The Impact of the African-American Caricature on Contemporary Media
By Sarah F. Matthews
A.A. in Graphic Design, May 2010, Anne Arundel Community College B.S. in Sociology, May 2000, Bowie State University M.B.A. in Marketing, May 2005, Bowie State University
A Thesis submitted to
The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences (formerly the Corcoran College of Art + Design) of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art.
May 15, 2016
Thesis directed by
Kerry McAleer-Keeler Associate Professor of Art & The Book
© Copyright 2016 by Sarah F. Matthews All rights reserved
ii Dedication
For my husband and my girls.
iii Abstract
Sarah F. Matthews: The Impact of the African-American Caricature on Contemporary Media
It has been acceptable in today’s media to portray African-Americans as violent, uneducated, or lazy. This view mostly stems from how African-Americans were depicted in minstrel shows and advertisements during the Jim Crow era. The caricatures of
Mammy, Tom, Jezebel, and Brute have been assimilated into American culture and have evolved over time, and are not easily recognizable in contemporary media.
This paper will argue that components of the U.S. media outlets that spread racist imagery, originated from caricatures of the Jim Crow era. Mammy, Tom, Jezebel, and
Brute caricatures will are evaluated from a historical perspective, including when and how they were created and how they were used in the media in the past while making comparisons to how these caricatures are utilized in today’s film, advertising, and social media.
iv Table of Contents Dedication ...... iii Abstract ...... iv Table of Contents ...... v List of Figures ...... vi Introduction ...... 1 History of Jim Crow ...... 2 Mammy ...... 8 Aunt Jemima ...... 9 Tom ...... 11 Rastus ...... 15 Jezebel ...... 16 Hottentot Venus – Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman ...... 19 Brute ...... 20 Jack Johnson ...... 23 Evolution of the Caricature ...... 26 Conclusion ...... 35 Bibliography ...... 40
v List of Figures
Fig. 1 Cream of Wheat Ad. Source: Kristin Delegard. 2013. Digital image. Available from Historyapolis.com, http://historyapolis.com/cream-of-wheat-race-and-the-birth-of-the-packaged-food- industry-in-minneapolis/ (accessed December 5, 2015)………………………………………………………………………………….37
Fig. 2 The Three Graces. 1810. Engraving, 241 x 327 mm. The British Museum, London. From: William Heath www.britishmuseum.org (accessed November 12, 2015)………………………………………………………………………………..38
Fig. 3 Rube Goldberg’s caricatures of the heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, 1910. CHARLIE Horses: On Caricature and Outrage http://www.tcj.com/charlie-horses-on-caricature-and-outrage/ (accessed November 12, 2015)………………………………………………………..………………………39
vi Introduction
Because of the racial climate in the United Status in 2015, there has been an increase in the negative portrayals of African-Americans in the news media. The visual imagery, typography, and the design often depict African-Americans damagingly to perpetuate the stereotypes that all African-American people are violent, uneducated, and lazy, etc. When a faithful few call out the media or a specific person who slanders the African- American in a negative light, the entity or person immediately apologizes stating that they didn’t know what they said was offensive. It has become acceptable to negatively portray African Americans in the media. Where does this behavior originate? The answers to this question stems from how African-
Americans have been portrayed in the past, in particular during the Jim Crow era.
The origins of Jim Crow began in "Jump Jim Crow", a minstrel caricature
performed by Thomas D. Rice, who was a white male performer, in blackface. This
minstrel was first introduced in 1832. As a result of Rice's popularity and fame, by
1838 Jim Crow had become synonymous with the word "Negro.” Jim Crow laws
instituted racial segregation directed against blacks in the south at the end of the
19th century.
The portrayal of African-Americans in the caricatures of the Jim Crow Era
has had a lasting impact on how African-Americans are portrayed in film and
advertising today. A caricature is a picture, description, or imitation of a person or
thing in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated to create a comic or
grotesque effect. Caricatures have evolved over time and are not as easily
recognizable. These images were subconsciously ingrained in the American culture.
The use of the caricature in literature, theater, art, household products, radio
and television shows, and toys were used to spread the segregationist agenda of the
Jim Crow era. These negative images were also used to appeal to White fear to
1 increase the sale of products. Caricatures have evolved over time and are
subconsciously imbedded in the American culture making them virtually
unrecognizable.
This paper will argue that components of the U.S. media outlets that spread
racist imagery, originated from caricatures of the Jim Crow era. Mammy, Brute,
Jezebel, and Tom caricatures will be evaluated from a historical perspective,
including when and how they were created and how they were used in the media in
the past, while making comparisons to how these caricatures come to life in today’s
film, advertising, and social media.
History of Jim Crow
‘Oh, Jim Crow’s come to town As you all must know, An’ he wheel about, he turn about, He do jis so, An’ ebery time he wheel about He jump Jim Crow.’
Excerpt from Jump Jim Crow - Jim Crow is a term that originated from a minstrel show that toured in the
early 1820s until the late 1870s. In one of the traveling minstrel shows, Thomas
Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice, a white New York comedian, performed in blackface his
song and dance that he called “Jump Jim Crow”. Inspired by the song and dance of
a physically disabled black man he had seen in Louisville, Kentucky, named Jim.
Rice added Crow as the last name since crows were black. Rice created and
performed the song across the United States that became a huge hit in the 19th
century.1 Rice “darkened his face and hands with burnt cork, wore shabby overalls,
shuffled across the stage in bare feet, and carried a banjo. His routine included
1 Tischauser, Leslie. Jim Crow Laws, (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2012), 1.
2 jokes and a song and dance number performed in a white version of black
dialect.”2
Come listen all you galls and boys, I’m going to sing a little song, My name is Jim Crow. Weel about and turn about and do jis so, Eb’ry time I weel about I jump Jim Crow
The theatrical performances of the song “Jump Jim Crow” focused on the mockery of African Americans and triggered the beginnings of the minstrel show.
The song spread the propagandized white image of slaves, “who were always happy, smiling, dancing, lazy, and dim-witted.”3 These performances were popular and quickly spread across the United States prior to the Civil War. Leading into the mid-
1830s, whites had been using the term “Jim Crow” exclusively for blacks.
By the 1890s, the term Jim Crow was synonymous with segregation laws and practices throughout the United States. Most segregation laws were created in the southern and border states between 1876 and 1965. The most significant Jim Crow laws referred to blacks as second-class citizens and required that all public areas such as schools, housing, and transportation (i.e. buses and trains) have separate services for whites and blacks. These segregated areas established for African
Americans were always inferior to whites, and were engineered to reinforce the image of poverty and marginalization.
Jim Crow Laws
“Jim Crow laws enjoyed the legal protection of the U.S. Supreme Court, which
2 Ibid, 1. 3 Ibid, 2.
3 laid the constitutional foundation for the era of Jim Crow. In three decisions it
made in interpreting the legal status of separating people by race – the
Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), the Civil Rights Cases (1883), and Plessy v. Ferguson
(1896) – the court provided the Ex-Confederate States the constitutional backing
they needed to construct a completely segregated society.” 4 Jim Crow laws
emboldened Southern whites to keep blacks from voting, attending the same
schools as their white children, eating in the same restaurants, or running for
political office. Because of the decisions of the Supreme Court, the basic human
rights of African-Americans were denied.
Many Christian ministers and theologians taught that whites were the Chosen
people, blacks were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation.
