Journal of Undergraduate Research
Volume 4, Issue 12 - September 2003
Stereotypes and Perceptions
Joanna Neville
Sisters
Sisters in Joy, Sisters in Sorrow,
Sisters Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow.
Strong, Determined,
Spirited and Unshaken.
Through our differences we find commonality,
Through our weaknesses we find greatness,
Black Women, White Women
Reach deep within
As we build our sacred trust
We are Sisters Beneath the Skin.Kathy Russell, 19951
What still divides us?”2What still divides African American women and white women in the United States today? Is it that African American women and white women still carry inaccurate perceptions and stereotypes of each other? According to the 1998 issue of Essence magazine, there are certain attributes that are embedded in our minds. Essence and Ladies Home Journal convened a roundtable discussion. They asked these direct questions and got these honest answers:
“What’s the first thing you think of when I say white women?
‘Intelligent’
‘Manipulative’
‘Privileged’“And what’s the first thing you think of when I say black women?
‘Strong’
‘Determined’
‘Attitude”3
How do these perceptions begin? These perceptions may stem from the slavery era when black women and white women were placed in different places in society, thus creating different images of each other. First, the Anglo- Saxon slaveholding white women found their identity as a mother and wife. “Convention [gender convention] declared that the household responsibilities of slaveholding women were natural extensions of their personal relations as wives, mothers, and daughters, all of whom answered to a master who was husband or father” (Fox- Genovese pg 192). The character of white women consisted of their interactions with their white men.
The black slave women did not find their identity in
the reactions of their men, nor bear the normal gender conventions of
the typical Anglo- Saxon white women. Slave women often had numerous
children. At birth, the child did not know the system of slavery that
they were born into. In fact, for the first years, the slave child would
play with the other white children and be nursed by one of the older
children or a grandmother figure. Harriet Jacobs was one such slave
child who did not learn of her slave status for years. “ I was
born a slave, but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood
had passed away. I was so fondly shielded that I never dreamed I was
a piece of merchandise” (Jacobs). However, as soon as a child
was old enough they would begin to be trained for chores, mainly within
the house. A child could fan the slaveholders during dinner to keep
flies way, bring firewood, wash dishes or other tasks for small hands.
Harriet Wilson illustrates this in the novel, Our Nig, “A
large amount of dish washing for small hands followed dinner. Her labors
were multiplied; she was quite indispensable. Although but seven years
old” (Wilson pg 30). White women are beginning to examine their relationships
to Black women, yet often I hear them wanting to only deal with little
colored children across the roads of childhood, the beloved nursemaid,
the occasional second grade classmate- those tender memories of what
was once mysterious and intriguing or neutral. However, there is still a tension and misperception between
white women and black women today. In all aspect of life, these stereotypes
reflect erroneous images. They are in our novels, in our movies, in
our music. Without a consciousness of these perceptions, the audience
will understand them to be true. The audience internalizes the images
and then continues to reinforce and support them by buying the book,
seeing the movies and listening to the music. The recognition of the
problems, communication and eventual support between black and white
women must occur. The film industry produces pictures that communicate
its values to an audience of people. Save the Last Dance speaks to one
of the main discrepancies between African American women and white women,
interracial dating. Save the Last Dance first appeared in 2001 by
Paramount Pictures with the leading role, Sarah, portrayed by Julia
Stiles. Sarah is a promising young ballet dancer who moves into the
inner city of Chicago to live with her father when her mother dies from
a car accident. Sarah must encounter a predominantly African American
high school with the experience from a suburban predominantly white
high school. In private, we were often like sisters, laughing,
chatting, and enjoying one another’s company.. But whenever
together people were around, the barrier of color went up automatically.
Without acknowledging that we were doing, we became more distant to
one another.” Where can African American women and white women begin
to nourish their connection together? Are there areas within society
that are more conducive to forming these friendships? In an interview
conducted by sociologists Mary Jackman and Marie Crane of two thousand
adults, 70 percent white, only 9.4 percent of whites could even name
one “good friend” who was Black.6
Bowerman, Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth, Within the Plantation Household.
University of North Carolina Press. 1988 Back to the Journal of Undergraduate
Research © University of Florida, Gainesville,
FL 32611; (352) 846-2032.
The slave woman found what she could of her identity in different areas
of the white women. They could not relate to the gender roles of white
Anglo-Saxon women of the south. The white female identity came from
a system of interaction and duties to the male power of the time. This
is different within the slave community. First, there was no domestic
sphere for women to preside over in the slave cabins. They could not
solely do all the cooking, cleaning and other conventional female roles.
