have not know”…

  4. Julianna says:

    This is very true – people talk as if rap & hip hop videos were the first to have underclad females jiggling around.  (I take no particular stance on underclad jiggling females, by the way).  The white guys were at it a long time before.  In my opinion, it’s a music video thing, not a Black thing.

  5. Mac says:

    So I’ll talk out of MY ass for a little bit:  Regardless of how “loud” individual white women may or may not be, a group of African Americans being “loud” will always get more flak in the U.S. because they will be seen as representative of a race, not as individuals who happen to be loud.  (In my area, South Asians are starting to get the same kind of flak, especially Caribbean-born, South-Asian-ethnic people. [and they’ll get a great deal of that flak from Asian-born South Asians.] The demographics are changing, so the dynamics are as well.)

    And yes, because American society teaches black woman that we are ugly (some of the hair-relaxer ads from the 80s were atrocious, but that was hardly the start of it) black women can look at black men who date white as being traitors.  I am not saying jack about it, because I have dated my share of lovely white guys (due to my major at my tiny college, the tininess of aforesaid college, my geek pursuits, and my subsequent career choices and their demographics)—however, I have been told by men both white, black, and mixed that they “just don’t find black women attractive” (but had no problem making me their “friend,” “one of my best friends,” “you’re my friend, you’re not like a GIRL-girl,” “oh, you’re such a good listener, I feel like I can tell you anything, so let me get your advice on this blonde girl that Swede, and this Italian girl that I’m dating/fucking/trying to fuck”)  that this:

    One time I heard this boy [white] who I was acquantices with make a comment that he didn’t see anything wrong with dating a black girl if she was pretty, but he’d never seen a pretty black girl so …

    …is really, really upsetting me right now, to the point where I’ve had to close my browser twice to just blink for a bit. (I’ve also heard a Japanese guy say that wassername, Chilli?—the long-haired one, I think?—was the only pretty member of TLC—because he was not American he had fewer qualms about forthrightly saying “because she isn’t so black looking.” This sort of thing makes me wonder, against my will—is it really socially-imparted, this universal disgust with us? Or is it ingrained in the DNA and objective somehow?  And I will never be able to tell because I am so immersed in the historically racist American milieu. So yes, I’m upset and making an effort not to outright wibble right now.

    I have had black African and Caribbean men attempt to pick me up with the line: “You’re not like these African American women; you’re so quiet.”  This is disturbing to me as a bi-cultural woman—often I DO feel more quiet/shy/reserved/introverted than my strictly African-American-raised colleagues (there are some big cultural differences), but I HATE that this difference is associated with negativity instead of just cultural difference. (I also hate it when one group of the other—but primarily the U.S.-raised—deny that there even is a difference.) I am often torn.

    My mom is still mad at Sidney Poitier for divorcing his black wife and marrying a white woman, and loves Denzel Washington, regardless of his comparative merits, because he didn’t do that.  (My preference is exactly opposite, but has nothing to do with their private lives.  I love me some Poitier.)  But my mom was born in 1937.  I don’t KNOW, I know nothing. Blah. I need coffee.  Or chocolate.  Mmm, chocolate.

    And just wondering here, but why is there this idea that it is mostly black men who are gay, adulterous, felons, etc etc? Seems to me that it isnt race that makes you any of those things, its personal choice.

    Shannon, please try not to suggest that being gay is a choice, or that it is on par with crime.

  6. Mac says:

    I DO feel more quiet/shy/reserved/introverted than my strictly African-American-raised colleagues (there are some big cultural differences)

    (By which I do not mean to suggest that any type of personality is more inherent to any group—just that different societies tend to reward different types of behavior.  What gets you promoted in the U.S. will fry your ass in Japan, for example.)

    (my sign-in is “death11.”  Ouch, ominous!!!)

  7. SB Sarah says:

    This is very true – people talk as if rap & hip hop videos were the first to have underclad females jiggling around.  (I take no particular stance on underclad jiggling females, by the way).  The white guys were at it a long time before.  In my opinion, it’s a music video thing, not a Black thing.

    Juliana: I agree completely. There are many ills in the world for which I hold Whitesnake entirely accountable.

  8. Lucie Simone says:

    Wow! What an interesting post and so many stimulating comments! I will say that when I saw the title of the post was “Black Romance,” I wondered if that was something like “black comedy.” I’d only ever heard this sub-genre referred to as “African American Romance,” before, so I was a little thrown. However, I am very interested in AA romance and IR romance and I’m as white as they come! Half my friends are non-white and I’ve dated many non-white men, so I’m always interested in reading romantic fiction that involves other races. I also saw “Something New” and absolutely adored it. And I just finished writing an IR novella (sitting on Brava editor Kate Duffy’s desk right this moment) with a white heroine and an African-American/Costa Rican hero. Race really isn’t much of an issue in the book, though it is dealt with in a humorous way in the beginning to sort of break the ice on the issue. But it is simply a romance between a man and a women without any stereotypical charicterization. In the end, it’s simply a romance.

    And I just have to say that even though I and most of my female friends (regardless of race) are certainly of a marrying age, we are all finding it hard to find ANY man that is marriage material. Perhaps it is because I live in Los Angeles and half the men in this city are actors or models whoring their way around town in hopes of wooing (is that spelled right?) an influential producer/director/Studio exec/what-have-you to get their careers off the ground. My point is, finding “the one” is a tough battle for most women and I think we can all relate to such storylines no matter what our ancestry.

    Just my humble opinion…

    Lucie

  9. How do people feel about the AA sections in bookstores? Most non-AA readers never even browse the section, thus aren’t even exposed to these works as an option. However, lots of our customers request the AA section (or urban romance).

    Is this respectful or segregation?

    Danish, there was considerable discussion of this on a recent thread here.

  10. Suze says:

    Whitesnake on a Plane:  Here I go again on my motherfuckin’ own!

    stay25: I wish!

    Mac, your whole comment is frying my synapses.  North American standards of beauty are so… ingrained, overbearing, EVERYWHERE! I don’t realize how much I’ve internalized we’ve made them until something like this hits me in the face.

  11. Trash Addict says:

    OMG – Jage, I heart your brain…

    I don’t think it’s an exact reversal however because girls from other races aren’t really going after white guys or what not, and those who do no matter their race are likely to get labelled as being ‘white washed’.

    You are right, not really a reversal, just a change in the tide, and I think it matters where you live. I live in Vancouver, BC where more than 50% of the population is non-white and interracial marriages have tripled in the last 5 years. It’s one of the things I love most about this city. That and the food. If you aren’t at least open to possibility here, your dating life will be very sad.

    To be honest I’ve never really thought about that ‘off limits’ aspect, but if that’s the case then why hasn’t it occured with coloured females?