In Negro a Beast, Charles Carroll states that:
All scientific investigation of the subject proves the Negro to be an ape; and that he simply stands at the head of the ape family, as the lion stands at the head of the cat family. When God’s plan of creation, and the drift of Bible history are properly understood, it will be found that the teachings of scripture upon this, as upon every other subject, harmonize with those of science. This being true, it follows that the Negro is the only anthropoid, or man-like ape; and that the gibbon, ourang, chimpanzee and gorilla are merely negro-like apes. Hence, to recognize the Negro as a “man and a brother,” they were compelled to declare man an ape. Thus the modern Christian, like the atheist, takes man, whom God created “in his own image,” and takes the Negro, whom God made “after his kind”—the ape kind—and places them in the same family, as different “races” of one “species” of animal. The only difference between them is, that the atheist perpetuates this enormity in supreme contempt of God’s plan of creation, and in open defiance of his law, while the modern Christian commits this infamous crime in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.5
Doctors, scholars, and scientists supported the belief that blacks were intellectually and culturally inferior to whites. Pro-segregationists gave political
4 Tischauser. Jim Crow Laws, 17. 5 Carroll, Charles, Negro A Beast or In The Image of God, (St. Louis: American Book and Bible House, 1900), 40.
4 speeches on the dangers of integration, crossbreeding the white race with blacks.
Articles, stories, and advertisements in newspapers and magazines referred to blacks as niggers, coons, and darkies to bolster anti-black stereotypes. Children's games, postcards, and books portrayed blacks as a lesser race. All major societal institutions began to suggest and encourage the persecution and oppression of blacks.6
Orion Dozier wrote this stanza in A Spring Cant-Oh: “When I am told the human race,
Are all from Adam seed, That kinky-headed coons and I, Are from one common breed; I think that apes and darned baboons Must be my brothers too; But then I don’t believe the tale, I cant! O, can you?7
The Jim Crow caste system spearheaded the belief that sexual relations
between blacks and whites would produce a mutt or mongrel race that would
destroy the foundations and culture of America. The following Jim Crow etiquette
norms show how inclusive and pervasive these norms were:
a. A black male could not offer his hand (to shake hands) with a white male because it implied being socially equal. Obviously, a black male could not offer his hand or any other part of his body to a white woman, because he risked being accused of rape. b. Blacks and whites were not supposed to eat together. If they did eat together, whites were to be served first, and some sort of partition was to be placed between them. c. Under no circumstance was a black male to offer to light the cigarette of a white female -- that gesture implied intimacy. d. Blacks were not allowed to show public affection toward one another in public, especially kissing, because it offended whites.
6 Pilgrim, David. Understanding Jim Crow: Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justice. (Toronto: Ferris State University and PM Press, 2015), 46. 7 Dozier, Orion, Poems of Orion T. Dozier, 136.
5 e. Jim Crow etiquette prescribed that blacks were introduced to whites, never whites to blacks. For example: "Mr. Peters (the white person), this is Charlie (the black person), that I spoke to you about." f. Whites did not use courtesy titles of respect when referring to blacks, for example, Mr., Mrs., Miss., Sir, or Ma'am. Instead, blacks were called by their first names. Blacks had to use courtesy titles when referring to whites, and were not allowed to call them by their first names. g. If a black person rode in a car driven by a white person, the black person sat in the back seat, or the back of a truck. h. White motorists had the right-of-way at all intersections.8
Stetson Kennedy, the author of Jim Crow Guide (1990), offered these simple rules that blacks were supposed to observe in conversing with whites:
1. Never assert or even intimate that a white person is lying. 2. Never impute dishonorable intentions to a white person. 3. Never suggest that a white person is from an inferior class. 4. Never lay claim to, or overly demonstrate, superior knowledge or intelligence. 5. Never curse a white person. 6. Never laugh derisively at a white person. 7. Never comment upon the appearance of a white female9
The most common Jim Crow Laws compiled by the Martin Luther King, Jr.,
National Historic Site Interpretive Staff:
◦ Barbers. No colored barber shall serve as a barber (to) white girls or women (Georgia). ◦ Blind Wards. The board of trustees shall...maintain a separate building...on separate ground for the admission, care, instruction, and support of all blind persons of the colored or black race (Louisiana). ◦ Burial. The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons (Georgia). ◦ Buses. All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races (Alabama). ◦ Child Custody. It shall be unlawful for any parent, relative, or other white person in this State, having the control or custody of any white child, by right of guardianship, natural or acquired, or otherwise, to dispose of, give or surrender such white child permanently into the custody, control, maintenance, or support, of a negro (South Carolina). ◦ Education. The schools for white children and the schools for negro children
8 Pilgrim, Understanding Jim Crow, 46-47. 9 Ibid, 47.
6 shall be conducted separately (Florida). ◦ Libraries. The state librarian is directed to fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of the colored people who may come to the library for the purpose of reading books or periodicals (North Carolina). ◦ Mental Hospitals. The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct apartments are arranged for said patients, so that in no case shall Negroes and white persons be together (Georgia). ◦ Militia. The white and colored militia shall be separately enrolled, and shall never be compelled to serve in the same organization. No organization of colored troops shall be permitted where white troops are available and where whites are permitted to be organized, colored troops shall be under the command of white officers (North Carolina). ◦ Nurses. No person or corporation shall require any White female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed (Alabama). ◦ Prisons. The warden shall see that the white convicts shall have separate apartments for both eating and sleeping from the Negro convicts (Mississippi). ◦ Reform Schools. The children of white and colored races committed to the houses of reform shall be kept entirely separate from each other (Kentucky). ◦ Teaching. Any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution where members of the white and colored race are received and enrolled as pupils for instruction shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined... (Oklahoma). ◦ Wine and Beer. All persons licensed to conduct the business of selling beer or wine...shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room at any time (Georgia).10
Jim Crow laws spread the notion that violence was necessary to keep blacks in line. If these rules were not followed, blacks had little or no protection from prosecution because of the all white Jim Crow criminal justice system. The lynching became a way a life to spread fear and to ensure that blacks were kept at the bottom of the racial ladder. Lynching victims were hanged, shot, burned at the stake, castrated, and beaten. Lynching blacks perpetuated the image of white superiority and aided in spreading fear and discourse among black people.
10 “Jim Crow Laws,” National Park Service: Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in Georgia, accessed December 15, 2015, http://www.nps.gov/malu/learn/education/jim_crow_laws.htm.
7 Mammy
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?
-Sojourner Truth
One of the first Mammy caricatures appears in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle
Tom’s Cabin as Aunt Chloe. Stowe describes Aunt Chloe, Uncle Tom’s wife, as a good, faithful, Christian woman. She is a loving mother and an excellent cook.
Mammy is portrayed as the overweight and cheerful black woman. This stereotype perpetuated and “served the political, social, and economic interests of mainstream white America.” Mammy’s big smile, robust laughter, and devotion were offered up to camouflage by attempting to remove the negative connotations of slavery.
In The Plantation Mistress, Catherine Clinton claimed that mammies were uncommon:
“This familiar denizen [Mammy] of the Big House is not merely a stereotype, but in fact a figment of the combined romantic imaginations of the contemporary southern ideologue and the modern southern historian. Records do acknowledge the presence of female slaves who served as the "right hand" of plantation mistresses. Yet documents from the planter class during the first fifty years following the American Revolution reveal only a handful of such examples. Not until after Emancipation did black women run white households or occupy in any significant number the special positions ascribed to them in folklore and fiction. The Mammy was created by white Southerners to redeem the relationship between black women and white men within slave society in response to the antislavery attack from the North during the ante-bellum period. In the primary records from before the Civil War, hard evidence for its existence simply does not appear.”11
House servants were rare because only the wealthy could afford them. They were usually “mixed raced, skinny (blacks were not given much food), and young
11 Clinton, Catherine. The Plantation Mistress: Woman's World in the Old South. Pantheon, 1982.
8 (fewer than 10 percent of black women lived beyond fifty years).” House servants were required to have a lighter skin color and were considered more attractive and acceptable to work in their homes.
