Black Girls Research Paper

What does it mean to you to be a black girl? If you aren’t one, what do you see when you visualize a black girl? If your imagination limits you to just an afro-centric featured, loud and slang-loving, uneducated woman, then this piece is addressed to you. The persistence of the stereotypes concerning average black girls have chained us all to the earlier listed attributes. One side effect of this dangerous connection is the wide opening for a new form of discrimination it creates. Whether it is depicted through slave owners allocating the preferable duties to lighter-skinned black woman, or in modern times where a dislike in rap music categorizes you as not really black, segregation within black communities occur. Tracing all the way back to elementary school, my education on the subject of racial segregation has been constricted to just the injustices routed by dissimilarities between racial groups. What failed to be discussed was the intragroup discrimination occurring in the black society from both outside observers and inside members. Unfortunately, our differences in the level of education, in physical appearance, and in our social factors such as our behaviour, personality or what we believe in have been pitted against each other to deny the variety of unique identities that we as black individuals carry.

My research proposal will focus on the different issues African American women face while trying to advance within society. I will discuss how these women are paid less because they are women as well as African American. I will also be comparing their struggles to Black men, and White men and women. My next topic will include how these women are often discriminated against. And finally I will discuss how these women are often over looked for receiving promotions at work, even if they obtain more experience.

In a time period when women were considered inferior, as were blacks, it was unimaginable the horrors a black woman in the south had to endure during this period. African women were slaves and subject to the many horrors that come along with being in bondage, but because they were also women, they were subject to the cruelties of men who look down on women as inferior simply because of their sex. The sexual exploitation of these females often lead to the women fathering children of their white masters. Black women were also prohibited from defending themselves against any type of abuse, including sexual, at the hands of white men. If a slave attempted to defend herself she was often subjected to further beatings from the master. The black female was forced into sexual relationships for the slave master’s pleasure and profit. By doing this it was the slave owner ways of helping his slave population grow.

For the most part, masters made young, single slaves the objects of their sexual pursuits. They did on occasion rape married women. The inability of the slave husband to protect his wife from such violation points to another fundamental aspect of the relationship between enslaved

However, that didn’t stop racist, white patriarchs from brutally raping millions of African women for the sole purpose of increasing their slave count. Race breeding was an act of terrorism done to these women in America. They were repeatedly impregnated again and again. They suffered from aching backs, swollen knees and ankles, multiple miscarriages, unsanitary facilities while giving birth, and they still had to work extensive hours laboring on the fields. The black woman’s identity was ripped to shreds by imperialism white supremacy patriarchy during slavery, an effect that has trickled down into future generations. Globally, the black woman has been demoralized and tarnished for generations to come after the end of slavery.

Black women have come a long way from just being the typical housewife and mother. They have excelled over the years. Now you have female entrepreneurs, astronauts, doctors, professors, etc. Back then, females were not even allowed to work. To try to degrade someone for their gender is discrimination at its best. Because of stereotypes and old myths, Black Women were viewed as lazy, angry, intimidating, unintelligent, etc. It was said that Black Women were only good for making babies and being on welfare.

The aim of the thesis is to analyze and discuss the African American women`s quest for voice, acceptance and fulfilment. The analysis will be based on three selected novels, namely, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Color Purple and Beloved. Since their authors - Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison and Alice Walker all - experienced some difficulties in their life related to the subject matter of the thesis, their biographies will be sketched, too. The analysis focuses especially on three women who are the protagonists of the selected novels. Their personal and social problems will be juxtaposed within the context of the criticism selected for the purpose of this thesis.

n 1619 a Dutch ship brought 20 slaves to America and it took nearly 240 years for slavery to end in 1865. In the absence of rights or freedom, my ancestors were put to work growing anything from cotton to tobacco. For centuries, my people fought for equality. Although we are “free” the fight has still remain. As a black women raised in America, I was hit with some harsh realities at a very young age.

While the majority of black women accounts are lost to history due to anti-literacy laws, we do have a good idea of what their lives were, through slave narratives and other records. The life of a female slave in pre-civil war America was characterized by sexual assault, physical and mental abuse along with harsh treatment both in the fields and inside the master’s house. Female slaves were treated as property with no regards to their

White explores the master’s sexual exploitation of their female slaves, and proves this method of oppression to be the defining factor of what sets the female slaves apart from their male counterparts. Citing former slaves White writes, “Christopher Nichols, an escaped slave living in Canada, remembered how his master laid a woman on a bench, threw her clothes over her head, and whipped her. The whipping of a thirteen-year-old Georgia slave girl also had sexual overtones. The girl was put on all fours ‘sometimes her head down, and sometimes up’ and beaten until froth ran from her mouth (33).” The girl’s forced bodily position as well as her total helplessness to stop her master’s torture blatantly reveals the forced sexual trauma many African females endured.

Have you ever felt like you were being discriminated? Or if the other kids were getting treated better than you? Many people worldwide feel like this every single day. Whether it is from hate comments on the internet to racial comments walking down the street. Article 1 states “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” This right was supposed to forge a barrier between the comments being made and the people getting harassed, but not everybody follows them. Plenty of people in the world make these comments and it is a huge issue. Because of this, a great deal of people are feeling they do not belong here. Black girls that go to school are more likely to get suspended than white girls because of racism. There is hate all around the world no matter what your race is. Recent events in the United States have caused

The United States prides itself on being a land of opportunities, and in many ways it is. We look at countries like South Africa, which not long ago was segregated through the laws of Apartheid, and we are glad that we are so much further along than the land of Mandela. However, every now and then we need to stop and ask ourselves just how far along we really are, and we have to wonder if many of the once oppressed countries we helped free are not passing us up in the area of civil rights and opportunity.

1866 is the first time a Black woman was raped in the United States of America. Now, something seems wrong with that sentence. A more accurate way to express this would be that in 1866 the United States government recognized that Black women were capable of being raped for the first time. It was in response to the 1866 Memphis Riot, in which white men attacked a Black community for 72 hours straight killing 48 people, wounding 60-80, and raping at least 5 Black women. Republican abolitionist and reformers came from Washington D.C. and gave the Black women who were sexually abused a platform to speak, giving them a chance to have a Federal testimony in 1866 (Peiss, 2002). This recognition did little to change a society that has been built upon the lie that Black women are “unrapable” due to their assumed hypersexual and licentious ways. A Mississippi defense attorney summarized this viewpoint well in an 1859 court case in which an older enslaved man was being convicted of raping an enslaved girl under the age of ten. He said, “The crime of rape does not exist in this State between African slaves...their intercourse is promiscuous” (Sommerville, 2004, p. 65). This toxic mentality cultivated in slavery is just as present and strong today and creates not only blindness to the presence of sexual violence towards Black women, but also pushes Black women into silence due to shame and a desire to separate oneself from such negative stereotypes (Harris-Perry, 2013)

What is Misogynoir? Black queer feminist, Moya Bailey coined this term in 2010 to describe the racialized sexism that black women face; This is mostly shown in American pop culture and Media causing people of all races to internalize this. This paper will not only be explaining the term in depth but breaking down the root causes and action plans to be taken to educate both men and women on this term. For this paper, I ‘ve conducted many interviews with a number of black men and women, in these interviews I asked them questions about themselves, their families and about both their romantic and non-romantic relationships. I also asked questions about their journey in the world of blackness, because every black journey is different.

Because of such gruesome occurrences as the sexual attacks, it would certainly be safe to assume that the young slave girls were not only physically hurt but also emotionally distraught. They were prone to grow into young women who felt stripped of their dignity and carried the burden of shame.