    Now that you mention it, I get that ‘off-limits’ thing more from my husband than from feeling disapproval from others, which I don’t really care about. Over his life he has felt that taboo, and felt in danger over it and it was talked about a lot in his family (possibly because he grew up in a predominately white area?). He himself wanted to marry a black woman, his family wanted the same thing. He couldn’t find what he was looking for.

    As well, it has to do with the fact that every day you see someone telling you that something about you isn’t that pretty.

    I think everyone can relate to that! Your ego will take a thousand hits a day depending on your media exposure and how many idiot white guys you are standing next to (Seriously? “I don’t see anything wrong with dating a black girl if she was pretty, but he’d never seen a pretty black girl so …” He said that? What a total ass!) What percentage of “beautiful women” in the media are blond haired, blue-eyed, big-boobed but otherwise stick thin? Wayyyyyyyyy too many as we all know! But I think the big thing to recognize is everyone feels that weird pressure to be a wax mannequin; women that may be considered conventionally pretty will still feel insane pressure about the things that aren’t perfect. I don’t think that women that starve themselves TO DEATH or very nearly feel that great about their appearance. All those models hate themselves as much as anyone. Sad for them that they have nothing else of value to offer the world.

    Lately I’ve noticed a trend of mixed/light girls lashing out at darker girls, maybe in response to the negative attention they receive or because now black girls have started to be considered pretty on main stream beyond the ones that are mixed?

    That sucks. I hate that women are always the first to attack other women. I would put it down to insecure women who can’t handle the competition, like you said.

    @ Trumystique

    Of course you are absolutely correct. We can’t even scratch the surface of this topic here. I just had such a crush on Jage that I had to find out what she thought…

    @ Orangehands

    the media/society has taught us that they are ugly, loud, ball-cutters (as in will cut your balls off), and other very negative stereotypes, and those have been subtly and not-so-subtly reinforced in a variety of ways since the beginning.

    Exactly what I think!

  12. Trash Addict says:

    @ Lucie

    My point is, finding “the one” is a tough battle for most women and I think we can all relate to such storylines no matter what our ancestry.

    Exactly what I have been trying to get at. You will have to excuse me if I’ve taken the long and contentious way around. I’ll stop babbling now…

  13. Mac says:

    I don’t think it’s an exact reversal however because girls from other races aren’t really going after white guys or what not, and those who do no matter their race are likely to get labelled as being ‘white washed’.

    I’ve known quite a few women of color who treat being married to a white man as a badge or a special “club,” and have been exhorted by their mothers to have pale babies ASAP, so I don’t know how true that is. I know one woman whose mother stopped speaking to her when she divorced her blonde German husband and married a black Bajan man, and only started speaking to her again when the first grandkid learned to walk. (Granted, this is not as much a phenomenon in the U.S.—I think it’s that not only are we more separated, we are more physically spread out.  Our population density is like six times less than that of your average European country. Hence all that driving we do, too. :-D) Her dad used to sneak over and visit, though.

    I think everyone can relate to that! Your ego will take a thousand hits a day depending on your media exposure

    The difference being that with most white women in the West, the things being criticized are individual traits, not big sweeping racial ones (one might not like one’s fine, straight hair, but no one is going to tell you it’s not work-appropriate or look at it like an alien lagoon creature.  And every mainstream beauty mag will have loads of tips for it). Of course, neither thing is very cool or pleasant for the woman, whatever shade, who is weathering these nasty comments and false ideals.

    My point is, finding “the one” is a tough battle for most women and I think we can all relate to such storylines no matter what our ancestry.

    Hence why the genre is popular!  😀 I agree, I think. I doubt I’d have ever even known I was supposed to have special difficulty had I not been confronted with this data in the media—it’s certainly not so evident in my daily life.  (I mean it’s there if you look, but you don’t spend all your days especially thinking about it!)

    (“natural43”!  Ha!  *wears curls*)

  14. American society teaches black woman that we are ugly […] So yes, I’m upset and making an effort not to outright wibble right now.

    Mac, this reminded me just a little bit of how I felt in response to some recent cover snark here at SBTB. I didn’t say anything at the time because in the scheme of things it was very minor, and was written with no intention to be hurtful, but all the same it stung a little when I clicked on this post, looked at the pictures and then read “Heroine with absurdedy big, absurdedly curly hair”. Because my hair (although in dark brown, not red, and a little bit shorter) looks pretty much exactly like that of the heroine with the “absurdedy big, absurdedly curly hair.” In fact, my hair’s probably even bigger because it’s curlier. And I’ve noticed in romances that quite often the heroine feels she looks ugly because her hair’s gone frizzy in the damp. Mine looks like that pretty much all the time.

    I really like my hair the way it is, but I’m always aware that a lot of other people probably think it’s a bit weird/ugly.

    Anyway, I’m not trying to derail the thread or make it all about me, just saying that I sympathise with you and your wibble.

  15. Mac says:

    @Laura Vivanco—If you haven’t read “Curly Girl” by Lorraine Massey, you REALLY should!  All those testimonials from curly-haired women of all kinds of ethnicities were pretty darn inspiring.

    When I was a bit younger I remember feeling quite terrible when my friend, who was Jewish (for the record, we were both adults, but I was newer to the adult thing—maybe 21 or so?) told me that she didn’t feel DRESSED unless her hair was straight.  Just from years and years of her mother cutting her hair off at the chin and straightening it (and it never got glossy and swingy, either, it was just sort of a barely-contained frizzish helmet thing).  And when she’d go home from college, her mom would say things like “aren’t you going to do your hair?” and “oh.  You’re going out like THAT?!”

    And there I am thinking, in my naive way “oh CHRIST—if even WHITE girls are getting this nonsense there is no hope for the planet.”

    My point being, Yay Lorraine Massey!  (I’m not a “real” writer, except for tax purposes :-D, but I have been scribbling intermittently on a story where the characters engage in all kinds of African hair care, without ever actually calling them “black” people—it’s a fantasy and I don’t think they’d have that concept internalized.  Lots of moisture, and finger-combing only!  It winds up being quite a familial bonding ritual.)

  16. Mac says:

    (Oh, and your hair sounds gorgeous to me.  ;-D)

  17. Thanks, Mac! I’m very fond of my hair now, but in the past I wasn’t so sure about it and thought that perhaps it would be better to have a short, straight bob of dark hair or long straight blonde or auburn hair.

    My mother (who also has curly hair, but she’s always had it short) never suggested or did anything like what your friend’s mother said/did, but she did tend to keep asking if I’d brushed my hair at times when (although she didn’t know it) I’d only just brushed it. Again, not a comment that was designed to be hurtful, but the implication seemed to be that my hair would always look a bit untidy, however recently I’d brushed it.

    I like a quote from the description of Massey’s book: “let their hair break free.” I think we all need to break free from restrictive, discriminatory beauty ideals, and letting our hair break free is a good place to start.