The Mammy caricature was deliberately depicted as dark-skinned, ugly and unattractive. Mammy loved her white "family" above all else including her family.
Mammy was illiterate and used broken English to communicate. Mammy was positioned to appear that she did not care about what she looked like and often looked disheveled and filthy. She was illustrated as being morbidly obese to desexualize and portray her as unappealing to white men.
The Mammy caricature has a wide-ranging commercial identity. Her image has been used to sell Luzianne Coffee, various cleaning supplies, syrups, and molasses.
Mammy appeared in various cereal ads and her image has been used on fruit box labels. She has also appeared on menus for the Old Dixie Restaurant in Los Angeles and Mammy's Cabin, outside Atlanta. None of the images are as famous and recognizable as Aunt Jemima.
Aunt Jemima In the 1870s, Billy Kersands, a black minstrel performer, wrote the song
"Old Aunt Jemima” for a white minstrel entertainer. More than a decade later,
Chris Rutt was in the audience when the song was performed. Rutt was intrigued by the performance and seized the opportunity to commercialize the Aunt Jemima character and trademarked the name. During that time, Rutt used the song to promote the self-rising pancake recipe he was pedaling. He later sold the Aunt
Jemima brand to The Davis Milling Company, who hired Nancy Green to promote the Aunt Jemima brand at World’s Chicago Exposition in 1893.
9 Green was also a formerly a slave and a domestic servant for a Chicago judge. “Her pancake flipping dexterity and wholesome stories about life in the
South garnered more than 50,000 merchant orders for Aunt Jemima pancake mix.”12 Aunt Jemima traveled from town to town, cooking up pancakes. "I'se in town honey" was her slogan, which lasted for more than half a century after it was first used in 1905. In the early 1920s, Nancy Green died in a car accident after having been redrawn in 1917 to be maternal and less cartoonish. In 1925, The Davis
Milling Company sold the Aunt Jemima brand and operation to the Quaker Oats
Company.
The Aunt Jemima character became famous nationwide. Soon the characters,
Uncle Mose, Diana, and Wade were added and were included as rag dolls in the packaging. “Print advertisements urged consumers to buy the products so that they could receive the twin benefits of a wholesome breakfast and to the opportunity to redeem package coupons and cash for Aunt Jemima-endorsed products.”13 These products included mixing bowls, syrup pitchers, cookie jars, rag dolls, and salt and pepper shakers. Several cookbooks and pamphlets of her "temptilatin'" recipes were published which also amplified her fame.
In the 1950's, Edith Wilson became the new face of Jemima. She was formerly the star of Amos and Andy and To Have and Have Not and toured as Aunt Jemima for eighteen years. In 1968, Quaker decided to update Aunt Jemima’s image to be thinner and lighter in skin tone. After 5 months of research in twelve cities, Aunt
Jemima received another new look without her handkerchief in 1989. Quaker’s goal
12 Turner, Patricia A. Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies: Black Images & Their Influence on Culture. (New York: Anchor Books, 1994), 49. 13 Turner, Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies, 51.
10 was to "present Aunt Jemima in a more contemporary light, while preserving the important attributes of warmth, quality, good taste, heritage and reliability.
Tom
“Treat 'em like dogs, and you'll have dogs' works and dogs' actions. Treat 'em like men, and you'll have men's works.”
— Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
The first appearance of the Tom caricature occurred in The National Era,
an abolitionist journal, in 1851 with the installments of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
Uncle Tom’s Cabin. “In March 1852, Stowe’s novel set off an astounding public
response unique in the history of American publishing. Frederick Douglas
reported the first edition of 5,000 was gone in four days and in that in one year
Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold more than 300,000 copies.”14 The amount purchased was
surprising considering that the population at the time was about 24 million in the
United States in the mid 1800s and the novel was banned in several communities
in the South.15 Stowe’s depiction of Uncle Tom was not intended to be negative or
destructive. In fact, she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin to shed light on the treatment of
African American slaves and to ignite the abolitionist movement. Stowe stated
that, “if I could use a pen as you can, I would write something that would make
this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.”
The description of Tom in Uncle Tom’s Cabin is both endearing and positive:
“Tom is an uncommon fellow; he is certainly worth that sum anywhere,— steady, honest, capable…Tom is a good, steady, sensible, pious fellow. He got religion at a camp-meeting, four years ago; and I believe he really did get it. I've trusted him, since then, with everything I have,—money, house, horses,—and let him come and go round the country; and I always found
14 Yarborough, Richard. “Strategies of Black Characterization in Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Early Afro-American Novel,” in New Essays on Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ed. Eric Sundquist. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 45-46. 15 Yarborough, Strategies of Black Characterization in Uncle Tom’s Cabin 46.
11 him true and square in everything.”16
Stowe’s intent was to show that slavery was not in line with Christianity.
“How could Christians, she wondered, buy, sell, and trade slaves? How could they
offer even tacit approval of slavery? How could white Christians allow their
enslaved brethren to be sold to the likes of Legree? Her book is an unabashed
attack on slavery, and Tom is one of her two perfect Christian characters.”17 At the
end of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Tom dies. “Stowe portrayed him as a Christ figure;
albeit a childlike one. Tom was offered as a sacrifice for the sins of an evil
institution.”18
Since the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Tom’s character through
multiple iterations has evolved to personify the image of disapproval among the
African Americans even though Stowe’s depiction was positive and used to show
how someone like Tom, who is a slave with Christian values can choose to love
unconditionally because it right thing to do. “In literary, stage, and film
adaptations, writers have taken enormous liberties in their characterizations of
Uncle Tom. The label Uncle Tom is firmly entrenched, although not fully
understood, in the vocabulary of most contemporary Americans.”19 Wilson Moses
contends, “It is ironic that the humble heroism of old Uncle Tom has been
transmuted into racial treason by the subtle alchemy of social amnesia.”20
The Tom caricature was transformed into the happy, faithful, loyal, and
submissive character who is “chased, harassed, hounded, flogged, enslaved, and
16 Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin or, Life Among the Lowly. (London: Viking Penguin, Inc., 1981), 42. 17 Pilgrim, Understanding Jim Crow, 75. 18 Ibid, 77. 19 Turner, Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies, 71. 20 Moses, William. Black messiahs and Uncle Toms: Social and literary manipulations of a religious myth. (Penn State Press, 2010)
12 insulted”21 while keeping the “faith, never turn against their white masters, and
remain hearty, submissive, stoic, generous, selfless, and oh-so-very kind. Thus,
they endear themselves to white audiences and emerge as heroes of sorts."22 In
advertisements and in print, “Tom is presented as a smiling, wide-eyed, dark
skinned server: fieldworker, cook, butler, porter, or waiter. Unlike the Coon, the
Tom is portrayed as a dependable worker, eager to serve. Unlike the Brute, the
Tom is docile and non-threatening to whites. The Tom is often old, physically
weak, psychologically dependent on whites for approval.”23
After Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853) sold over two million copies within two
years of being published, several proslavery novels were written to contradict
Stowe’s portrayal of slavery. It was even further watered down or skewed by
numerous theatrical versions of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1879 by at least forty-nine
traveling stage companies throughout the United States. These performances were
called Tom Shows and the performers were called Tommers. “Because the
companies were small and the number of roles in the play large, most of the
performers played several different parts.”24 Most productions were cast with only
white performers as Jim Crow laws became more prominent.
