The Emancipation of Black Female Sexuality

            On Wednesday, as is usually the case the day after handing in an essay, I was in a good mood.

            At one point during yoga Radio Canada went fuzzy when a garbage truck was waiting at the light outside my window but came back clear after the vehicle moved on.

            I finished my journal entry about Tuesday just when it was time to leave for English class.

            It was slightly too warm to even be wearing my leather jacket over just a tank top, but I figured it would probably be cooler on the way home.

            I was twenty minutes early, so I sat outside to read Nella Larsen’s “Passing”. The subject matter is certainly interesting, about light skinned Black women passing for White in the 1920s. But Larsen was not a very good writer. It’s like she got a big bag of cheap adjectives at the Five and Dime and the instructions told her to stick one in front of every noun.

            While I was there, Steve, who sits to my left in class, across the aisle, came up to chat. He told me he’s been taking one course a year at U of T for a long time. He started when he was 19 and now he’s 37, but he said he took a few years off. I was surprised at how young he was because I’d actually thought he was closer to my age. Over all that time he had never known until this year about applying for the Noah Meltz grant to pay for his course but he said he was getting it this term.

            Class started about five minutes late. Scott announced, “I’m not feeling great. I don’t know how long I’m gonna last. You all make me sick … no!”

            He passed out copies of the United States slavery timeline.

            The Dutch started trading slaves in North America in the 1600s.

            In the 1700s the British were transporting 45,000 slaves to North America every year, mostly from West Africa.

            At the beginning of the Revolution there were 500,000 slaves in the colonies. Each side promised freedom to slaves that fought for them.

            One fourth of the original Declaration of Independence was on the horrors of slavery but South Carolina refused to sign it unless that part was removed.

            Jefferson compared slavery to holding a wolf by the ear, saying one can’t hold it or safely let it go.

            The international slave trade ended in 1807 but there were 1.2 million African slaves in the United States. One-seventh of the population was property. Female slaves were worth more. Imagine the wives of owners on a daily basis seeing slaves walking around that looked like their husbands. Some masters allowed slaves to choose their partners but marriage of slaves was illegal.

            In 1810 the Hottentot Venus debuted as a freak show attraction in London.

            In 1834, Britain and its colonies, including Canada, abolished slavery.

            Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was published in 1945.

            The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself was published in 1849. These types of slave narratives were didactics in the cause of Abolition. Some were fictional and some were written by Whites either on behalf of or posing as Black people. Violence was spectacularized. White people had to verify that the work qualified as a slave narrative before it could be published.

            In 1850 the Fugitive State Law was enacted whereby runaway slaves were returned to their owners and it became illegal for anyone to help them stay free. Bounty hunters could legally cross into free states to extradite escapees.

            In 1854 the Republican party was formed, consolidating anti-slavery factions.

            In 1856 Booker T Washington was born.

            In 1861 there were 4 million slaves in the United States and one in every seven people was owned by someone.

            The same year “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet Jacobs was published. Texts about women were meant to appeal to women. After abolition though they went out of popularity.

            The Civil War took place from 1861-1865. They fought with modern weapons and medieval techniques. By the end 620,000 had died. For every one that died in combat, two died from disease. The entire male populations of some towns were wiped out. At the beginning one-quarter of the GDP of New York State was equal to the GDP of all of the Confederate States combined. The Black labour force in the south kept the confederate war machine rolling. The north burned buildings and crops and slaughtered everybody because it wanted to demoralize it so it would never think of rebelling again. It worked.

            Scott declares the novel, “Gone with the Wind” to be a racist piece of shit.

            In 1863 Lincoln made the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in Confederate states except the ones on the border which might switch loyalty and all or part of Confederate controlled by the Union. Lincoln was a great failed man. He didn’t want Blacks to fight at first. At first he was not completely sold on Black civil rights. He thought it might be best to send them back to Africa, but then he changed his mind.

            In 1864 one-quarter of the Missouri budget was spent on missing limbs. Walt Whitman got TB from visiting soldiers in hospitals.

            In 1865 the 13^th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States. 70% to 80% came back from Canada mostly to reunite with families but they were difficult to track down because there were no records since it had been illegal to teach slaves to read and write.

            After abolition the ex-slave owners were helpless because they didn't know how to do anything for themselves.

            There was more segregation in the north.

            Lincoln was assassinated.

            Reconstruction began.

            The Ku Klux Klan was formed.

            In 1866 the first Black universities were established.

            In 1868 the 14^th Amendment granted citizenship to African Americans.

            W. E. B. Du Bois was born in Massachusetts.

            15^th Amendment grants African Americans the right to vote.

            The presidential election of 1876 was too close to call. The south offered a compromise. They would accept the victory of Hayes if Union troops would withdraw from the South and end Reconstruction, which removed federal protection of African Americans. Jim Crow laws instituted.

            In 1881 Booker T. Washington establishes Tuskegee Institute.

            In 1883 the Supreme Court of the United States declared the 1875 Civil Rights Act unconstitutional.

