Black Women have had controlling images imposed onto them for centuries. These controlling images have dictated how Black Women have been perceived and treated. In her book, Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins addresses four controlling images that have commonly been associated with Black Women. Those four controlling images are the mammy, matriarch, welfare queen, and jezebel. Although all of these controlling images have their own distinct negative implications, they all seem to have one thing in common: they are centered around the sexuality of Black Women. The jezebel archetype is central to the nexus of all controlling images centered around Black Womanhood. It portrays the Black Woman as one who is promiscuous and has an insatiable sexual appetite. Ideas conveyed through this controlling image have been central to the injustices that Black Women have been forced to face for numerous years. Not only has this controlling image led to the hypersexualization of Black Women, but it has also given leeway for elite white males to make attempts to control Black Women’s sexuality. This attempt to control Black Women’s sexuality has forced Black Women into a culture of dissemblance and sexual silence. Over the years Black Women have strived to move away from this culture of dissemblance and dismantle the controlling image of the hypersexualized jezebel. They have relished the idea of experiencing sexuality as a source of pleasure while also assuming their own authority in sexual power. By creating alternative self-images, Black Women have redefined their sense of self. Black Women have made great strides to assume agency over their lives and more specifically their sexuality. Nevertheless, Black Women’s attainment of their fundamental right to assume authority in sexual power is often seen as transgressive and even criminal.
On Wednesday, November 1, 2017, Jane Snedd took to twitter to body shame Demetria Obilor, a traffic reporter for a news station in Texas. Snedd commented on Demetria’s size as well as her choice in clothing. To Jane, Demetria looked “ridiculous,” but to many other women, especially Black Women, she looked like a queen. While some people may be shocked that Demetria was put under a microscope for her natural figure and choice of clothing, this was nothing new. For centuries, Black Women have been scrutinized for their bodies. This scrutinization dates back to the 1800s when Sarah Bartmann, a South African Khoikhoi woman, was exhibited in Paris and London as the Hottentot Venus. She was displayed for her “intriguing” figure, but more specifically her buttocks (Collins 26). This idea of scrutinizing and examining Black Women for their physical features has been prevalent for many years.
For years white male elitists have taken great fascination and interest with the Black Female body (as seen through the Sarah Bartmann story). However, this fetishization was in no way innocent. It led down a spiral of dehumanization and created a space for whites to uphold a social order that has made Black Women vulnerable to sexual violence. While the fetishization of Black Woman was depicted through whites first interactions with Black Women, the hypersexualization of Black Women has its roots in slavery. When Europeans first began to travel to Africa, they encountered different African tribes in which African Women were scantily clad. The Europeans viewed the tribal dances and the semi-nudity of African Women as a representation of lewdness. Europeans were truly “intrigued and fascinated” by this free expression of sexuality. Unfortunately, their misperception of African culture was used to create a stark contrast between Blacks and whites, but more specifically Black Women and white Women. It not only created a mindset centered around the hypersexualization of Black Women in slavery, but it was also used to maintain the institution of slavery as a whole. White men used it to justify the rape of Black Women by white men which enabled and supported racial domination while also perpetuating a cycle that produced “profitable bodies” for the institution of slavery. During this time, whites created notions that Black Women’s sexuality in and of itself was deemed as criminal, immoral, and transgressive and was the root of the pathologization of the Black community as a whole. While this notion was false in its entirety, it was a fundamental aspect that helped to uphold a racial and gendered hierarchy, which placed Black Women at the bottom, for centuries.