One of the most popular alterations was in making Little Eva the prominent
character while the others characters were cast comparatively in the background.
The viciousness and horrors of slavery was relegated to slapstick humor and
musical revelry. In Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies, Turner states:
21 Bogle, Donald. Toms, coons, mulattoes, mammies, and bucks: An interpretive history of Blacks in American films. (New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1996), 4. 22 Ibid, 4. 23 Pilgrim, Understanding Jim Crow, 73. 24 Turner, Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies, 78.
13 Further marked inconsistencies are discernible between the values and principles of the reconstructed Uncle Tom and Stowe's original hero. Both are devout, stalwart Christians. Both are unflinching in their loyalty. But the reconstructed Uncle Toms are passive, docile, unthinking Christians. Loyal and faithful to white employers, they are duplicitous in their dealings with fellow blacks. Stowe's Tom is a proactive Christian warrior. He does more than accept God's will, he endeavors to fulfill it in all of his words and deeds. He is loyal to each of his white masters, even the cruel Simon Legree. Yet his allegiance to his fellow slaves is equally strong.25
The honorable qualities that made Tom both resilient and devoted were reduced to childishness and weakness. The “broad-chested, strong armed fellow”26who outworked most slaves became an emaciated old man with poor eyesight. Tom was a father in Stowe's book wherein new adaptations featured Tom as asexual. These adaptations were politically and racially motivated and were designed specifically to mute the voice of the African American people. During this time, grandfather clauses and poll taxes were created to prevent blacks from voting and to introduce sharecropping and make segregation more commonplace.
African Americans were “forced to compete with white actors in blackface and ostracized from mainstream venues, they could rarely get any kind of meaningful role – not even in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”27 Portrayals of Uncle Tom in movies also departed from Stowe's original. In 1903, Edwin S. Porter directed a twelve-minute version of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Even though this was the first black character in a film, a white actor in blackface was cast to play the Uncle Tom character.28
Like Porter's Uncle Tom and the Toms on stage, many of the future cinematic adaptations featured a beleaguered and weak-minded character. These
25 Turner, Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies, 71. 26 Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 233. 27 Turner, Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies, 79. 28 Turner, Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies, 78.
14 versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin depicted slavery as a kind and compassionate establishment. Little Eva was featured “as an earthly angel, and blacks, especially
Tom, as loyal, childlike, unthinking, and happy.”29 An all white cast in black face performed all of the theatrical productions of Uncle Tom’s Cabin until the mid
1870s. It was until Gustave Frohman, a producer of plays, who decided that a black actor named Sam Lucas should play Tom. Lucas was seventy-two at the time and casting him in the role helped propagate the stereotype that Tom was old and physically weak.30
Rastus In 1890, the Diamond Milling Company began working on a concoction they called “middling.” It was later made into a tasty breakfast porridge and sold to grocery wholesalers. Emery Mapes, one of the owners of Diamond Milling
Company, was a former printer who found an old wood cut of a black chef on a skillet. He made a template of the chef and named the product Cream of Wheat.
Mapes used the skillet as mold to create the original logo, which was used until
1925. It was replaced by a more realistic version that is seen in today’s advertising.
In Chicago, Mapes was dining at restaurant called Kohlsaat’s. He noticed the wide grin of his “Negro” waiter and decided to use his image after persuading the waiter to pose in a chef’s hat for a full-face snapshot. The waiter was paid a one-time fee of
5 dollars. This image has appeared, with small modifications, on Cream of Wheat boxes for over one hundred years. Neither the waiter, his relatives, nor his descendants have received any further compensation for the picture.31
29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Kern-Foxworth, Marilyn. Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, and Rastus: Blacks in advertising, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press,
15 The image of the chef was eventually named Rastus and appeared in countless ads in newspapers, magazines, posters and billboards. Many of those advertisements were racially insensitive. For example, a 1915 Cream of Wheat poster shows "Uncle Sam" looking at a picture of Rastus holding a bowl of the cereal. The caption reads "Well, You're Helping Some! In a 1921 advertisement,
Rastus, smiling, his gums showing, holds a sign, which reads (Figure 1):
Maybe Cream of Wheat aint got no vitamines. I dont know what them things is. If they's bugs they aint none in Cream of Wheat but she's sho' good to eat and cheap. Costs 'bout 1 cent fo a great big dish.32
Jezebel
Sometimes when we are walking down Main Street feeling pretty and strong, we pass young Black men and suddenly we see her in their eyes, in their leers. “Can I come with your, Mama?” And we know what they see. Big thighs, big butt. No need for foreplay, she’s ready anytime, all the time. Spits out babies just to collect a check. Been doing it since she was a kid. She screams when she comes; get funky and sweaty. Her hair goes back. Don’t matter. She ain’t nothin’ but a born whore. Black woman. Whore. Whore black woman.33
-Excerpt from an Essence Magazine Article
During the early 1600’s, the slave traders placed bondwomen on auction blocks stripped naked to examine their reproductive capacity. When the bondwoman was sold, she was pressured, ordered, or violently forced to have sex with their masters.
The Jezebel stereotype was created to rationalize the sexual exploitation of these
1994), 45. 32 Turner, Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies, 86. 33 Crais, Clifton C., and Pamela Scully. Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A ghost story and a biography. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 147- 148.
16 women in ways that made them responsible for their own victimization. At that time, African American women were characterized as animals to rationalize the abusive behavior.34
Jezebel is a stereotype that portrays African American females as immoral and exemplifies lustful tendencies. This caricature was featured as “lewd and promiscuous, a whore with animal-like sexuality.”35 The name Jezebel is synonymous with black women who take advantage of men by engaging in sexual acts. Historically, white women have been portrayed as models of self-respect, self- control, modesty, and sexual purity. Jezebel is depicted as erotically appealing and openly seductive.36
In comparison to the desexualized, dark-skinned and over-weight Mammy caricature, Jezebel was a voluptuous mulatto. Many “Jezebels” were sold into prostitution during slavery and “sometimes became the willing concubines of wealthy white southerners. This system, called placage, involved a formal arrangement for the white suitor/customer to financially support the black woman and her children in exchange for her long-term sexual services.” 37
The belief that blacks are sexually vulgar preexisted before the slavery establishment in America. European travelers to Africa misinterpreted the semi- nude natives as lustful. Europeans were captivated by the African sexuality.
“William Bosman described the black women on the coast of Guinea as ‘fiery’ and
‘warm’ and ‘so much hotter than the men.’ William Smith described African women
34 West, Carolyn M. "Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire, and their homegirls: Developing an" oppositional gaze" toward the images of Black women." InLectures on the Psychology of Women., pp. 286-299. 2008. 35 Brown, Nikki LM, and Barry M. Stentiford. The Jim Crow Encyclopedia: AJ. Vol. (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008), 663. 36 Pilgrim, Understanding Jim Crow, 108. 37 Brown, The Jim Crow Encyclopedia: AJ. Vol. 1, 663.
17 as ‘hot constitution'd Ladies’ who ‘are continually contriving stratagems how to gain a lover.’ The genesis of anti-black sexual archetypes emerged from the writings of these and other Europeans: the black male as brute and potential rapist; the black woman, as Jezebel whore.”38
“The English colonists accepted the Elizabethan image of ‘the lusty Moor,’ and used this and similar stereotypes to justify enslaving blacks. In part, this was accomplished by arguing that blacks were subhumans: intellectually inferior, culturally stunted, and morally underdeveloped, with animal-like sexuality. Whites used racist and sexist ideologies to argue that they alone were civilized and rational, whereas blacks, and other people of color, were barbaric and deserved to be subjugated.”39 Slave women were considered property by their slave owners and in their mind; these women could not be raped. At the very same time, black men were convicted of raping white women. Their punishment included castrations, hangings or both.40
Historically, the Jezebel stereotype is largely inaccurate as most black women were “monogamous and morally virtuous” and were largely victims of white supremacy. They were forced into this world of exploitation and sexual immorality.