            Du Bois (pronounced “Du Boyce) studied at Harvard under Henry James’s brother, William James. He went with his family to Georgia to teach and was shocked at the racism. His son died because a hospital refused to treat him.

            The self-educated Booker T. Washington gave his famous speech. He was a great orator.

In 1892 Du Bois began two years of study in Germany

            In 1896 the Supreme Court declared segregation constitutional.

            In 1901 Washington published his slave narrative, “Up From Slavery”. Scott read from the first chapter and I realized that I didn’t have it in my book. “I must have been born somewhere and at some time”. Slaves had no history beyond their mothers. His father might have been White. Out of nothing Washington built himself an identity. In autobiographies “I” is an effect of the text. He wrote about “White suffering” and the pitiful White owners to disarm Whites. He also declared that slavery had ultimately been a good thing because it exposed African Americans to Christianity. The book is a story of forgiveness. He was very powerful and influential in his day. Du Bois was his student until they split. Washington said that it was only practical to educate African Americans in the trades. Du Bois declared that Black people should be educated in every way the same as White people. Washington was trying to use détente to stop the lynchings and the rapes. Washington proposed that the races be separate as fingers but that they work in unison like a hand. This idea appealed to White people. Du Bois saw Washington's proposals as emasculating for the Black man. Washington may have just wanted to keep the power he'd achieved. But he also gave privacy back to Black people. Both Washington and Du Bois wrote about the definition and redefinition of Black American masculinity. Defining Black manhood says something about Black women. They thought women needed to be idealized and protected.

            .He wrote of Black people having a double consciousness. They see themselves through others in addition to seeing themselves. They internalized the dominant gaze upon them. It becomes a kind of second sight. Like a woman watching a rape in a film feeling objectified.

            In 1903 Du Bois published “The Souls of Black Folk”.

            In 1909 the NAACP was founded.

            From 1915 to 1925 came the great migration of African Americans to northern cities to work during WWI. Before this Harlem was White.

            In 1920 the 18^th amendment introduces prohibition (which made many Canadians rich) and the 19^th amendment gives women the right to vote. The same year saw the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance. Harlem at this time was 90% Black. White people went to Harlem to get down and dirty with the exoticism of Black culture. Around this time as well the Republicans switched to being the conservative party and the Democrats became liberal. Prohibition gave women power. They were able to talk about what men do by talking about what men do while drunk. Queers went to Harlem where there were drag balls.

            In 1928 Nella Larsen's “Quicksand” was published.

            1929 was the beginning of the Great Depression. White patronage of Black writers ended. The Blacks were less affected by the crash since they didn’t play the stock market.

            Zora Hurston thought enough had been said about slavery. She got into fights with people like Langston Hughes.

            1933 was the end of Prohibition.

            1935 was the end of the Harlem Renaissance.

            In 1998 Angela Davis published “Blues Legacies and Black Feminism”. The big change after emancipation was that Black women suddenly had a choice of sexual partners because the finally owned their own bodies. The Blues was the music of Emancipation and the most widely heard purveyors of the Blues were women.

            Bessie Smith sang “Do Your Duty” by Wesley “Kid” Wilson and Coot Grant – “If I call you three times a day baby / come and drive my blues away / When you come be ready to play / Do your duty // If my radiator gets too hot / cool it off in lots of spots / Give me all the service you’ve got / Do your duty”.

            Alberta Hunter sang the Andy Razaf and Eubie Blake song “My Handy Man” – “ … He shakes my ashes /greases my griddle /churns my butter / strokes my fiddle … He threads my needle / creams my wheat / heats my heater / chops my meat … When my furnace gets too hot / he’s right there to turn my damper down / For everything he’s got a scheme / You ought to see the new starter he uses on my machine … I wish you could see the way / he handles my front yard / My ice don’t get a chance to melt away / He sees that I get that old fresh piece every day …” Meanwhile, White songs were about love and marriage. Black women were feminists before White women.

            W. E. B. Du Bois included musical notation in his writing.

             Scott mentioned the Brown Mother Figure. He said it’s not Aunt Jemima because she would be taking care of White people’s kids. Slave women would have been working in the fields till their water broke. They would give birth, their baby would be handed to old slaves to take care of and then she’d be put back to work.

            Race is a social construct.

            Freedom is different for men and women.

            A White person wouldn't have been arrested for raping a Black woman.

            Meanings shift, especially around sexuality. Sexuality allows fuelling of discussions around race. Race ideas are fueled through sex.

            Stereotypes allow power to function.

            The Hottentot Venus had her genitals in a jar until 1974. Mandela arranged for her remains to be returned to South Africa.

            We finished a little before halftime. I told Scott that I hoped we'd cover a little more of Zora Hurston before getting into Nella Larsen. He said that we might.

            That night I watched the first episode of the Mike Hammer TV series from the late 50s, starring Daren McGavin. I remember him from another detective series that he did in the 70s. I think it was called Night Stalker and he investigated the paranormal. But Mike Hammer I think is supposed to be in the 1940s and they set this version exactly when they filmed it, which was 1958. So far there's nothing special about it.