Some people may argue that this notion has died as many Black Women today are taking control of their own sexuality in many forms. However, it is evident through the Demetria Obilor case that this is not true. Her choice to wear a dress that showed of her curvaceous figure was deemed as reprimandable. At a surface level this attack on Demetria may just seem to be an attack on her choice of clothing. However, it stems from something much deeper. By choosing to wear a dress that showed off her curves, by choosing to wear a dress that accentuated her sexuality, by choosing a dress that demonstrated a profound level of confidence, Demetria was pushing the bounds of respectability. It is no coincidence that the woman who was the first to comment on Demetria’s attire was a white woman. As I mentioned earlier, there have been major contrasts set up to distinguish Black Womanhood from white Womanhood. In her essay, Olympia's Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity, Lorraine O’Grady compared Black Womanhood to white Womanhood. She asserted that the female body in the West is like a coin. “On the one side, it was white; on the other, non-white or, prototypically, black…white is what woman is; not white (and the stereotypes non-white gathers in) is what she had better not be.” However, Demetria did not “gather in” the stereotypes that have been imposed on Black Women for centuries. She was not depicting herself as an asexual motherly figure, she was not symbolizing the “bad” black mother, she was not portraying herself as the passive, impoverished mother, nor was she presenting herself as a sexually aggressive woman. If Demetria did not fit into any of these respectable molds, then what was she doing? Demetria was not perpetuating any of the acceptable roles that Black Women “should” identify with. Instead, she was doing something so profound, so radical, so revolutionary that she had whites shook. She was using her sexuality as a domain for exploration, power, and agency. However, this of course could not be accepted because if she could do this without any repercussions, then other Black Women would be able to do the same thing right in front of the eyes of the rest of white america. Of course, this would not be okay because then the viability of the state, everything that whites have attempted to build over the years, would be in jeopardy.
Another example in which a Black Woman’s sexuality was publicly chastised was seen in the case of Danièle Watts. Danièle Watts is a Black actress who starred in Django Unchained. One day, Watts was in Los Angeles with her boyfriend, who is white, and the two engaged in minor PDA. According to Watts, she was sitting in her boyfriend’s lap in their car as she was kissing him. Someone called the authorities and claimed that the two were engaging in lewd conduct. When the police showed up to the scene, one of the officers asked for Danièle’s identification. After she refused to give the police officer her ID, the police detained her due to the accusations that she was engaging in lewd conduct.
Similar to the incident with Demetria Obilor, this incident brings attention to the long history that revolves around how Black Women’s bodies are perceived and treated especially in relation to white males. The inability of the spectator and police officers to perceive Danièle as a Black Woman who could engage in pleasurable or intimate relations stems from the hypersexualized image of the Black Female body. This image led the spectator and police officers to believe that the only way a Black Woman could interact with a white man on such an intimate and pleasurable level would be if she was “at work.” This perception not only perpetuates the incorrect idea that Black Women are sexually promiscuous, but it also dehumanizes and devalues the Black Female body.
Demetria, Danièle and many other Black Women have deviated from the controlling images that have been imposed on them by the ideals established by whiteness. Black Women have been unapologetic in their mission to cripple the established constructions of their Black Female identity. This has been transformative for Black Women on a massive scale as it has opened the floodgates. It has paved the way for Black Women of all different backgrounds and identities to create a space in which they can explore and have agency over their sexuality and their own forms of pleasure. Unfortunately, historical and social constructs have attempted to eliminate the personal nature of Black Women’s sexuality and enjoyment of pleasure. Instead Black Women’s discovery of pleasure and sexuality on their own terms has been turned into a public sociopolitical matter. As a result, Black Women’s noncompliance with controlling images and archetypes, that have historically dictated Black Womanhood, is often perceived as transgressive, criminal, and pathological.
Demetria Obilor and Danièle Watts offered alternative images of Black Womanhood and Black Female sexuality. They offered an alternative view of how Black Women can experience pleasure. By unapologetically departing from the prescriptive paradigms of Black Womanhood, these two women and many other Black Women have responded to the misreading, disreading, and stigmatization of Black Women’s sexuality. Although Black Women’s rejection of the stereotypical and controlling images of Black Womanhood is often perceived as transgressive, Black Women will continue to strive toward redefining the terms of Black Womanhood. Through redefining society’s constructions of Black Womanhood, Black Women can create a space in which they can explore their sexuality and experience pleasure on their own terms.