The Jezebel stereotype can be categorized into to two types: Pathetic Jezebel and
Exotic Jezebel. The Jim Crow Encyclopedia states “the Pathetic Jezebel image shades into the Mammy image because it depicts African and African American with aberrant and unattractive physical, cultural, and social traits (e.g., with exaggerated lips or sagging breasts, uncivilized, inebriated, etc.) Unlike the Mammy image however, the Pathetic Jezebel is always sexualized and depicted as nude or
38 Pilgrim, Understanding Jim Crow, 158. 39 Ibid, 107. 40 Ibid, 108.
18 seminude.41
Hottentot Venus – Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman (Figure 2), born around 1770, was from the Khoisan
peoples of South Africa. When she was a teenager, European soldiers ambushed her
engagement ceremony killing her father and husband. Baartman became the
servant of Hendrik Cezar and his wife in Cape Town. She was named Saartjie
(pronounced Sahr- key), which was later translated to Sarah. After living in South
Africa for nearly 30 years, Baartman was smuggled to England by Cezar and Alex
Dunlop. They were fascinated by her anatomy and decided exploit Baartman by
putting her on display nearly nude all over Europe. She was dressed in a costume
including beading, ornaments, and tribal make- up, to make Baartman perpetuate
the savage stereotype for the exhibition.42
Baartman was debuted as the “Hottentot Venus.” “The term ‘Hottentot’ was
then employed in two ways: to label a southern African people now known properly
as the Khokhoe, and as a synonym for the lowest state of human development and
the basest form of existence and morals.”43 Her “Hottentot apron” (enlarged labia)
along with her large buttocks (called steatopygia) was studied and used as a way to
illustrate the differences of the African female anatomy.44 By studying the so-called
“primitive genitalia” and “primitive sexuality” of African women, scientists sought
to develop an understanding of human sexuality overall.
41 Brown, The Jim Crow Encyclopedia: AJ. Vol. 1, 664. 42 McEvansoneya, Philip. 2013. “'HOTTENTOT VENUS': THE EXHIBITION OF SARA BAARTMAN IN DUBLIN IN 1812”.History Ireland 21 (1). Wordwell Ltd.: 26–28. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23343557. 43 Ibid, 26. 44 Pieterse, Jan Nederveen. White on black: Images of Africa and blacks in Western popular culture. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), 18
19 Baartman was displayed several ways in both public and private audiences.
She was placed on raised platform and was instructed to walk around and show her figure. People were invited to “feel her posterior parts…to show that no art was practiced.”45 Baartman’s exhibitions were short-lived as she died suddenly in 1815.
Her body was dissected for the “benefit of science” and Georges Cuvier used her remains to write a scientific thesis in 1817. His goal was to reveal the secret of her
“apron.” “Cuvier compared her genitalia with those of apes and crafted racist scientific theories, which circulated for than a century, on African women’s oversexed and subhuman status.”46 Baartman’s cast of her skeleton and preserved buttocks and genitalia continued to be on display in the Musée de l’homme in Paris until 1976. Baartman’s remains were finally buried in a state ceremony on the
Eastern Cape of South Africa in 2002 after a lengthy petition to bring her remains to her child-hood home.47
Brute
The Southern woman with her helpless little children in solitary farm house no longer sleeps secure in the absence of her husband with doors unlocked but safely guarded by black men whose lives would be freely given in her defense. But now, when a knock is heard at the door, she shudders with nameless horror. The black brute is lurking in the dark, a monstrous beast, crazed with lust. His ferocity is almost demoniacal. A mad bull or a tiger could scarcely be more brutal. A whole community is now frenzied with horror, with blind and furious rage for vengeance. A stake is driven; the wretched brute, covered with oil, bruised and gashed, beaten and hacked and maimed, amid the jeers and shouts and curses, the tears of anger and of joy, the prayers and the maledictions of thousands of civilized people, in the sight of school-houses, court-houses and churches is burned to death.48
45 McEvansoneya, “HOTTENTOT VENUS”, 27. 46 McGill, Jefferey. Whispers of Betrayal: Black Women in Crisis. (Bloomington, IN; AuthorHouse, 2011), 14. 47 McEvansoneya, “HOTTENTOT VENUS”, 28. 48 Winston, George T.. 1901. “The Relation of the Whites to the Negroes”. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 18. [Sage Publications, Inc., American Academy of Political and Social Science]: 108-109.
20
George T. Winston
Minstrel shows shortly after the Civil War were created to portray the “good times” of slavery. The intent was to spread the message that slaves were happy living on the plantation. New characters were introduced such as Sambo, Coon, Mammy, and the Brute. Sambo and Mammy were they considered “good gentile folks” where as the Brute was violent and instilled fear. Brutes were considered vicious predators who target helpless victims. The fear of the Brute was widespread and eventually led to a “century of lynchings that took countless lives of innocent black men and women oftentimes on the whispered rumor of rape, or even sideways glance, deemed inappropriate, at white women.”49
Shortly after Reconstruction (1867-1877), there was a belief that slavery kept the animalistic urges in check. Without slavery, blacks were regressing back to barbarism. This perception continued into the 20th century. Thomas Nelson Page published Red Rock, a Reconstruction novel, in 1898. Moses, a character in Page’s novel, was a black politician who attempted to rape a white woman. “He gave a snarl of rage and sprang at her like a wild beast.”50 In the novel, Moses was lynched later on in the story for his crimes.
The image of the Brute as a rapist was a figment of imagination and had no real foundations in truth. It was more likely for white women to be raped by white men during the Jim Crow era. During this time, the crime of rape had a very broad definition especially in the Southern states. For example, a sexual encounter between a black man and a white woman would be considered rape even if it was
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1009885. 49 Brown, The Jim Crow Encyclopedia: AJ. Vol. 1, 529. 50 Page, Thomas Nelson. Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898), 356-358.
21 consensual. In the Alabama Code 4189 it states:
If any white person and any negro, or the descendant of any negro intermarry, or live in adultery or fornication with each other, each of them must, on conviction, be imprisoned in the penitentiary or sentenced to hard labor for the country for not less than two nor more than seven years.51
During the early 1900’s, “anti-Black propaganda that found its way into scientific journals, local newspapers, and bestselling novels focused on the stereotype of the black rapist. The claim that black brutes were, in epidemic numbers, raping white women became the public rationalization for lynching blacks.”52 Charles, Carroll, another prominent 20th century author, wrote The Negro a Beast. It took fifteen years and $20,000 for Carroll to complete his book. Carroll’s goal in The Negro a Beast was to produce both biblical and scientific proof that blacks were not descendants of Adam and could not be classified as human. The book made claims that inter-racial breeding has led to the creation of “beasts without souls and is the reason God decided that his Son had to be sacrificed -- to save the world from the sins of man's amalgamation with Negroes. Carroll even suggests that Blacks were "the tempter of Eve".53
The film industry was another tool used to spread propaganda of brute
caricature. In D.W. Griffith's film, A Birth of a Nation was groundbreaking in its
interpretation of all of the anti-Black caricatures. The film included numerous
characterizations of brutes. It depicts a White Southern family (from the days of
slavery through the Civil War and into Reconstruction) and how they experienced
violence from freed slaves. The depiction of the Brute by a White actor in
blackface, as a stalker and sexual predator of a white woman was instrumental in
51 Napolitano, Andrew. Dred Scott's Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc, 2009), 134. 52 Pilgrim, Understanding Jim Crow, 148-149. 53 Ibid, 149.