  18. Teddypig says:

    Juliana: I agree completely. There are many ills in the world for which I hold Whitesnake entirely accountable.

    THIS!

  19. The Vixenne says:

    I’ve gotta say one of the big problems black women have (and I think women of color in general) is that we’ve internalized hundreds of years of being viewed under a racist lens.  Black women have been viewed as mammies, aunt Jemimas, loud ghetto/welfare queens, hoochies, and church girls.  Asian women are viewed as exotic and submissive.  Latina women are viewed as sultry or long-suffering madonnas.  Women of color did not control their images and they did not control their sexuality, until now.  I have said before that the sexual revolution never happened for us—one reason that many women of color envy what we perceive as an openness that white women have.

    Of course we don’t see ourselves as beautiful because we’re using a paradigm created and maintained by racist patriarchy.  The thing is though, if we’re as “ugly” as the conventional wisdom would have us believe, then why are so many non-women-of-color going out of their way to have our features?  Full lips used to be considered an unattractive trait, but not any longer (and no, do NOT give that credit to Angelina Jolie).  Hips, butts, darker skin, even hair styles once considered “too ethnic” have found their way into the mainstream (I’m sure many of you remember Bo Derek’s cornrows in 10).  And frankly, we couldn’t have been TOO ugly if the slavemasters couldn’t keep their hands off of slave women—just as Thomas Jefferson.

    Okay, so the thing is this, until we women of color stop giving power to hurtful internalizations, finding love with ANYONE is going to be a struggle.  One of the greatest aspects of the AA romance is reading about strong, intelligent and BEAUTIFUL black women being loved and cherished by a strong, intelligent, RESPECTFUL black man.  This is not a fairy tale because it happens everyday and I am the product of a forty-three year old marriage between two strong and proud black folk.

  20. Trumystique says:

    Vixienne, its not about the problems of women of color- its about the problems of white women. The fact that someone fails to find me a beautiful woman has just as much to say about him/her than it has to say about me. I am all about self-love and decolonizing minds.

    So really this post/thread isnt about critically analyzing “Black Romance” rather it should be on the whiteness of Romance. In another way lets talk about White Romance because thats what is being reviewed and talked about in 95% of RomanceLandia. People should be asking themselves “Why am I blind to the love stories of people whose only difference from me is the color of their skin?”

    I have been lurking on these sites for years and have only recently delurked. But I am so sick of the same cycle that is often repeated. It goes like this:

    1.Someone brings up the whiteness of Romance or racism/segregation in Romance
    2.Someone says we didnt know
    3.Someone says I dont see color and I would read them if I could find them
    4. Someone else say but Author X has a ( insert name of racial/ethnic group here) so thats not really true that Romance is like that
    5. Someone else says I am not a racist but “I just want to read a good book”/“I dont want to be preached to”
    6.Someone else says I want something I can “relate to”
    7. There is much discussion, ignorant comments are strewn about and there is wringing of hands and some “cant we all get along?”
    8. Someone else blames the whiteness in romance on the publishing industry and marketing departments
    8. Someone else blames it on the bookstore
    9.Someone else blames it on the lack of blogs reviewing romances with non-white folk as heroine/hero
    10. Someone else say but it helps writers of color to have their books segregated
    11. Someone else asks for some recommendations because again all they want is “a really good book”
    12. Multiple someones provide authors and novel for the TBR list
    13. There is much discussion, wringing of hands and some “cant we all get along?” and then there is self-congratulation for being so openminded
    14. Then the topic is ignored for many months to come.
    15. Cycle. Rinse. Repeat

    So really my question is what is different about this. What are all the smart, witty SBers that get incensed about homophobia, sexism, plagiarism, literary snobbism going to do about this ?

  21. Trumystique says:

    I suggest people see this powerful five part movie on the lens of whiteness

  22. Kymberlyn says:

    Vixienne, its not about the problems of women of color- its about the problems of white women. The fact that someone fails to find me a beautiful woman has just as much to say about him/her than it has to say about me. I am all about self-love and decolonizing minds.

    I agree with you to a point, but I was actually responding to an earlier comment.  However, the decolonialization process works both ways, and one of those ways is to take the imaginary power that people of color have give to whiteness all these years.  It’s like what Frances Cress Welsing wrote in The Isis Papers about white people getting tans.  Why darken one’s skin, and risk skin cancer, if such a trait is supposedly unattractive?  There’s a huge hypocrisy in white supremacy that seldom, if ever, gets discussed.  It makes no sense whatsoever, and the intellectual hoops one has to jump through to make it fit…wow!  The fact that women of color through choice or circumstance can read books by white authors and that feature white characters and somehow rise above the race to find that common human denominator, and yet some white women readers seemingly cannot (or will not) do speaks volumes.  It’s ignorance and it’s fear.

    My favourite example of the whole ridiculousness of placing whiteness on a pedestal is the origin of the bustle.  The bustle was not solely to give a drape to the voluminous skirts at the time, but was designed to simulate the hips and buttocks of African women—whom at the time were actually the favoured mistresses of many members of European royalty.  There’s actually a famous painting, I believe it’s either at the Louve or the Hermitage, depicting the African mistress of some Swedish noble.  From there when I go shopping at Macy’s or Nordstrom and see things like Spanx or the fanny pads and girdles at Fredericks, I just snicker because I know who they’re made for and whom such items were created to emulate. 

    Oh, and your list is dead-on accurate.

  23. Willa says:

    Holy mackerel, Trumystique, that list is an absolute bullseye. I’ve rarely seen a summary so perfectly done.

  24. So really my question is what is different about this. What are all the smart, witty SBers that get incensed about homophobia, sexism, plagiarism, literary snobbism going to do about this ?

    Trumystique, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know that what was probably another cycle of “Rinse. Repeat” for Monica Jackson resulted in some columns being put up at AAR about AA romances. I was one of those people who said I didn’t know about them and then I went off and tried to find some of the books that had been discussed, bought some, read them, and found out where to look for reviews of more AA romances. I don’t suppose the number of romances I buy is going to make any significant difference, but it’s one thing that I’m doing. As an independent scholar I’m not responsible for anyone’s syllabus choices, but I know that some of what might have seemed like “Rinse. Repeat” discussions about the topic have affected my colleagues’ syllabus choices. I’ve got some AA romances that I’m planning to write about.

    I don’t think I’m doing a great deal, but I suppose my personal experience is that what might seem to some people like a “Rinse. Repeat” may actually be having an effect on some other people, even if it’s perhaps a very tiny and not very noticeable effect.

    And thanks for the Youtube link. As you say, it was powerful.

  25. Poison Ivy says:

    Trumystique, your list is darned accurate.  Here’s mine:

    1) Some people will do something.
    2) Some people will do nothing.
    3) Some people will change their minds just a little bit.

