Black Sexual Politics

BLACK SEXUAL POLITICS BLACK SEXUAL POLITICS AFRICAN AMERICANS, GENDER, AND THE NEW RACISM PATRICIA HILL COLLINS Routledge New York & London Published in 2004 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, New York 10001 www.routledge-ny.com Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE www.routledge.co.uk Copyright © 2004 by Routledge Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or here- after invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Collins, Patricia Hill. Black sexual politics : African Americans, gender, and the new racism / Patricia Hill Collins. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-93099-5 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. African Americans—Social conditions—1975- 2. African American men. 3. African American women. 4. Sex role—United States. 5. African American—Sexual behavior. 6. African American—Race identity. 7. Racism—United States. 8. United States—Race relations. 9. Sexism—United States. I. Title. E185.86.C58167 2004 306.7'089'96073—dc22 2003022841 ISBN 0-203-30950-2 Master e-book ISBN CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii INTRODUCTION: NO TURNING BACK 1 PART I African Americans and the New Racism 1 WHY BLACK SEXUAL POLITICS? 25 2 THE PAST IS EVER PRESENT: RECOGNIZING THE NEW RACISM 53 3 PRISONS FOR OUR BODIES, CLOSETS FOR OUR MINDS: RACISM, HETEROSEXISM, AND BLACK SEXUALITY 87 PART II Rethinking Black Gender Ideology 4 GET YOUR FREAK ON: SEX, BABIES, AND IMAGES OF BLACK FEMININITY 119 5 BOOTY CALL: SEX, VIOLENCE, AND IMAGES OF BLACK MASCULINITY 149 6 VERY NECESSARY: REDEFINING BLACK GENDER IDEOLOGY 181 vi PART III Toward a Progressive Black Sexual Politics 7 ASSUME THE POSITION: THE CHANGING CONTOURS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE 215 8 NO STORYBOOK ROMANCE: HOW RACE AND GENDER MATTER 247 9 WHY WE CAN’T WAIT: BLACK SEXUAL POLITICS AND THE CHALLENGE OF HIV/AIDS 279 AFTERWORD: THE POWER OF A FREE MIND 303 NOTES 309 GLOSSARY 349 BIBLIOGRAPHY 353 INDEX 367 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I begin by thanking students from the University of Cincinnati for their support of this project. Special thanks go to the students who enrolled in “Seminar in Black Sexual Politics” and in “Introduction to Black Gender Studies,” two new courses in which I explored many of the ideas in this book. The issues in their lives convinced me of the need for this book. Undergraduate students also greatly helped my thinking about contemporary hip-hop culture. Several University of Cincinnati undergraduate student majors and minors in African American Studies assisted me as student researchers on various parts of this project. Adetra “Quay” Martin and Tanya Walker helped me to complete research on films and popular culture. Special thanks also go to Eric Styles, Kyle Riddle, Terri Holland, Erin Ledingham, Keith Melson, Khalila Sanders, and Torrie Wiggins for their insights. Graduate students in Women’s Studies and Sociology also provided important help. Valerie Ruffin made invaluable contributions to this project, both as my research assistant when she was a student at the University of Cincinnati and as a keen editorial eye concerning early drafts of this project. Special thanks also go to Stephen Whittaker for his thorough research in the literature of masculinities and for reading early drafts of some of the chapters. Jennifer Gossett, Sarah Byrne, and Jamie McCauley also shared ideas that improved the final quality of this manuscript. Vallarie Henderson and Tamika Odum assisted me with final manuscript preparation. My University of Cincinnati colleagues also provided much-needed support for this project. I want to thank Patrice L. Dickerson for assistance with demographic material and viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS William Jackson for his suggestions and critical eye concerning Black film. I also enjoyed co-teaching “Introduction to Black Gender Studies” with Marla Frederick and benefited from the insights of Regina Langley. Both helped me think through ideas concerning race, gender, and religion. Sharing the ideas in this project with colleagues greatly strengthened this book. I especially appreciate being invited to participate in two excit- ing conferences on Progressive Black Masculinities held in 2001 and 2002 at the Baldy Center at the University of Buffalo Law School. Organized by Professor Athena Matua, these conferences helped me think through issues of Black masculinity. Teresa Miller and John Calmore greatly stim- ulated my thinking on the prison industry and the treatment of African American men within it. Special thanks to Devon Carbado, Kendall Thomas, Thomas Glave, Mark Anthony Neal, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Bahati Kuumba, and many other conference participants whose thinking greatly enriched my own. I also want to thank colleagues at other