Black & Gold

Volume 2 Article 2

2016

The Colonial Roots of the Racial Fetishization of

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Holmes, Caren M. (2016) "The Colonial Roots of the Racial Fetishization of Black Women," Black & Gold: Vol. 2.
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 Holmes: The Colonial Roots of the Racial Fetishization of Black Women

The Colonial Era:

The narrative of New World imperialism was eroticized by rhetoric that sexualized the

imperialist practices of European colonizers. Documentation of the British conquest is riddled

with language that suggests the sexual nature of the land and of its discovery. In his travel logs,

Columbus suggested that the earth is shaped like a woman’s breast (Mclinktok, 2001). The New

World was frequently described as “virgin land” by colonizers, wrongly suggesting an empty and

uninhabited territory (Mclinktok, 2001). This patriarchal narrative of imperialization depicts the

New World through rhetoric normally ascribed to women, suggesting the land’s passive and

submissive nature, awaiting the conquest of men. This romancization was used to validate the

conquest of the land itself, precluding the sexualization of the women made victim by these

imperialist mindsets. The feminization and sexualization of the European imperialist narrative

encouraged the sexual exploitation of black women who were perceived as byproducts of

manifest destiny. In modern American, black female bodies continue to experience

disproportionate rates of sexual exploitation and abuse. I suggest this continued exploitation is

rooted in a colonial imperialist framework maintained through historical reproductive control

and hyper-sexualization. In this paper I will begin to untangle the construction of modern racial

fetishization as an extension of the sexualization of black bodies during the colonial era.

Prior to the British journey to the New World, epic tales of imperialist travelers probed

the minds of Europeans regarding the nature of African people. African men were said to have

gigantic penises, and it was rumored that African women engaged in sex with apes (McLinktok,

2001). These tales likely reflected the subconscious fears and Freudian sexual confusion of

Europeans. However, these dramatized stories were interpreted as factual, and they informed

some of the first European perceptions of African people. When black people were first brought

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to the New World as slaves in the early 1600s, it is no surprise that they became part of the erotic

narrative of colonial imperialism. The perception of black people as hyper-sexualized and

uncivilized paved the road for the dehumanization and sexual exploitation imposed upon black

men and women brought to the New World.

The Slave Era and Pseudo-Science:

Colonial “scientific” findings as products of pseudo-scientific investigation suggested the

subhuman and inferior sexual nature of black people. Phrenology and other pseudo-scientific

fields that studied human difference suggested that black people were subhuman and “less”

evolved than white Europeans. These studies scientifically endorsed the dehumanization of black

people and were used to justify the enslavement of an entire race; some even believing that the

enslavement of black people was a philanthropic attempt to help the “uncivilized savages” of the

African continent. Similarly, slave owners of the New World internalized this scientific narrative

to validate their inhumane and abusive treatment of black slave women. Unsubstantiated

perceptions regarding the sexuality of black people were confirmed through pseudo-scientific

investigation and perpetuated by prominent scientists and politicians, including the founding

fathers of the United States. In Notes on the State of Virginia, one of the most influential political

documents of the eighteenth century, Thomas Jefferson suggests that black men are “more ardent

after their female: but love seems with them to be more eager desire, than a tender delicate

mixture of sentiment and sensation” (Jefferson, 1788, pg. 168). His book depicts black people as

participating in a primitive and emotionally immature form of sexual intimacy. Jefferson

suggests the hyper-sexualized nature of the black woman, not discriminating in her choices of

sexual partners. His depiction of black women as having an unlimited and undiscriminating

sexual capacity paved the way for a rape culture within the framework of American slavery,

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viewing African women as sexual commodities rather than as human beings with sexual agency.

Social Darwinism further validated these beliefs. Social darwinistic theory during this time

suggested that the sexual inferiority of black people was an innate result black evolutionary

defectiveness. The pseudo-science and social darwinistic beliefs surrounding black female

sexuality contributed to the dehumanization of black women in colonial American society.

Colonizers perceived black men and women as subhuman byproducts of manifest

destiny. Slaves were stripped of their agency and desire; they were dehumanized, morally,

physically, intellectually, and sexually. Slaves were sexualized as animals through the

institutionalized system of chattel slavery. Slave women considered most capable of producing

children were commonly referred to as “breeders,” and were bought and sold based on their

reproductive efficiency. The value of black women in the United States evolved contingently to

their sexual and reproductive economic worth. Female slaves were often subject to invasive

inspections of their reproductive and sexual features on the auction block prior to their purchase

(Green, 1936). Mary Grayson, a woman who lived in slavery throughout most of her life,

asserted that “large families were the aim and pride of a slave owner, and he quickly learned

which of the slave women were breeders and which were not” (Grayson, 1936). The

reproductive efficiency of slave women was tied to the economic interests of slave owners who

“could always sell a breeding woman for twice the usual amount” (Grayson, 1936). Within

institutionalized slavery, the sexual and reproductive productivity of black women could be

literally measured in dollar signs.