    Progress

  26. Shannon says:

    Oh man. Maybe I should have just stayed lurking, and sorry that I couldnt respond until now, I had school and sports eating up my afternoon when much of this seemed to be going down.

    @Trumystique

    I think you took what I was saying in the wrong light. I know full well that it isnt just AA females that are promiscuous or good in bed. And I know full well that hip hop doesnt mean AA culture. But you cant deny that the majority of people in hip hop, or who are presented as the best artists in hop hop, are black. And, to me at least, hip hop and really white culture as well, too a degree, congratulates the male for promiscuity. And do you ever see a well dressed business women in a hip hop video portrayed as some symbol of desire and lust?

    As it is portrayed, or as the majority of people I know see it, those are the ideals that seem to come across. I’m not saying they are the ideals actually held, or the actual truths, or any of that. Its just what gets seen, and what perpetuates rumor and stereotype and bias, because all thats ever seen is the same image and the same stories reinforcing the same half truths.

    As to the fear of black male sexuality, yeah, I know it isnt the only thing feared. I dont believe I stated that it was, and if I did then I apologize, because I misspoke (mistyped, whatever). I was just noting that it was enough of an impact that my history book designated a full three paragraphs to talking about it. Therefore, I assumed that maybe it would have some impact on the discussion about black romances and sexuality, and so I mentioned it.

    And not to say that all stereotypes are true, but they are all based in small part on fact. Otherwise they would never come to exist in the first place.

    @paradigm

    I cant deny that I dont know a whole lot about black culture because I’ve never experienced it. I was just saying what I as a white girl was thinking as I read through the discussion. I would be quite shocked if it perfectly jived with the actual truths of black culture and lifestyle.

    With the sexual stereotypes, to be quite honest it isnt as full blown from what I personally have seen and encountered than what you describe. Yeah, stereotypes are wrong, agreed. But as stereotypes go…maybe not such a bad one. I wouldnt mind having a reputation for being an awesome dancer. Would I mind having a reputation for being an easy lay? Yeah. But I think that, no offense, you dont just get that. Girls in my school dont get that kind of reputation from no where, they earn it, the few black girls included. I just assume that that extends beyond my high school. If it doesnt, I apologize. Again, I’m just working off of what I know.

    @Mac

    Sorry bout that one, agree completely. Didnt realize I had included it in the “choice” statement I was directing toward adultery and felonies until after you made mention of it. I apologize for that.

  27. Jage says:

    Well, I’m super late, but figure I’ll weigh in anyway. Oh, and for the previous posts sorry for the cut off sentences I was tired and my brain was hopping from thought to thought so I’d go to add/change something then think of something else and move on, then when I reread it I guess I just filled in the blanks, lol.

    @orangehands: Join the club, though I did well on the final so that saved me, lol. I read about 1/3 of the sequel before I had to choose between finishing my work and packing or reading it and then having to pay $50 bucks for moving out late. I decided to get in gear, lol. I think I’ll copy and paste the comments instead of paraphrasing.

    @Trashaddict:
    *head inflates* mutual crush, it works, lol. And to get back on topic:

    I live in Ontario, which is considered multicultural [I don’t know any stats] but depending on the area you live in you get a totally different experiance. Here, well in the surburbs here, it’s easy to stick with your own race/culture which is great when you want to visit ChinaTown or Little Italy or whatnot but makes the mingling aspect still a bit foreign.

    I grew up in an area that was mainly brown people and asians, a medium sized amount of black people and then a handful of white, there was one white person in my grade eight graduating class. I started highschool down there and aside from a few ‘ooh, I see so and so likes some cream with her coffee *wink*’ comments mixed girls were just as accepted as others when it came to mingling with other groups.  Then I moved to a predominantly white area and although it was ‘safer’ I experianced the most racism there, intentional and not, like with the no pretty black girl comments, he really didn’t think he was being offensive. Because it was ‘true’. I didn’t really handle that well since I had to rant about it to my friends who told their friends and every black girl and their friends for the most part, white or black, treated him like he had syphillis and the black guys took huge offence and in a small school that leads to a sort of black vs. white type of mindset even when it’s just one person’s opinion.

    But yeah, there people expected you to pick a race and stick with it, and if you didn’t choose theirs they wanted to know how come you were so close-minded [I’m sure this happens to all bi-racial kids but the lines were drawn a lot clearer here]. I have a friend whose boyfriend has pretty much been delegated as her ‘cute little white boy’ he has no problem with it and it’s caught on but after reading this I wondered how fast I would’ve broken up with my boyfriend if he’d refered to me as his ‘cute little black chick’ instead of just his girlfriend.

    Then I moved to Windsor where there are a lot of transfer students from Africa and I saw the thing that Mac was talking about, where Africans or people from Carribean descent acted as if black females all act a certain way and if you didn’t you were an anomaly instead of a product of your upbringing//culture.

    I have had black African and Caribbean men attempt to pick me up with the line: “You’re not like these African American women; you’re so quiet.” This is disturbing to me as a bi-cultural woman—often I DO feel more quiet/shy/reserved/introverted than my strictly African-American-raised colleagues (there are some big cultural differences), but I HATE that this difference is associated with negativity instead of just cultural difference. (I also hate it when one group of the other—but primarily the U.S.-raised—deny that there even is a difference.) I am often torn.

    It was mainly interesting to me on the fact that I have never met a black person over here who didn’t claim descent from an island [Jamaica] or didn’t have family from Africa still, as in they were first generation Canadians, so when they were surprised that I wasn’t loud or that I wouldn’t fight someone over foolishness I didn’t get where they got that impression.

    And then I was talking to my sister and she mentioned that for the most part you put a group of people who are the same race in a room they will start speaking in their language and they’ll get louder in an attempt to talk over people, they’ll blast their music and mingle and at some point there will be an argument. A lot of the people at my school met each other at parties or knew each other before hand so they were comfortable with each other, where as I’m shy and unless you’re family the chances of me mingling is extremely slim. And at a largely African party where the music and the dancing style is different than what I’m used too [depending on the music/song. I can’t dance to most hip hop as I was raised largely on reggae, dancehall, soca and calypso] I will sit in a corner and just chill because I don’t want to look a fool, not because of my skin.

    On the other hand, over here I’ve seen people agreeing that there are cultural differences, even when it comes down to Trinidad vs. Jamaica vs. Guyana etc. Although the differences all tend to be negative stereotypes we have against one another.

    On that note, I’m dead tired and just wanted to say I found this whole discussion interesting and enlightening. I usually lurk but I wanted to comment and I’m glad I did.

  28. Shannon, re “And not to say that all stereotypes are true, but they are all based in small part on fact. Otherwise they would never come to exist in the first place.”