institu- tions who invited me to present chapters from this manuscript. A partial list includes Rebecca Walter at George Mason University, Tom Greaves at Bucknell University, Jeff Schulz at Arcadia University, Diane Vaughn at Boston College, Gerald Early at Washington University at St. Louis, Tukufu Zuberi at the University of Pennsylvania, and Tariq Modood at the University of Bristol, U.K., where I spent a total of four weeks as a visiting professor in January and June of 2002. In 2002–2003, I spent a year as a visiting professor at the University of Kentucky, Lexington. The intellectual stimulation that I encountered there enabled me to finish the manuscript. The support that I received from everyone was wonderful. My deep thanks go to Mike Nietzel from the Provost’s Office, Joan Callahan and Debra Harley in Women’s Studies, and Gerald Smith in African American Studies. University of Kentucky graduate students read parts of this manuscript and gave me helpful comments. In this regard, special thanks go out to Yaphet Bryant for her editorial comments on chapters dealing with Black popular culture and to John Youngblood for his insights concerning the Black Church as well as issues that face gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Black people. I also want to thank Rachel Clark, my phenomenal graduate research assistant for the year who gave new meaning to the term “stealth feminist.” The University of Kentucky and the University of Cincinnati both helped defray costs associated with this book. The Provost’s Office at the ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix University of Kentucky provided support that helped with the costs of manuscript preparation. At the University of Cincinnati, the support provided by the Taft Fund for costs of travel and manuscript preparation has been invaluable over the years. I also wish to thank Provost Anthony Perzigian for his tireless support of my scholarship during lean financial times. The three deans of the College of Arts and Sciences who held tenure while I completed this project—Joseph Caruso, Chuck Groetsch, and Karen Gould—also provided encouragement and support. Administrative and secretarial support also made my life much easier. I wish to thank Josephine Wynne for her professionalism and her ability to manage the Department of African American Studies during my tenure as chair of the department. This project would not have come to fruition without the support of the terrific team at Routledge. Ilene Kalish, my tireless editor at Routledge, has been with me through this entire project and her enthusiasm (and energy!) has not waned throughout. I would also like to thank the entire editorial team who worked on the manuscript, with special thanks to Kimberly Guinta, Mark Lerner, and Danielle Savin for their invaluable contributions during the production process. I would also like to thank Tricia Rose, who read and gave helpful suggestions on the final manuscript, as well as the anonymous reviewers provided by Routledge. I also wish to thank my family for their continued backing. My spouse, Roger and my father, Albert Hill, have been among my strongest and most consistent supporters. I also want to acknowledge the unconditional love offered by my two senior cats who kept me company as I wrote. Finally, I dedicate this book to Valerie, my beautiful and talented daughter. May the world come to see her and others of her generation as the hope of our future. INTRODUCTION NO TURNING BACK The spring of 1964 held great promise for African Americans. On August 28, 1963, a crowd estimated at between 200,000 and 500,000 Americans of all races had marched on Washington, D.C., petitioning the federal government to make good on its commitment to equal and fair treatment under the law. As the largest mass demonstration at that time ever organized by African Americans, the march made it clear that Black people were not turning back. Despite the bombing of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church that killed four young girls just two weeks after the march, and the assassination of President Kennedy the following November, the tide of history was turning. The passage of momentous civil rights legislation that, for African Americans, was designed to redress the devastating effects of slavery and racial segregation was on the horizon. That spring, I was a sixteen-year-old high school student in a college preparatory public high school in Philadelphia. Because, along with other Black people, my parents had been denied edu- cational opportunities, they recognized the importance of educa- tion for African American empowerment. I was one of the many Black kids who benefited from our parents’ personal sacrifices as well as broader civil rights struggles. Schooled in this philosophy, I tried to do everything that I could to be personally excellent.

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