Internalization of the Other
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Internalization of the “Other”
–Analysis of Controlling Images of American Black Women
Abstract:
From the history and literature of black feminist criticism, the exploration and analysis of black womens image is an essential part of American black feminist critics. The elaboration of the image of the “other” of American black women, and the analysis of black womens image in American black literature are also of great importance in the criticism of American black womens image. Black feminist critics analyze the ideological meaning of controlling images constructed on mainstream discourse, their justifications, and how these stereotypes impact black womens psychology, which lays the foundation for the re-discovery of American black womens self-identity and .their resistance to discourse hegemony.
Section One Representation and discourse hegemony: the construction of controlling images
As early as in the 1930s and 1940s, American feminist activists pointed out that the intersecting oppressions of race, class, and gender were at the root of American black womens impoverishment. Slavery deprived black women of their educational rights, so that black women were forced to “keep silent” on their circumstances. Illiteracy also contributed to the objectification and the becoming of the “other” of American black women. Unable to make themselves heard, American black women did not have the power to “define” themselves and describe their circumstances. In this sense, the right to define American black women fell into the hands of white men and women, who, from their own perspectives, created those controlling images like mammies, matriarchs, welfare mother, hot mammas, etc.
These images made by mainstream discourse to a great extent sustain and enhance the “unspeakability” of American black women. “The dialect of oppression and activism, the tension between the suppression of African-American womens ideas and our intellectual activism in the face of that suppression, constitutes the politics of U.S. Black feminist thought.” In addition to political and economic oppressions, black women also suffer from ideological oppression in “self-definition” in that mainstream discourse creates and diffused all kinds of warped and monotonous black women stereotypes and justifies the objectification of black women by controlling discourse power.
In exploring black women image, black feminist critics attest to legitimating intersecting oppressions of race, class and gender by imposing negative images on black women. By reviewing literature and mainstream social phenomenon, black feminist critics like Barbara Christian, bell hooks, and Patricia Hill Collins summarized several controlling images of black women in American mainstream literature and pop culture and revealed how representation render these images ideological meanings.
Patricia Hill Collins demonstrates systematically the construction of black women images in mainstream literary representation. In Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images, she analyzes the institutionalization of intersecting oppressions of race, class, and gender through four major controlling images created by mainstream society. She also points out how these stereotypes reiterate and justify ideological oppression. She notes that mainstream literature creates four controlling images: mammies, matriarchs, welfare mother, and the jezebel. She thinks that the mammy lies to the core of intersecting oppressions in that it represents the ideal black female relationship to white male social elites. Moreover, the mammy is important because it shows the maternal character of black women. Considering the importance of mother in the family, black women may impart to their kids their “assigned place” in white power structure. In this sense, “black women who internalize the mammy image potentially become effective conduits for perpetuating racial oppression.” A second image deepening intersecting oppressions is the matriarch appearing at the beginning of feminist movement. They are portrayed as failed mothers, a negative image imposed on those black women who rose up to resist inequality. The third is welfare mother, which not only legitimates the interference of the ruling class in black womens fertility, but also victimizes black women for overall black poverty. The last image, the jezebel, provides a rationale for the widespread of sexual assaults by white men through a deviant black female sexuality. To Collins, these stereotypes are cultural symbols imposed upon black women by mainstream representation system, which lies at the root of black women oppression. Since black women do not have the discourse power to speak up for themselves, they usually become “described object” in mainstream literature.
Those controlling images generated since slavery constitute the ideological oppression of black women. Collins puts it well that “within U.S. culture, racist and sexist ideologies permeate the social structure to such a degree that they become hegemonic, namely, seen as natural, normal, and inevitable. In this context, certain assumed qualities that are attached to Black women are used to justify oppression. From the mammies, jezebels, and breeder women of slavery to the smiling Aunt Jemimas on pancake mix boxes, ubiquitous Black prostitutes, and ever-present welfare mothers of contemporary popular culture, negative stereotypes applied to African-American women have been fundamental to Black womens oppression”.
These controlling images have specially meaning to cultural production in that the power to define these symbols is an important means to authority. To exercise the power, white males with discourse power must command proper symbols to contain black women. To achieve the ends, they can harness existing symbols or create new ones. Furthermore, by analyzing the differences between black and white females in literature, black feminist criticism also reveals a fact that black women are at the bottom of discourse oppressions of sexism and racism when defined by other ethnic groups and the opposite sex. For example, in literary works, white females are depicted as the standard female image, namely, beautiful, pure, and fragile, while black females are usually portrayed as the opposite, that is, strong, sexually insatiable, and freaky. The foundations of intersecting oppressions become grounded in these oppositional but unequal relations.
Section Two Internalization of controlling images
Black feminist critics expose these warped images created