22 spreading negative perceptions. Later in the film, the Ku Klux Klan was
proclaimed the heroes of the story and the savior of the white woman from the
“clutches of the evil Black brute.”54
In Understanding Jim Crow, David Pilgrim argues that, “throughout the
silent era, Blacks in film were usually typecast as coons or toms. However, the
brute still made appearances, especially in the rare, ‘all colored cast’ films. These
films, made to cash in on the musical and dance skills of Blacks, which were held
in mythical esteem by Whites, were set in either the antebellum South, or in
present-day Harlem, where shifty coons and violent brutes vied for power. The
most prominent of these films were Hearts in Dixie (1929), and Hallelujah!
(1929). These films were box office failures, and opportunities for Black actors
further diminished.”
The act of depicting black men as violent sexual predators was critical to the
successful support of white supremacy. The pending danger of these “predators”
and what they could accomplish was an endorsement to “deny blacks the right to
vote and exclude them from juries. It justified job discrimination, for black men
could not be allowed to work alongside, let alone in authority over, white
women.”55 This is one of the primary reasons why segregation was instituted across
the Southern states. The brute characterization was instrumental in spreading fear
and hate across the white community.
Jack Johnson In 1908, Jack Johnson became the first Black heavyweight champion of the
world when he knocked out the Canadian fighter, Tommy Burns. Johnson,
known as the greatest defensive boxer in heavyweight history, was born in
54 Ibid, 150. 55 Napolitano, Dred Scott's Revenge, 135.
23 Galveston, Texas, in 1878. With a 5th grade education, Johnson worked the docks
in Galveston before he became a professional boxer. Johnson rose quickly
through the ranks due to his unbeatable prowess. By 1903, Johnson had already
won the “Colored Heavyweight Championship of the World” title. In the year
following, Johnson challenged Jim Jeffries, who was the Heavyweight champion
at the time. Like other white fighters before him, Jeffries refused to fight black
boxers. Eventually Tommy Burns accepted the challenge to fight, which opened
up the opportunity for Johnson to win the title in Sydney, Australia on December
26, 1908.
When Johnson returned to the United States after his triumphant win over
Burns, he was wasn’t well received. Most of his opponents were not thrilled about
his marriage to a white Australian woman and his excessively extravagant lifestyle.
Johnson came face to face with the atrocities that black Americans faced during
the Jim Crow Era. Journalists began calling for a “Great White Hope” for a white
boxer to take back the heavyweight title. This view was not limited to Americans.
Australian fans viewed Johnson as an oddity. In the Sydney Truth, Johnson was
described as having a “genial face, somewhat babyish looking and have the type of
the little coons who may be seen devouring watermelons in a well-known
American picture.”56 Rube Goldberg’s caricature of Johnson utilized racial
stereotypes (Figure 3). Comics like Goldberg’s were mainstream in American
newspapers as every day entertainment (Figure 4). In addition, White sports
journalists continued to spread the message that the physicality of black men was
56 Runstedtler, Theresa. Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner: Boxing in the Shadow of the Global Color Line. Vol. 33. (Berkley, Los Angeles, CA: Univ of California Press, 2012), 32.
24 based in violence and barbarity.
On July 4, 1910, Johnson’s title match was set in Reno, Nevada against
American Jim Jefferies. Many white officials, journalists, and clergyman led a
movement to censor the Jeffries-Johnson fight film. “Alongside blackface
minstrelsy and other U.S. exports, the Jefferies-Johnson fight and its film pushed
the American “negro problem” onto the world stage, making the United States the
most talked-about space of racial conflict and African men the most visible people
of color around the globe.”57 Regardless of the opposition leading up to the match,
Johnson defeated Jim Jeffries in the 15th round, which prompted racial violence
and rioting across the United States.
Because it was becoming increasingly difficult to defeat Johnson the ring, white
supremacists resorted to convicting him of a crime. In 1912, Johnson was
traveling at the time with his girlfriend, a former call girl named Bell Schreiber. He
was pulled over and charged with transporting an unmarried woman across state
line. Just two years earlier, Republican congressman James Robert Mann of
Illinois drafted the White Slave Traffic Act (or Mann Act) barring the transporting
of woman for prostitution or immoral purposes. The evidence used against him
was testimony about a relationship that Johnson had prior to the passing of the
Mann Act, thus violating the Constitutional protection from ex post facto laws. An
all-White jury essentially convicted him for being, in their eyes, a black brute.58
Johnson was sentenced 366 days in prison with $1000 fine. He was released
on bond pending an appeal. For fear of what would happen to him in prison,
Johnson fled the United States disguised as a member of the Negro Giants
57 Runstedtler, Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner, 70. 58 Ibid, 134.
25 baseball team on a train across the border to Canada and then eventually to France
by boat. He lived in exile for the next seven years while defending his title in fights
all over the world. Johnson’s lost the heavyweight title to the white American Jess
Willard in the 20th round in Havana, Cuba in 1915. Ultimately Johnson returned
to the United States in 1920 and was arrested by U.S. marshals. He was sent to
federal prison in Kansas to serve his year sentence. After Johnson’s release, he
boxed occasionally but never regained his heavyweight title. With his fortunes
diminishing near the end of his life, Johnson worked as a cabaret and carnival
performer. He later died in a car accident in 1946.59
Evolution of the Caricature
Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? To such extent you bleach, to get like the white man. Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to so much so that you don't want to be around each other? No... Before you come asking Mr. Muhammad does he teach hate, you should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you. Malcolm X
The Mammy, Tom, Jezebel, & Brute caricatures during Jim Crow era still exist
in 2016. One-dimensional, subservient caricatures were mere shadows of their
unique and complex culture of the African-American community. The echo of
these stereotypes still resonates in film, television, print media, and social media.
Negative biases are frequently articulated through policy creation. There is a
noticeable tendency in American culture to discriminate against and deny access
to social institutions to African Americans.
Roland Martin of NewsOne Now and Richard Lui of MSNBC joined a diverse
59 Runstedtler, Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner, 134-139.
26 panel at a Broadband and Social Justice Summit, titled “#MediaImagesMatter:
The Combined Effects of Traditional and New Media in Perpetuating Stereotypes
of People of Color. At the panel, Martin stated, “There is no group in the history of
the United States that has been denigrated to the extent of African Americans in
every form of mass media in every decade since we’ve had media. When you’ve
had that type of assault on a group of people, it now infiltrates every aspect of our
society, which then infiltrates what we see and what we think and what we hear.”60
Assumptions can made in viewing negative imagery and its contribution to
America’s obsession with maintaining the mainstream depiction of Black
sexuality. Discriminatory images of African-Americans are a part of America’s pop
culture, which goes in line with the ”unconscious love affair with distorted, hyper
violent, hypersexual, and subhuman depictions of Black people.”61
Today’s Jezebel can be found gyrating, and twerking on today’s hip-hop music
videos. Sometimes referred to as ratchet, hoes, skanks, and hoochie mamas, these
women are considered loose and sexually promiscuous indicative of their skimpy
clothing, revealing as much skin as possible. In some instances, these rappers are
“lyrically raping, mutilating, and murdering them in their songs.” These images
are often subconsciously ingrained in the American psyche and have become the
representation of the Black woman. “The Jezebel stereotype also can influence our
perceptions of rape survivors…Black rape survivors internalized beliefs that were
consistent with the Jezebel image, such as “People think Black women are sexually
60 Gadson, Marcella. #MediaImagesMatter: The Cause and Effect of Media Stereotypes on People of Color. Broadband & Social Justice. February 27, 2015. http://broadbandandsocialjustice.org/2015/02/mediaimagesmatter-the-cause-and- effect-of-media-stereotypes-on-people-of-color/ 61 Bell, Jamel Santa Cruze, and Ronald L. Jackson II. Interpreting Tyler Perry: Perspectives on Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality. Vol. 1. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2013), 37.