    I disagree. There are quite a few other possibilities. With some racial stereotypes/myths it is easy to prove that they have absolutely no “fact” to them at all. For example

    In 1348 there appeared in Europe a devastating plague which is reported to have killed off ultimately twenty-five million people. By the fall of that year the rumor was current that these deaths were due to an international conspiracy of Jewry to poison Christendom. (Jewish History Sourcebook

    and there was the “blood libel.”

    Sometimes the grain of “fact” in the stereotype is tiny and distorted, as when some Romans believed that Christians were cannibals: “The charge of ritual cannibalism was probably based on confused accounts of the Christian eucharist” (Ancient History Sourcebook).

    Stereotypes can be based on people’s projection of their own fears/desires onto others:

    Projection theory is often applied in the study of stereotypes. A general claim of projection theory is that stereotypes reveal more about the stereotype holders than they do the group depicted. With respect to the Black rapist claim, Brundage reports that “Black men were said to represent for white men a sexual liberation that they wanted but could not achieve without contradicting their race’s professed mores.” White fear of imagined Black potency could therefore be seen as symptomatic of internal conflicts about about Whites’ own sexuality. Stereotype projection can also be seen in terms of guilt arising from the discrepancy between a repressive ideal and actual behaviour. For Christians who murdered Gypsies, Blacks, Jews, and Native Americans, while ostensibly following the teachings of the Prince of Peace, such a discrepancy is not hard to imagine. (Erickson 121)

  29. Oh, and Shannon, I’d like to comment on this bit too:

    Would I mind having a reputation for being an easy lay? Yeah. But I think that, no offense, you dont just get that. Girls in my school dont get that kind of reputation from no where, they earn it, the few black girls included. I just assume that that extends beyond my high school. If it doesnt, I apologize.

    If you think about the evidence you’ve presented, you’ve actually said that most of the girls with a reputation for being “easy” are non-black, since there are only a “few black girls included” among the group of girls with “that kind of reputation.” If one really did assume that that “extends beyond your high school,” the implication you should be drawing is that white girls are “easy” since most of the “easy” girls you know are white. In any case, this would be a false conclusion, because even if the majority of girls in the “easy” group are white, there are probably more “non-easy” white girls in the school than “easy” ones. So why focus on the “easy” ones rather than on the larger group who aren’t “easy”?

    I’ll take an example about women drivers, from an article by Deborah Tannen, in which she demonstrates how stereotypes are not necessarily based on a correct analysis of date, but rather on people picking out the examples that match an existing stereotype and ignoring examples which would contradict it:

    My father, like many men of his generation, held the belief that women were incompetent drivers. During my teenage years, family car journeys were invariably accompanied by an endless running commentary on how badly the women around us were driving. Eventually I became so irritated by this, I took to scouring passing traffic for counter-examples: women who were driving perfectly well, and men who were driving like idiots.

    My father usually conceded that the men were idiots, but not because they were men. Whereas female idiocy was axiomatically caused by femaleness, substandard male drivers were either “yobbos” – people with no consideration for others on the road or anywhere else – or “Sunday drivers”: older men whose driving skills were poor because they used their cars only at weekends. As for the women who drove unremarkably, my father seemed surprised when I pointed them out. It was as if he had literally not noticed them until that moment.

    At the time I thought my father was exceptional in his ability to make reality fit his preconceptions, but now I know he was not. Psychologists have found in experimental studies that when interpreting situations people typically pay most attention to things that match their expectations, and often fail to register counter-examples.

  30. orangehands says:

    Jage: LOL. You are stronger than I. My friend told me tonight as we were making dinner that I wasn’t tracking her at all, so though I think I did well on my paper…there’s a good chance I made absolutely no sense at all. (Damn engaging stories). But I have to say, didn’t like her sequel nearly as much. (Still read the whole thing before writing my essay as I am a complete waste, but it wasn’t as great). I can’t fall asleep right now (I’m an insomniac half the time), so I tried reading her fanfic piece but had to stop after a few pages [I’m really not big on cheating and had no clue which author she was “fanficing” (did I just make up a word?) so I wasn’t invested in the characters] and her suspense just wasn’t doing it for me. Did you like her other stuff more? Hope she sticks to romance for the upcoming one.

    Trumystique: Poison Ivy wrote it better, but you (general you) never get more than an inch done each time. (I do volunteer work, and I do political work, and if you get one person to become active, that’s more than most). Extremely frustrating, I agree, but this stuff only changes because we (general we) keep rerinsing and rerinsing and rerinsing until the hair is about to fall out…and then we see a little, teeny tiny change. Very rarely does the difference come in leaps and bounds. At least that’s my two cents (or wherever the economy is at). What’s the saying? You run a mile to make an inch?

    Laura: you’re hair is perfect. Fuck the rest of them

    The thing is…how do you fight something that is bombarded at you minute after minute in so many ways…I think the statistic is the average kid hears 432 negative statements per day, but only 32 positive ones.

    Shannon (not to pick on you) but two things…

    Would I mind having a reputation for being an easy lay? Yeah. But I think that, no offense, you dont just get that. Girls in my school dont get that kind of reputation from no where, they earn it, the few black girls included.

    Maybe your HS (college?) is different. There’s the possibility. But at my schools (HS and college now, and yes, semi at MS), girls have gotten that for having one one-night stand, for being raped (ever hear of a train? Very few, if any, do those willingly), for doing it with more than one boy (or even just one boy), for not even going all the way, for having rumors spread about them, for being pressured into sex/sex acts, for talking about sex openly, and probably many more reasons I’m blanking on right now. And not trying to sound hostile, but when have you referred to a guy doing the exact same thing as a slut/easy lay? (Maybe you do). I’m not in any way suggesting there aren’t promiscuous girls out there. But the label girls walk around with…mostly viciousness. Not nearly close to being true. I’m curious- the girls known as easy lays. Have you seen them having sex with someone new every time? Have they told you they were screwing someone new each day? Or is it that rumor…she does it, did you hear what she did, she’s done all the guys on X, etc.

    Yeah, stereotypes are wrong, agreed. But as stereotypes go…maybe not such a bad one. I wouldnt mind having a reputation for being an awesome dancer.

    All stereotypes hurt. What happens when you aren’t a good ___ (dancer, in this case)? You fail as a woman and you fail as a member of that race. I don’t have that innate skill. What’s wrong with me? What will people think? And self-esteem drops some more.

    Another example: Asians are all good in school. Sounds cool, right? See an Asian, think they’re smart. But this ignores a) the dedication they have to put into their schoolwork (well sure X got an A, s/he’s Asian), b) the historical context on why Asian parents push their kids (same thing the Jews did earlier in the C.), c) ignores the Asian parents who don’t push their kids, d) ignores the kids who do bad in school, e) creates low self esteem in those who don’t do well, f) gives another reason to hate a race (an issue in Asian-Latino/a relations), g) helps perpetrate the idea that a race is a monolithic entity, h) helps perpetrate the idea a person’s race is linked to their smarts…and so many more letters that I’m just not thinking of now.