Slave women were stripped of the attributes of the conventional female
role. Second, white women could define their feminity in opposition
to the masculinity of their husbands. However, this was not the case
for slave women. Their ‘husbands” were not seen as men or
defined by the white Anglo-Saxon masculine gender roles. Since slave
women often times worked along side their men, men could not define
themselves through work. “Slave women could not see gender as
a complete identity because slavery forced on them a double view of
gender relations that showed the problems with gender identification
Slavery stripped men of masculinity giving women no social definition.”
( Fox Genovese pg 373)
Film Analysis: Bridging or Widening the Gap?
Audre Lourde, “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism,”
Sister Outsider, 19844
Save the Last Dance
The issue that the movie develops the most is the interracial relationship
between Sarah and Derrick, an African American man at her school. The
African American women that surround Sarah voice their problems with
dating an African American man. In one scene, Sarah fights a classmate
Nikki. Sarah believes that Nikki likes Derrick and this is the reason
why they fight, however she is wrong. Nikki states, “Its about
you, white girls like you. Creeping up taking our men. The whole world
ain’t enough you got to conquer ours too.” Nikki is not
the only female that disagrees with their relationship. Chenille, Derrick’s
sister, comments to Sarah about Derrick, “He is for real and here
you come white so you gotta be right and you take one of the few good
men we have after drugs, jail and drive bys. That is what Nikki meant
by you being up in our world.” In society, this issue often separates
African American women and white women. “Because of the disproportionate
number of Black men marrying and dating white women on effect has been
to drive Black and White women apart. Not surprisingly, African American
women have become angry at White women for ‘stealing’ black
men, already in short supply” (Wilson and Russell 125). Film critic
Kevin Johnson notes the difference in opinion in his January 2001 review
in the Los Angles Times, “In her naiveté, Sara sees everyone
living in the same world, only to be caught short by Chenille's bitter
remark, "We know different."
Literary Analysis: Can We Be Friends?
Idella Parker: Idella: Marjorie Rawlings’ Perfect Maid, 19925
In her book Killers of the Dream, Lillian Smith attempts to
destroy the ingrained boundaries of white and black spaces. She clearly
illustrates spaces for African Americans and depicts images of concrete
boundaries. However, she also demonstrates how detrimental these ideologies
are to society. Smith exemplifies her point when she retells the story
of the black girl that must be sent back to the orphanage after her
family realizes she is not white. “Then I found it possible to
say, ‘Why is she leaving… ‘Because, Mother said gently,
‘Janie is a little colored girl.’” (Smith pg 37) In
addition, Smith uses imagery to covey to the reader the tangible boundaries
that society creates. Images such as walls, screen doors, closed doors
and frames all show limiting spaces for African Americans in the Southern
society. “To keep this resistance strong, wall after wall was
thrown up in the southern mind against criticism from without and within”
(Smith 26)
Smith also depicts the detrimental effects that segregating spaces has
on the subconscious mind. She devotes an entire part in section three
to “Three Ghost Stories.” These ghost stories represent
how boundaries are broken and produce “ghost stories,” or
the return of repressed emotions to the subconscious mind. “By
practicing intellectual deafness we could keep ourselves from hearing,
or hearing simultaneously, the antiphonal choruses of white supremacy…
The mind finds it easy to split itself” (Smith pg 115)
In the last chapter of her book, Smith exposes how boundaries are not
strong enough to stand through consciousness Smith draws on images of
“merging” and “fusing” of the boundaries within
the mind. She creates an image of a mythic mind that sees the opposite
of the dangerous rational mind. “The mythic mind sees nothing
of the kind: it sees mongrelization, fusing, merging, melting…
The rational mind would be embarrassed by this business; it would keep
trying to fit the statements to facts: the facts of a changing world…
But the mythic mind couldn’t care less.” (Smith pg 245)
Bell Hooks speaks of one of her experiences talking about African American
women and white women in one of her essays, “As the show began
taping whenever I spoke about some of the negative ways white women
and black women perceive each other and interact with one another, I
was yelled at by an audience of black and white folks who were insisting
that nothing I was saying was accurate” (Hooks pg 215). Hooks
speaks to an important point, acknowledge the rift between us. To acknowledge
and destroy the misperceptions and the tension they create. White women
and African American need to communicate about each other, but first
society needs to create a space to do that. For now, it is up to the
individual to cross the boundaries.
FOOTNOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hooks, Bell. Killing Rage: Ending Racism. New York, Owl Books.
1995
McMillen, Sally. Southern Women: Black and White in the Old South.
Illinois: Harlan Davidson Inc. 1992
Smith, Lillian. Killers of the Dream. New York. Norton Company
Inc. 1949
Sterling, Dorothy. We are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth
Century. New York: W.W. Norton Company. 1984 Wilson, Harriet. Our
Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black. New York: Vintage
Books. 1992
Wilson, Midge and Kathy Russell. Divided Sisters: Bridging the Gap
Between Black Women and White Women. New York. Anchor Books. 1996
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
| University Scholars Program
| University of Florida |