Slave women were dehumanized not only as economic and reproductive property, but

also as a disposable sexual commodity. The subhuman conception of Africans did not deter male

slave owners from pursing sexual relations with their human property. On the contrary, the

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power dynamics fostered by U.S slavery encouraged the sexual exploitation and rape of black

slave women by white slave owners. Even if a woman seemed to consent to the advances of

white owners and overseers, in reality she had no choice (Aikin, 1833). Though laws existed in

the country to criminalize sexual relations between blacks and whites in order to maintain racial

purity, rape and sexual assault of female slaves by white slave owners was pervasive. Analysis of

slave narratives that discus the lives of black slave women suggest rape was a common

occurrence. Laws that existed to protect women from statutory rape were not applied to black

women or girls within the American legal frameworks during or after the slave era (Browne-

Marshall, 2009). The laws that did exist were made primarily to protect the white male

perpetrators. When cases of sexual relations between black women and white men were brought

to the courts, black women were perceived as the seducers of white men and were subjected to

harsher punishment (Browne-Marshall, 2009). Slaves could not legally testify against whites in

court, and therefore had no legal method to pursue justice after experiencing sexual abuse

perpetrated by white men. In a practical sense, raping one’s slave was legally permissible.

Laws that determined the free or enslaved status of a child were determined by the status

of the mother (Browne-Marshall, 2009). While in England common law the legal status of a

child had previously been based on the status of the father, this was changed in the US to

accommodate for the children born to black women fathered by white slave owners. As a result,

a master could receive sexual pleasures in addition to profitable labor from sexual relations with

female slaves. Their sexual relations and rape of female slaves were rewarded with the birth of

additional free child labor, which resulted in economic profit. The societal acceptance and legal

approval of this behavior replicated the pervasive treatment of black women as sexual

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 Holmes: The Colonial Roots of the Racial Fetishization of Black Women

commodities. Black women were perceived as the sexual property of their owners, and their

reproductive systems as economically profitable infrastructure.

Female slaves who were considered good breeders could be forced into sexual relations

with male slaves who were similarly selected for reproductive efficiency in order to produce

strong, hardworking offspring for the economic gain of their masters (Green, 1936). This

practice should also be understood as sexual exploitation and violence, the masters acting as a

coercive force to initiate sexual intercourse between slaves. Male slaves did not have the power

to protect their daughters, wives, friends, or mothers from sexual exploitation perpetrated by

owners or overseers as slave codes eliminated the ability of black people to assert legal claims

(Aiken, 1833). It is evident that slave women lacked agency to choose their sexual partners and

were controlled by slave owners based on their reproductive abilities. While sexual violence

against women has long existed within the historical female experience, studies suggest that rates

of sexual abuse experienced by modern African Americans are not reflective of African tradition

but rather a practice resulting from forced Anglo-American assimilation (Browne-Marshall,

2009).

Beyond Abolition:

Following the abolishment of legalized slavery in the United States, the control over

black female reproduction was maintained through the eugenics movement and other

governmental policies continued throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Building

on the pseudo-scientific investigations of race produced in the previous decades, the eugenics

movement in America was based on the belief that humans could direct their own evolutionary

“progress” through processes of selective breeding, sterilization, and racial purification (Selden,

1999). Forced sterilization became legal and implemented on state-to-state bases, beginning in

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1907, and it continued in certain parts of the country until 1977 (Selden, 1999). Men and women

of color were targeted for sterilization in the process of racial cleansing, eliminating “bad blood”

and promoting the reproduction of the white race. The racially motivated eugenics movement

was funded by prominent Americans, including Rockefeller and Warhol, and was largely

accepted in American academia well into the 1900’s (Kühl, 2002). Even certain feminists and

civil rights activists supported the movement to sterilize those who were deemed “unfit” to

reproduce by American society. Black women were sterilized in attempts to control their

reproductive agency and regulate the black population. This practice was motivated by the

colonial rooted beliefs that suggested black women were undiscriminating of sexual partners and

were sex-driven animals. The eugenics movement maintained the sexual debasement of black

woman who were considered “unfit” by white male political leaders, to make their own sexual

and reproductive choices.