    Also, just throwing this out there. I like to watch people, and I try to pay attention to a lot of factors when doing so. (What are my biases? How is what I see just one aspect of them? etc etc). Anyways, to cut to the chase, my college had a group of little kids (I think ten year olds, but not positive) visiting the dining hall I was at yesterday. And if you don’t believe in segregation…one table of white boys, one table of white girls, one table of Latino boys, one table of Latina girls, and one table of mixes (whites, latino/as, and the two Asian kids). This is not the first time I’ve seen a group break like this, and it won’t be the last.

  31. orangehands says:

    Laura: just saw your last two posts. The reason why I love you so, right there. (I’ve read theories based on projection theory in relation to stereotypes, but never had it said “projection theory”; and yes to finding examples to fit the stereotype, not break it).

  32. orangehands says:

    ooo, two more things (I think at one point in my life I knew how to shut up, but that point has long passed)

    one, thanks for the youtube link, Trumystique.

    two: I heard this really great analogy of (fighting) racism that I’ll share, because I feel like it fits for most activism.  You have the people running/walking on the treadmill of blank (for example, racism), you have people standing there (not actively participating but not stopping it either), and you have people walking/running against the treadmill. Active racism, passive racism, and active resistance.

    anyway, I’m gonna go before I really start talking out of my ass… 🙂

  33. I think the statistic is the average kid hears 432 negative statements per day, but only 32 positive ones

    And you’ve just added two positive ones to my day 🙂 Thank you, Orangehands!

    I’m very glad you pointed out all that about how how problematic it is to categorise anyone as “easy.”  It’s a good reminder that when it comes to the idea that “there’s no smoke without fire,” the cause of the fire may be an arsonist and not the person whose house has just gone up in flames.

    I think I’ve come up with another reason why the so-called “positive” stereotypes can be harmful. I’ll go back to that article by Deborah Cameron (sorry, I got her surname wrong the first time I mentioned her). Again, she’s giving an example related to sexism, but one can see how this would also apply to “positive” racial stereotypes:

    A few years ago, the manager of a call centre in north-east England was asked by an interviewer why women made up such a high proportion of the agents he employed. Did men not apply for jobs in his centre? The manager replied that any vacancies attracted numerous applicants of both sexes, but, he explained: “We are looking for people who can chat to people, interact, build rapport. What we find is that women can do this more … women are naturally good at that sort of thing.” Moments later, he admitted: “I suppose we do, if we’re honest, select women sometimes because they are women rather than because of something they’ve particularly shown in the interview.”

    The growth of call centres is part of a larger trend in economically advanced societies. More jobs are now in the service than the manufacturing sector, and service jobs, particularly those that involve direct contact with customers, put a higher premium on language and communication skills. Many employers share the call-centre manager’s belief that women are by nature better qualified than men for jobs of this kind, and one result is a form of discrimination. Male job applicants have to prove that they possess the necessary skills, whereas women are just assumed to possess them. In today’s increasingly service-based economy, this may not be good news for men.

    But it is not only men who stand to lose because of the widespread conviction that women have superior verbal skills. Someone else who thinks men and women are naturally suited to different kinds of work is Baron-Cohen. In The Essential Difference he offers the following “scientific” careers advice: “People with the female brain make the most wonderful counsellors, primary school teachers, nurses, carers, therapists, social workers, mediators, group facilitators or personnel staff … People with the male brain make the most wonderful scientists, engineers, mechanics, technicians, musicians, architects, electricians, plumbers, taxonomists, catalogists, bankers, toolmakers, programmers or even lawyers.”

    So, to get back to racism, what happens to people in the “sexy” group? How will that affect their likelihood of getting employed in “non-sexy” professions? Will it be harder for people from a racial group associated with being good at sports and dancing to get into professions which are associated with brainpower? Will the people from the racial group thought of as “smart” be seen as too cerebral to be employed in sensitive, caring professions?

  34. Shannon says:

    @Laura Vivanco

    I will mention that there are a total of I think 9 black girls in the entire school, so my perceptions are again based on what I see, which is not a whole lot.

    As for focus on the easy ones, people like sex, they like scandal, they like to gossip and pass rumors and think they’re better than other people. Thats why I think that focus is always on the “easy” girls, because they’re a sensation, something to talk about. I think that extends beyond just HS rumors, too. Media focus on the negative, celebrity scandals, all that, I think, can be attributed to people wanted to feel better about themselves because hey, at least they arent in that situation.

    To your article (just thinking out loud here), I’m thinking that maybe some stereotypes are perceived as more lasting (not exactly the word I want) than others? Like from my own personal experience, no one that I know gives any credit at all to the whole “Jewish girls have big noses” thing, because we all know plenty of Jewish kids with noses just like everyone elses. But then maybe “Latino guys are all players and dont treat women well” gets a bit more credit in my school, because there’s a huge number of Latino guys….and thats what the vast majority seem to do.

    With women drivers, all I can say to that is that women arent naturally possessing (in most cases), the same skill set as guys that allows them to automtically be good at things like video games and driving and whatever. So that little thing there, where women were learning for the first time and having to be compared to guys who had been driving for years, is maybe what started some of that, and keeps it going now. (Because God knows, I just got my permit and I cant keep going at one steady speed. Everything else is great, speed control, not so much).

    And also there’s just plain bias and prejudice and crap people choose to believe to justify their own actions so they dont feel like major dickheads for treating people badly.

    To the women just being assumed to have certain skills thing you just posted, it sounds a lot like something we learned in history that pervaded through 100+ years and just appears now in other forms rather than disappearing. Its called “spheres,” where theres the guys sphere and the female sphere, and in each sphere are the acceptable tasks and behaviors and desires and all that stuff of each gender. If you arent in your sphere, you better get there fast. IIRC, it was used by a number of state legislatures to smack down women’s rights legislation in earlier years before the movement got any momentum. Theye would say that it wasnt in their sphere, so obviously they cant be good at it and it cant be God’s will that they do it. Otherwise it would be in their sphere.

    @Orangehands

    Sounds like you had a rough school to go to. Mine doesnt seem to be like that at all. The girls who get the reputation are (as far as I know, speaking about the girls I know in my grade who I’ve talked to and suchlike) the ones who wear the skirts that could pass for hand towels, and the shirts with their boobs popping out the top. They talk about how they hooked up with this guy last weekend but he wasnt as good as this guy two weeks before. They’re the once at parties who are full on grinding with all their dance partners and each other and lifting their skirts and things like tha.