27 loose,” reported more victim blaming, which in turn was related to lower self-
esteem.62
Producing images that the mainstream media can easily embrace is consistent
with the notion that a non-threatening character can counteract Black criticism of
anti-Black films. An example of a non-threatening character that is easily
embraced is Tyler Perry’s Madea. Even though Perry is an African-American, his
character of Madea excels “within a White supremacist, capitalist patriarchal
society to appear in drag is to symbolically cross over from the realm of power to a
realm of powerlessness.”63
Other comedians before Perry have dressed in drag in their acts such as Flip
Wilson, Eddie Murphy, and Martin Lawrence. The image that their female
characters portray help maintain racist and sexist imagery. The Madea character
that Perry creates embodies the Jim Crow stereotype of the Mammy. “In casting
Madea as an elderly Black woman, Madea repeats the stereotype of the elderly
maternal woman who solves the needs of others. In giving his Madea character the
grossly large breasts and buttocks and pearly white teeth that have become the
signature for the mammy brand, Perry completes the mammy physical typecast.”64
Perry’s Madea character manages to capture multiple stereotypes in
addition to the Mammy. Mammy is the female version of the coon stereotype.
During it’s rise in the Jim Crow era, coon stereotype was one of the most
demeaning of all black stereotypes. Donald Bogle describes coons as “unreliable,
crazy, lazy, subhuman creatures good for nothing more than eating watermelons,
62 West, Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire, and their homegirls, 294-295. 63 Bell, Interpreting Perry, 38-39. 64 Ibid.
28 stealing chickens, shooting crap, or butchering the English language.”65
Perry’s Madea embodies Bogle’s description as discovered in the film Madea
Goes to Jail (2009). There are several images shown on screen that represents
Madea’s criminal past as a gun toting thief and illegal gambler. The images also
insinuate that Madea was a member of the Black Panther party, which adds a
criminal undertone to this organization. Although Madea is charged with serious
crimes, her story is neatly packaged and delivered for comic consumption to be
easily embraced by society. Perry has managed to upgrade the minstrelsy to the
21st century and has become a successful writer, producer, and director in both
film and television. Madea is one of many characters he has created that
personifies many of the caricatures of the Jim Crow era.
Another example of the Mammy caricature is in 21st century media is Annie
the Chicken Queen from the Popeye’s commercials. In March 2009, Popeye’s
debuted their new TV and radio advertising campaign featuring a fictional chef
named Annie portrayed by actress Deidrie Henry. On Popeye’s website, it
specifically describes Annie as a “feisty spokesperson” that “tells it like it is on
national television.”66 Dick Lynch, Popeye’s Chief Brand Experience Officer said
that Annie is “ honest, vibrant, youthful and authentic. Everyone has a relative or a
good friend who will give it to them straight, and that’s what Annie is all about.”67
In each Popeye’s commercial, Annie’s use of one-liners is interlaced with
images of the product she is advertising. In the 2009 Bonafide™ chicken and
65 Bogle, Donald. Toms, coons, mulattoes, mammies, and bucks, 8. 66 “Popeyes.com,” last modified 2015 http://popeyes.com/our-story 67 Wong, Elaine. “Popeye’s Chicken Queen Tells It Straight.” Adweek, March 31, 2009, accessed January 31, 2016. http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/popeyes-chicken-queen-tells- it- straight-105520
29 biscuit commercial, Annie says, “Get up off that floor...you heard me, sweetcakes…
I work my fanny off making this chicken perfect, and they practically give it
away.”68 The 2015 Rip’n & Chick’n™ commercial features Annie smiling ear to ear
in her Popeye’s apron when she says, “I make food that is just plain ol’ fun to eat. I
slice up a whole chicken breast and marinate it in a tongue tinglin’ spicy blend.”69
Compare these Popeye’s advertisements to Aunt Jemima’s advertisement from
a 1918 edition of Ladies Home Journal. "Honey, it 's easy to be the sweetheart o' yo
family. Yo know how de men folks all loves my tasty pancakes.” Both characters
drop the g off certain words like tinglin’ and temptilatin’. Both use words like
honey, sweetheart, and sweetcakes as terms of endearment. It is quite easy to see
that Mammy, Aunt Jemima, and Annie share the same DNA and are still used
today to sell products to consumers. In addition to Mammy, the image of the Tom
is still being used to sell products. Rastus is still featured on the Cream of Wheat
packaging and his likeness has not changed since the 1900’s. Uncle Ben is
prominently placed on all the Mars Company rice products Company. In addition
to products and advertising, Tom’s image continues to be seen in both film and
television.
In Invisible Weight of Whiteness, Bonilla-Silva argues “racial domination
necessitates something like a grammar to normalize the standards of white
supremacy as the standard for all sorts of everyday transactions rendering
domination almost invisible.”70 At first glance, The Blind Side (2009) appears to be
68 Ibid. 69 Popeyes Rip'N Chick'N tv commercial ad 2015 HD, accessed January 31, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-pRv0j7B38 70 Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2012. “THE INVISIBLE WEIGHT OF WHITENESS: THE RACIAL GRAMMAR OF EVERYDAY LIFE IN AMERICA”. Michigan Sociological
30 an incredible and inspirational story but underneath this cloak is an undertone of
racial domination. It is not outwardly apparent since the film is praised for
breaking barriers against racism. However, it is a clear example of how Hollywood
uses stories like this to make people feel good while continuing to use the Tom
caricature as an example of what black men should be. Hollywood portrays black
characters as victims that constantly need approval from whites and to be liberated
by them as well. Michael Oher, an impoverished young black man living on the
street, was abandoned by his drug-addicted mother as an infant and his uncle as a
teenager. Soon thereafter, Oher is rescued by the Tuohy family who “spot him
walking, cold, hungry, and dressed inappropriately for the weather, in the tradition
of the fallen hero in a Shakespearean tragedy.”71
Sandra Bullock plays the part of Leigh Anne Tuohy, a well off interior
decorator, who takes Oher in as her son eventually in the story. Tuohy visits Oher’s
mother’s home, which appears to be in a impoverished ghetto where poor blacks
lived. Fear grips Tuohy and that further propagate the fear and stereotypes whites
have against the black neighborhoods. Tuohy even remarks to one of the black men
in the neighborhood that she was carrying a gun in her purse when she was looking
for Oher’s mother’s house.
In one of the of the major turning points in the movie is when Tuohy coaches
Oher on how to properly protect the blind side of his quarterback. She describes
how the “left tackle evolved to be the ultimate ‘protector’ of the quarterback’s ‘blind
Review 26. Michigan Sociological Association: 1–15. http://www.jstor.org.proxygw.wrlc.org/stable/23292648. 71 Garcia, Claire Oberon, Vershawn Ashanti Young, and Charise Pimentel, eds.From Uncle Tom's Cabin to The Help: Critical Perspectives on White-Authored Narratives of Black Life. (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 187-188.