Contemporary Realities:

American perceptions of the hyper-sexualized black woman has manifested in the sexual

exploitation and sexual assault perpetrated against this population in the modern era. As Linda

Williams writes, “because of the long-standing view of black female sexuality and the historical

lack of legal protection of the black female, the black victim is viewed by both rapists and

society as a legitimate victim” (Williams, 1986). The idea of the black woman as a ‘legitimate

victim’ has manifested in higher rates of sexual assault and rape of black women in the United

States (Williams, 1986). In addition, perpetrators of sexual assault against black women are

statistically more likely to have their charges reduced as compared to perpetrators who assault

white female victims (Williams, 1986). This has established a legal pattern reflecting the inferior

societal value placed on black women and black female sexual agency. “The black woman who

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 Holmes: The Colonial Roots of the Racial Fetishization of Black Women

becomes the “legitimate victim” as a result of the stereotypes which had their early origins in

slavery is denied full protection of the law” (Williams, 1986). It is evident that this ideology,

which stems from the slave era, contributes to the validation of legal and societal sexual

exploitation and debasement of black women in the modern era. “With slavery and the rape of

enslaved black women as originally or foundational in the production of African Americans, the

skin of the black women in the context of the slave masters, sexual violation showed no signs of

modesty” (McClaurin, 2001). While to some degree, women of all colors are reduced to sexual

commodities by a patriarchal system, black women are subjected to the collective historical

consequences based on the insterectionality of race, class, and gender that all tie into her

continued sexual debasement.

It is still an effort of the white supremacist patriarchal agenda to control and exploit the

bodies of black women. Reflecting on her years as a youth, activist and anthropologist, Irma

McClaurin says, “from outside my community, my body was racialized in pernicious ways.” She

articulates that, “management of the black female body was at the core of my identity”

(McClaurin, 2001). Racial fetishization is a practice of reproductive and sexual management of

that began before the slave era and has been reproduced in policy and societal norms throughout

all of American history.

The stereotype of the hyper-sexualized black woman has become fetishized within

modern American media and sex culture. Black female bodies and black sexual practices are

essentialized and fetishized as a continuation of their exploitation within the American

imperialist narrative. This idea is reflected in popular music, pornography, advertisements, and

other popular media. Black female genitalia and secondary sex features are fetishized for their

size and shape. Popular song lyrics refer to black female bodies in objectifying terms; being

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shaped like an “onion” or even a “loaf of bread.” Within modern American sang, a person of any

color could be referred to as having a “black ass,” a phrase that insinuates the voluptuous nature

of a person’s buttocks. Sex toys advertise artificial black body parts marketed using names such

as “My Big Black Ass.” In this sense, America continues to profit economically from building

black bodies into sexual commodities. American continues to sell black female bodies on the

modern auction block now called eBay or backpage.com.

While some people perceive racial fetishization as an empowering and respectful form of

glorifying black female bodies, it is important to appreciate the historical routes of this

phenomenon. Black women have and continue to be sexually sought after for their assumed

hyper-sexualized body and behavior, which has been essentialized throughout history by the

oppressor. Racial fetishization continues this pattern of cultural and racial essentalizing in efforts

to control black female bodies and sexuality. Racial fetishization is and extension and

reproduction of white supremacist colonial racism. While it has manifested itself in the perceived

glorification of black bodies, it is in practice incredibly problematic, since it prevents fostering a

culture that permits black women to define their own sexual agency. Racial fetishism also

contributes to the existing American rape culture, which tolerates and even validates sexual

violence perpetrated upon black female bodies.

Conclusion:

It is evident that from the moment of initial European contact, black women have been

sexualized within the imperialist narrative of the United States. The sexual debasement of black

bodies and black women has been maintained through stereotypes, laws, and pseudo-science.

The bodies of black women have been managed and controlled throughout all of American

history; from the slave era to the modern era. While the tactics and legal frameworks have

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 Holmes: The Colonial Roots of the Racial Fetishization of Black Women

shifted to adapt to modern standards of political correctness, black bodies are still perceived as

having inherently inferior value. The historical intersectionality of race and gender within the

context of black female sexuality is incredibly complex. In American history, black women have

always been sexually debased and dehumanized. From the auction block to the sex shop, black

bodies remain byproducts of an ongoing manifest destiny.

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