    So maybe its just isolated in my school, but you tend to earn it, and if someone gets branded unfairly people figure it out. It doesnt take very long to see someone and be able to discern the difference, if there is one, because its usually pretty apparent.

    With the guys being an easy lay…that was what I was getting at but not saying. Male promiscuity is seen as favorable and positive and awesome and hey, your a player, your not a man-whore.

    And maybe I’m just different with stereotype/perception things since I tend to not hang around with that great a group of people, but I dont really feel that I’ve failed as a woman or a person or even a dancer because I dont know “Solda Boy” and cant “drop it like its hot” without falling on my ass (have tried, it happened).

    And I do completely acknowledge that all stereotypes are bad and harmful in some way. But just saying, some worse than others.

    With the little kids sitting, its like that every single day in elementary, middle, and high school. You join a click and that click is all you want and all you need, and you dont leave it for anything. You arent in a click, well then whats up with that? Do you have friends? Why dont you hange out with them? I see it everyday, that kind of purposeful separation. With it happening on racial lines…I guess there’s some of that, but I dont think I really see it as much in my particular lunch period, though I’ve heard it happens during the other ones. My thoughts there is that you stick with what you know and what makes you comfortable. If I find myself one of six white people in a room of 70 Latino kids, then I’m going to gravitate to what I know and where I feel safe.

  35. Trumystique says:

    Long post again

    I think you took what I was saying in the wrong light.

    Shannon: No in fact I didn’t take what you said in the wrong light. It is there in black and white. Instead of owning what you said and how shitty what you said is you are making excuses.

    Here is what you said:

    Does anyone think that the reason only 20% of black women get married is a cultural thing? Because from what I’ve seen of “hop hop” culture (admittedly not a whole lot), it seems that promiscuity in men is glorified a great deal, and women who are willing to wear skimpy clothing and shake their ass, etc etc are the ideal. So those two things together there, if its a widespread cultural thing (and it seems to be in my school, which is possible Whitest School Ever yet still manages to bring that over), then could that be part of the issue? All those bad standards and behaviors that arent conductive toward happy monogamous relationships keep getting reinforced as positive?

    So lets recap. You suggested that perhaps the reason black woman are married in such a low percentage is because of culture. Hip hop culture promotes promiscuity and promotes scantily clad and booty shaking women. Those cultural mores of hiphop culture would be the reason for black women not being married in high numbers because those standards from hip hop arent conducive to monogamours relationship. That is exactly what you said.

    You have many underlying assumptions here that are clear. First, that there is a some intrinsic cultural reason for black women not getting married. You suggest that hiphop may be the culture to blame and thus are assuming that hip hop culture is African American culture. Further, you assume that hip hop as presented in popular media is actually an accurate representation of the culture.( You completely ignore all the other expressions of hip hop especially of the underground variety that arent misogynistic or promote promiscuity, booty shaking that are part of hip hop culture)  You assume that hip hop as presented by Clear Channel and other media conglomerates which puts forth 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg and others is the hip hop culture. And you assert that hip hop culture( as seen in popular media) promotes promiscuity and that the reason black women arent getting married is because of the culture promoting promiscuity and downplaying the importance of marriage. You pay no attention to the fact that hip hop is a form that is maybe 30 years old and that the trends in black women’s marriage pattern predated hip hop. Maybe you didn’t know. You can own up to that and the fact the you were totally and completely talking out of your ass. Admit it- don’t say that I put words in your mouth.

    Then you go on to say:

    Also, I found the comment about romances with black characters reinforcing negative black female stereotypes interesting. Historically, IIRC, it was always black male sexuality that was feared (with good reason, there be some damn good looking black men) by white men. So could this be a case now of white women fearing black female sexuality? There is always this idea in people I’ve talked to and media I’ve seen that black women are just more sensual and sexual (not in a bad way), better dancers, better lovers, and yeah, more wild in bed…but is that necessarily a bad thing? To me it seems like black women got a reputation for things that arent necessarily bad, and maybe white women felt threatened by that. They have been the standard for beauty for so long, what are they going to do when all the white men start chasing black girls?

    You say that you think that the discussion in the article SB Sarah quoted was interesting. Because historically black male sexuality was feared by white men. And you say black male sexuality was right to be feared because of all the attractive black men you see. You suggest that in current times white women are beginning to fear black female sexuality because of jealousy on the part of white women who fear that black women are true to their stereotypical reputation as more sensual/ sexual, better dancer, and more unihibited lovers.

    That’s what you said Shannon- not me. You critically accept stereotypes as truth. You blindly assert that all stereotypes are in part true and wouldn’t be stereotypes unless they were grounded in a little truth. You try to make yourself look better by saying that stereotypes are bad and nobody should hold them. But as the same time you talk out of the other side of your mouth and say “But they are kinda true- at least from my experience”.

    Again, you no historical perspective. Yes, white men feared black male sexuality. But part of their fears were transferred. They were dealing with repressed sexual ideas of the time that said proper ladies didn’t like sex and proper gentlemen didn’t force sex on ladies of breeding. So they elevated wives and mothers unto these pedestals of white virginal beauty. And they put black man as the demons who with their rampant sexual urges were trying to dirty that virginal purity of white women. But that stereotype had more do with what white men were thinking and feeling than what black men were doing

    If you read Regencies you have a feeling for some of these ideas. The rakish hero has sex with many a lightskirt and lower class woman of the demimonde but never with a proper lady. The rakish hero always is sad that he has to get married and do his duty and produce an heir. Part of doing his duty is laying on top of his wife and getting the job done. No pleasure is expected for either partner and usually the heroine thinks there is something wrong with her if she enjoys sex. It’s a recurring theme in Regencies that echoes what was happening in those times and before.

    Again, the stereotypes of black women have more to do with white men and women than it has to do with black women. So black women were cast as overally sexual and more sensual beings always ready for sex. How convenient for white Americans and white colonialists the world over! All these willing black women for them to use for their sexual desire and gratification. “Oops its not my fault I had sex with her this black temptress used her wiles on me”. The myth of the oversexed black women has worked for white upper class women too. It allowed them to look the other way at the indiscretions of their husbands. “It wasn’t his fault he had to work it out with this black whore- men will be men after all1”. Did you know that up until recently a black woman couldn’t accuse a white man of raping her and sucessfully prosecute him? http://www.brandeis.edu/projects/fse/Pages/victimraceandrape.html

    Instead, Regencies use the same outlets. Many, Regencies novels will show an entitled lord, duke or what have you “using” the maids. Cant use his wife like that or any proper lady but he can use a woman of the lower classes because everyone knew they were “easy” and had “base morals”. Its no wonder that more historical romances are not set in the American South than you would have to deal with that Negro Problem and that historical legacy. So instead writers pretend that black folk didnt exist in Europe or the US.

