Lines, Vines and Trying Times: Melanogynophobia

In DANGER of Becoming Morally Deprived.

    In Hicks Part 2, the deviance and innate “immorality” of the black woman is described as it became a pandemic problem in the early 20^th century. Black woman were constantly the cause or worry and distress to communities and family as they were deemed deviant for being out in the streets late. Many believed that living in predominately black neighborhoods exposed young women to unsavory influences that were not so evident in white and primarily immigrant communities (187). To solve this issue, many women were placed in correctional institutions to make these women corrigible and submissive again. Over the years, the black families of these young women gradually became aware of the repercussions of their decisions, and black women from that point on were seen as deviant agents in our society.

    How do these notions play out in today’s society? In a Black Agenda Report by Dr. Edward Ryhmes, he explains how the sexual exploitation that black females have been stigmatized with have made them icons of threat, deviance and fear in our media today. He states, “While white women's sexuality is celebrated in movies and magazines, Black women acting out the same behavior are relegated to the ranks of whoredom”. To this day the stigma and label remains, Black women’s sexuality has been deprived through the media and exploited to the point where it makes black women appear uncontrollable or “wild”. Ryhmes continues, “Historically, White women, as a category, have been portrayed as examples of self-respect, self-control, and modesty -- even sexual purity -- but Black women were often (and still are) portrayed as innately promiscuous, even predatory. Such beliefs can be traced back to the New York State Reformatory at Bedford, as these precise believes were the fear of the communities during that era. Unknowingly, women were subjected and coerced into a vicious cycle of incarceration which still resonates in our prison systems today.

    So why is it that similar behaviors in a white woman today are seen as talents or arts, but when a Black woman partakes in similar things she is deemed criminal or wrong? Rhymes further states, “Black equals dangerous; Black equals savage; Black equals barbaric; Black equals forbidden, infected and inferior”, these all ideas that were created from the beginning of the negative perceptions of black women in the early 19^th century. What I find ironic is how society as a whole embraces and accepts these stereotypes of the Black woman, yet ceases to recognize the root of where they began; slavery. Still today, we live in an unfortunate society that continues to perpetualize these oppressions towards black women, not taking into consideration the origins of these ideologies.

http://www.alternet.org/story/52067/a_%27ho%27_by_any_other_color%3A_the_history_and_economics_of_black_female_sexual_exploitation