31 side,’ which symbolically comes to represent anyone that needs looking out for (the
family) and…represents the ability to blot out, to forget. The symbol of the
protector, however, becomes a metaphor that runs through the film, particularly in
reference to Oher, who is both symbolically and literally a left tackle, guarding and
protecting.” 72Tuohy informs the Oher’s football coach that “Michael scored in the
98th percentile in protective instincts.” Protective instincts are biologically inbred
and can be construed as animalist in nature. This characterization is very indicative
of both the Tom & Brute caricatures.
After the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, the media painted a
picture that because a black man was elected, than America must be Post-Racism.
Political analysts who insisted over and over again that American was no longer
racist have explored this premise. However, the Brute caricature is used to deliver
repeated generalization of African American males across several high profile news
cycles. When 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George
Zimmerman, this incident opened up the debate that maybe America is not post-
racist. Immediately after Martin was killed, media outlets began to paint a story of
negativity about his life. Even though Martin was unarmed when he was fatally
shot, the negative portrayal of Martin was used as an excuse in Zimmerman’s
defense for his murder.
Martin was called a “thug” and a “criminal” repeatedly and many asked
questions such as, “Why was Martin wearing a hoodie?” and, “We can’t judge
Zimmerman because we don’t know all the facts.” In the eyes of the media, Martin
72 Garcia et all, From Uncle Tom's Cabin to The Help, 188.
32 was guilty of something and possibly deserved to be killed.73
In August 2014, John Crawford, an African American male, was killed because
he was holding with pellet gun at his local Wal-Mart in Ohio. Crawford was
immediately named as a “suspect” and the media focused quickly on his criminal
history, and even accused him of the death of a woman who died of a heart
condition during the incident. The media produced evidence to blame Crawford for
his own death, even though he did not break any laws – Ohio is an open-carry
state.74
Also in August 2014, Lance Tamayo, was sitting in his car one morning and
called the police claiming that he was going to shoot himself in San Diego, CA.
Dispatchers attempted to verbally subdue him over the phone. Shortly after,
Tamayo eventually agreed to surrender but then immediately returned back to his
car to retrieve his gun. He proceeded to walk around the park waving the gun and
pointing it at innocent bystanders. This is when police offers shot Tamayo in the
stomach. Tamayo fell to the ground with the gun still in hand failing to comply with
the police demands to drop his weapon. After 30 more minutes of waiting, Tamayo
finally moved away from his weapon and was arrested by the police. Tamayo was
labeled as suicidal and is still alive today. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail with
a 4 year suspended sentence barring that he completes his 3-year probation and
200 hours of community service. The media barely covered this story and made
73 "Trayvon Martin Shooting Fast Facts." CNN Library. February 7, 2016. http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/05/us/trayvon-martin-shooting-fast-facts/. 74 Balko, Radley. "Mass Shooting Hysteria and the Death of John Crawford." Washington Post. September 24, 2014. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the- watch/wp/2014/09/25/mass- shooting-hysteria-and-the-death-of-john-crawford/.
33 allegations that Tamayo had a criminal past.75
In the Sentencing Project’s recent report titled, “Black Lives Matter: Eliminating Racial Inequity in the Criminal Justice System,” found that African-American drivers were searched at almost double the rate of their white counterparts when stopped by police (12 percent vs. 7 percent), even though white drivers were more likely to have contraband than African Americans (34 percent vs. 22 percent). Regardless, African Americans are twice as likely to be arrested during a traffic stop, even though “police officers generally have a lower ‘contraband hit rate’ when they search Black versus White drivers,” the study said. The reasons for this disparate treatment clearly are rooted in skewed perceptions portrayed in the news media.76
In Race to Judgment: Stereotyping Media and Criminal Defendants,” pointed out several subtle media trends from various studies, the most alarming of which included: • Blacks and Latinos are more likely than whites to appear as lawbreakers in news—particularly when the news is focusing on violent crime • Depictions of black suspects (mostly young men) tend to be more symbolically threatening than those of whites accused of similar crimes • Black and Latino defendants are twice as likely as white defendants to be subjected to negative pretrial publicity 77
The “guilty criminal” or brute characterization continues to influence the behavior of fear when the image is viewed in the media. This further perpetuates itself in daily life where whites have projected those images on to people who look like “criminals” or “threatening.” This influences the way mainstream American culture, law enforcement officials, and decision makers like legislators and judges treat African American males.
75 Dibano, Misha. "Man Gets 3-month Sentence for Waving Gun at Cops." Fox 5 News. June 22, 2015. http://fox5sandiego.com/2015/06/22/man-gets-3-month- sentence-for-waving-gun-at-cops/. 76 Gadson, Marcella. "#MediaImagesMatter: The Cause and Effect of Media Stereotypes on People of Color." Broadband & Social Justice. February 27, 2015. http://broadbandandsocialjustice.org/2015/02/mediaimagesmatter-the-cause-and- effect-of-media-stereotypes-on-people-of-color/. 77 Ibid.
34 Conclusion
While there has been tremendous progress in American culture, negative caricatures of African Americans still exist today. The echo of the Jim Crow past informs how images are used in today’s society. For a lot of Americans, the media is the only way they can experience different cultures. If all they see are scantily clad black women on TV or social media, then the perception is that all black women are sexually promiscuous. When people see other images that contradict the positive perceptions of African American culture, then the new image is second-guessed.
That negative image then overpowers that positive image. It subjugates the brain into thinking that there is only one way to view a person, and therefore that image is prolonged continuously in the media.
These images are damaging to all races and more and more children grow up to believe people of color are nothing more than lazy, angry, and violent. African-
Americans begin to grow up with very low self-esteem and deem themselves less than their white counterparts. This bias damages the African-American consciousness and causes their lives be of less value in the eyes their people, authority figures, and in mainstream society.
American society must come to terms that stereotypes and oppression still exist today. Yes, there has been a progression since slavery, but there needs to be an awareness of how stereotypes from the caricatures of Jim Crow still exist and create negative attitudes and subjugation of African-Americans. Since stereotypes are believed to be true, defining the issue of racism is a crucial step to moving forward to finding genuine acceptance of the African-American people.
It is also important to share the history of where these negative stereotypes came from to create new expectations on how people should be treated going forward. Individuals need to arm themselves with the education on how to identify
35 these negative stereotypes, challenge them, and navigate to a positive perception of that race. Reexamining what they see on television, in movies, in newspapers and magazines, and on social media, where more positive African-American representation needs to be increased and represented.
Getting into the habit of discussing racial stereotypes and attitudes in a safe environment would give people the opportunity to understand and begin to reject these stereotypes will be helpful in improving the overall landscape on how African-
Americans are perceived. Giving individuals the opportunity to address their biases, assumptions, prejudices, and stereotypes through a non-judgmental process of investigation can help them see each person clearly as an individual instead of the lens of a negative stereotype.
36 Fig. 1 Cream of Wheat Ad. Source: Kristin Delegard. 2013. Digital image. Available from Historyapolis.com, http://historyapolis.com/cream-of-wheat-race-and-the-birth-of-the- packaged-food-industry-in-minneapolis/ (accessed December 5, 2015)
37
Fig. 2 The Three Graces. 1810. Engraving, 241 x 327 mm. The British Museum, London. From: William Heath www.britishmuseum.org (accessed November 12, 2015).
38
Fig. 3 Rube Goldberg’s caricatures of the heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, 1910. CHARLIE Horses: On Caricature and Outrage http://www.tcj.com/charlie-horses-on- caricature-and-outrage/ (accessed November 12, 2015.
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