    Shannon, you need to think a little and question more. Just because you think it doesnt make it true.  You need to learn more about the world outside of your high school . I suggest reading Black Looks: Race and Representation by bell hooks for a start. Maybe you could do it for a book report. And just because you think it doesnt mean you have to speak it. Your comments came across as ignorant and bigoted. Learn something from this, own it and move on.

  36. Trumystique says:

    Sorry there were may typos above. Please excuse them. One of the worst.

    That’s what you said Shannon- not me. You critically accept stereotypes as truth. You blindly assert that all stereotypes are in part true and wouldn’t be stereotypes unless they were grounded in a little truth

    .

    Should be:
    That’s what you said Shannon- not me. You uncritically accept stereotypes as truth.

  37. Trumystique says:

    Laura, I hear what you are saying. And I appreciate that the cycle of rinse and repeat may be changing things slowly and incrementally. And I think you are doing a wonderful job of critically analyzing romance on your blog. And yes its like a pebble into a pond and there are ripple of effects. And I think that you underestimate the power of what you are doing. Because as you blog, write, teach and make syllabi you are developing a cannon of popular romance literature. And if you include other voices, that have a different narratives, have a different POV and have protagonists of color than the whitewashing of romance and the exlusion of WOC will be a little less powerful.

    Still,  I am dissappointed that more of the SB community is not more incensed and not committing to do more. Its been years that this issue has been raised. If you look at the sidebar of links you see many SB regulars who have blogs and could do something with their voices, wallets or what have you and dont. This level of silence and inaction saddens me-especially when I see that this community can be moved to action for things that they care passionately about. The fact that they seemingly dont care seems to speak volumes to me.

  38. Cora says:

    But it is not only men who stand to lose because of the widespread conviction that women have superior verbal skills. Someone else who thinks men and women are naturally suited to different kinds of work is Baron-Cohen. In The Essential Difference he offers the following “scientific” careers advice: “People with the female brain make the most wonderful counsellors, primary school teachers, nurses, carers, therapists, social workers, mediators, group facilitators or personnel staff … People with the male brain make the most wonderful scientists, engineers, mechanics, technicians, musicians, architects, electricians, plumbers, taxonomists, catalogists, bankers, toolmakers, programmers or even lawyers.”

    As someone who never matched the standard gender stereotype (you’d be hard pressed to find a less nurturing and less diplomatic individual than me, even though those are supposed to be my female strengths), I dislike the reductionism of the male/female brain theory. And of course, the most notable thing about those jobs for female (brain)s is that they are far lower paid and have less prestige on average than those for male (brain)s. The call center agent example actually reinforces this, as at least in my country call center agent is a job with low prestige and bad pay. And here as in the example from the Guardian, the majority of call center agents are women.

  39. Suze says:

    I’ve been puttering about, trying to think of a way I, personally, can respond to the challenge Trumystique issued yesterday.  And when I got to the bottom of the comment thread, I found my verification word to be color97, so now I have to respond, because it’s like an omen.  The literary gods are speaking to me.

    Publishers and booksellers will always attempt to fill a niche in the market if they think they can make money from it.  So my mission would be to (help to) enlarge the Black Romance niche, and then merge it with the generic Romance niche such that the distinction effectively disappears.

    What I, as a consumer of Romances, can do is:

    a) buy Black Romances, and
    b) review them in as many venues as I can, thereby
    c) raising awareness of their readability, thus
    d) increasing demand, so that
    e) more people will buy Black Romances.

    If I add one specifically Black romance to my purchases even every second week, that’s 26 books that I might not have picked up, unless I’d gone looking for them, and 26 books that I may be recommending to my reading buddies.

    So, my criteria are that they have to be romances, and they have to feature character(s) who are not white.  And it may be that I’d normally pass them by because they don’t leap screaming into my arms, which is how I normally purchase books, but now I’ll buy them specifically .  (If the books don’t scream, I try the library or UBS, because I don’t want to spend my limited book budget on non-screamers.)

    I’ll adopt this practice for a year, at which time I’ll revert to buying screamers only.  I fully expect that, by the end of the year, some of these niche books will become screamers.

    I’m differentiating between non-white characters and non-white authors.  I think the point of this thread was that we want to see more books with non-whites IN them, regardless of the pigmentation of who WROTE them.

    So that’s my plan.  Hopefully, when this topic comes around again (as it probably will), I’ll have made the mainstreaming of Black Romance at least 26 books closer to done.

  40. orangehands says:

    Laura:  🙂

    And of course, the most notable thing about those jobs for female (brain)s is that they are far lower paid and have less prestige on average than those for male (brain)s.

    I’d change that to, these jobs for females are lower paid and less prestigious jobs because they are traditionally by females or use traditional/stereotypical female behaviors.

    Shannon:

    First, you shoudl check out this article by Peggy McIntosh called “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” (Esp pg. 2 and on):
    http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf

    So maybe its just isolated in my school, but you tend to earn it, and if someone gets branded unfairly people figure it out. It doesnt take very long to see someone and be able to discern the difference, if there is one, because its usually pretty apparent.

    First, based on my experience of the human race, I don’t really see a (harmful) label being dropped as people go, “oh, we just got it wrong”. You’re branded as a slut, you stay a slut. Second, I would caution against basing people on how they dress or a dance style- that’s a generation thing. The fashion industry makes it very hard for someone to dress in items that aren’t like that, and the dance style is grinding. I like going to clubs, but I normally stick with my girlfriends because ever guy in there just wants to grind against my ass, not dance. I’m not saying there aren’t girls who hook up with random guys all the time (though again, talking vs doing, big difference), but I’d caution basing your whole opinion on a person by how many guys she’s kissed (and kissing is different from sex). There are many different reasons that label gets placed for, and once the label lands it stays.

    And maybe I’m just different with stereotype/perception things since I tend to not hang around with that great a group of people, but I dont really feel that I’ve failed as a woman or a person or even a dancer because I dont know “Solda Boy” and cant “drop it like its hot” without falling on my ass (have tried, it happened). And I do completely acknowledge that all stereotypes are bad and harmful in some way. But just saying, some worse than others.

    But that isn’t your stereotype, is it? I’ll try another example since the Asian-school sterotype didn’t seem to work. People automatically assume a Latino/a person can speak Spanish. And when they can’t, they are looked at as less authentic, more white-washed, less “real”, and so on, by people in their “race” and outside of it. So don’t you think that would affect how they see themselves, since we are all influenced by those outside of us? 

    My thoughts there is that you stick with what you know and what makes you comfortable. If I find myself one of six white people in a room of 70 Latino kids, then I’m going to gravitate to what I know and where I feel safe.

    That was my point. We need to examine and pay closer attention to why we think we can’t connect with people outside of our race, our social class, our sexuality, our experience. We need to see why we always have to feel “safe” instead of seeing the person for who they are, which yes includes but is not in any way limited to race.

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