Stereotypes

Case Study: Black Men

Many of the worst stereotypes, come from slavery.

They were meant to demean and dehumanize Black men and reinforce inferiority in order to justify slavery and its abuses.

The Tom

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the 1852 anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, was the second-best selling book of the 19th Century, behind the Bible. It featured the character Uncle Tom, the dutiful, long-suffering, faithful servant.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1927

He’s God-fearing and self-sacrificing—a loyal and trusted servant.

Uncle Remus

Uncle Remus was the kindly, docile fictional narrator of folk tales for kids. Remember Br’er Rabbit? Here he is in the 1946 Disney film Song of the South.

Bill “Bojangles Robinson

An elegant Tom, Mr. Bojangles with Shirely Temple. Sometimes called the first onscreen interracial couple.

The face of the rice box; Aunt Jemima’s male

counterpart

Rewarded for playing a Tom

Driving Miss Daisy, 1989 best picture. Morgan Freeman receives Golden Globe for playing Hoke.

The Newer Tom: The Good Negro

In 1967’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Sidney Poitier plays Mr. Perfect: a smart, widowed, idealistic physician, who meets his white finance’s parents.

Bill Cosby, America’s Dad

Cliff Huxtable, the lovable pediatrician on The Cosby Show—the perfect husband and father of the 80s.

Barack Obama

The Harvard-educated, bi-racial professor; perfect father and husband: some say, the only black man America could accept as president because he’s so perfect!

The Newest Tom: The Magical Negro

Has special, “magical” powers, to selflessly help the white man. Will Smith as Matt Damon’s caddy in The Legend of Bagger Vance, 2000

The Green Mile,1999

Michael Clarke Duncan, a deathrow inmate with a mysterious gift.

Another new Tom: The Sellout

Andre Lyon, with sellout accessory, the white wife.

Uncle Tom’s revenge

Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen, the head house Negro in charge in Django Unchained, 2013

The Coon

He is the black buffoon, naïve, childish, silly and used for comic relief. Amos and Andy, first voiced on radio by white actors in the 20s, then black actors on TV.

Why “coon?”

• The word may have originated from “baracoon,” the Spanish or Portuguese word for slave pens or barracks slaves were put in before being sold. Maybe from “raccoon,” which have a tendency to steal. Sometimes called “sambo,” after the character “Little Black Sambo.”

The Little Rascals or Our Gang

Buckwheat, Farina and Stymie, the lovable pickaninniesof the 20s and 30s.

Stepin Fetchit

Lazy, slow-witted, trifling, on-screen, but a rich, playboy baddie off. First black actor to become a millionaire during 20s, 30s.

Steve Urkel,

nerdy in the 90s

Family Matters, 1989 - 1998

Rewarded for “cooning”

Cuba Gooding Jr. won the best supporting actor Academy Award in 1996 for Jerry Maguire – “show me the money!!!!”

The Buck

Brutal, violent, dangerous, barbaric, hypersexual, the buck reinforced the idea that like animals, black men could work the fields all day, be forced to reproduce and be whipped, punished and controlled. This is Ken Norton in Mandingo, 1975.

The slur black buck, and its distorted

image, were used during

Reconstruction to frighten whites and

suppress black rights – like voting.

The first on-screen Buck: Birth of a Nation, 1915

This white actor in blackface, plays Gus, a vicious former slave who attempts to rape a white woman. Rather than submit, she kills herself.

Some would call these “buck” images

The Buck Is Back: 70s Blaxpoitation

Dressed in leather, not intimidated by whites, Shaft (1971) is a bad mother…and a sign of the more radical times.

Superfly, 1972

Slick, sexy Harlem drug dealer; descended from the buck

The Wire, 2013

Omar: drug dealing Robin Hood – and gay!

Drug-dealing heroes

Stringer Bell & Avon Barksdale, the Wire

Denzel Washington:rewarded for playing a thug

Best actor Academy Award for Training Day, 2002

The Revenge of the Buck, 1972

The Buck, re-imagined

Jamie Foxx, slave turned vigilante: “Django, the ‘d’ is silent”

strengths weaknesses?

How does this

stereotype reinforce our

systems of inequality?

dangerous, deadly

The price of the stereotype

Emmett Till

Killed in 1955 for “reckless eyeballing”

Rodney King, beaten by police in 1992

Trayvon Martin, 2012

Mike Brown,2014

Eric Garner, 2014

Central Park 5

Stereotypes of black males lead to:

• General antagonism toward black males;• Exaggerated views of, expectations of, and tolerance

for race-based socio-economic disparities;• Exaggerated views related to criminality and violence;• Lack of identification with or empathy for black males;• Reduced attention to structural and other big-picture

factors;• Public support for punitive approaches to problems• Worse-- lowered expectations and the perception of

limited options for black men themselves

So why do we glorify and celebrate the image of the violent black thug?

future