Piquant Dinner Analysis

This is proof that this terrible act was very typical within slaveholding societies. Now, just because this relationship seems usual in the south, it does not mean everyone condoned it. The wives of many slave owners proved they were not okay with a white male and a black female relationship by the way they acted with “anger and resentment” towards other slaves (McLaurin, 26). Wives chose to ignore this behavior simply because if they didn’t, not only would their lives be in danger, but so would their children’s.

On the surface, Harriet Jacobs, a black slave, and Rachel Davis, a white indentured servant, appear to have little in common. However, these two seemingly opposite women do share a common experience: they were both sexually coerced by their masters. In the early republic, those who worked as bound laborers were sometimes subjected to instances of sexual coercion, as they were “vulnerable to the power and authority of their masters.” While the two women were in vastly different situations, there are many parallels that can be found in their respective experiences, including the role that their masters (and their mistresses) played, how friends and family were involved, and how each woman struggled to control the account of what happened. But

Imagine being one of the black female victims in the plantation south, and not having the voice to revolt against immorality experienced frequently because of White southerner males. The unthinkable feeling of white males having full access to a female’s body without her consent, and using her for their personal amusement reveals that discrimination and inhumanity existed in the era before slavery was abolished. For this reason, Deborah Gray White wrote the book known as Ar’n’t I a Woman? to highlight the brutal actions of these white southerner males that made miserable circumstances for black slave population to survive. The way she brought forth the reality and the vicious mentality of the White southerner males manifest that the status

The journey from being a hidden figure to someone of credibility was far from easy amongst the three women. Each of the women were disposed to stereotypes of not being capable enough that resulted from their skin color. While being stereotyped, these women knew they had

After Selina’s debut solo performance, Margaret’s mother regards her “with an intense interest and irritation” (Marshall 286). Her voice is “preoccupied” (Marshall 286) with prejudice, as she keeps trying to label Selina’s identity. By asserting that there is “something different… about Negroes from the West Indies” that she could “always spot” (Marshall 287), Margaret’s mother shamelessly overgeneralizes Selina’s ancestry and characteristics. Although she asks questions, she hears only what she could identify and what she wanted to hear. Moreover, she goes on to talk about their old maid who was honest and implies how the same cannot be said about the majority of the black race. From an offensive and provocative sentences such as, “You can’t help your color” and “you don’t even act colored” (Marshall 288), readers can clearly see that Margaret’s mother is labeling Selina as one of the majority. All the while, Margaret’s mother has a “warm smile, which was cold at its source” (Marshall 287), on her face and places her “consoling” (Marshall 287), “restraining” (Marshall 288) hand on Selina’s knee, which symbolizes the white supremacy. With “a sharp and shattering clarity,” Selina realizes that the woman “saw one thing above all else” (Marshall 289) when she looked at her: her black skin. She truly sees

“Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities.” In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs provides a portrayal of her life as a black slave girl in the 1800s. Though Harriet described herself as having yellowish brown skin; she was the child of a black mother and a white father. “I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away.” Born with one drop of black blood, regardless of the status of her white father, she inherited the classification of black and was inevitably a slave. Harriet endured years of physical and mental abuse from her master and witnessed firsthand how slaves were treated based on the color of their skin. Years of abuse can only be taken for so long, like many

Victoria Price and Mayella Ewell are white women who both falsely accused black men of raping them. The first piece of evidence was that both girls were poor and needed money. They saw black men and used them as an excuse to either get money or attention. Victoria would take an easier route to get money by sleeping with white and black men because where she worked, wages were always low and the hours were too long (Ransdell, 1935, pg. 13). Victoria and Mayella both provided information that didn’t add up and couldn’t answer simple questions. A lawyer named Samuel Leibowitz asked Victoria which cart was she raped in on the train. Price claims that she couldn’t show him because the toy replica of the train was too small (Scottsboro, 2005). A lawyer named

The film “The Help” (2011), is a story based on the daily lives of prominent white women and the relationships with their African-American housemaids in Jackson, Mississippi, during the 1960s Civil Rights movement in America. A well-to-do white woman and central character in this film, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan, aspires to be a journalist and decides to write and publish an exposé of the stories of the housemaids in Jackson to achieve this goal, however, only two maids, Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson are willing to discuss their experiences with her. The other maid’s in Jackson resist telling Skeeter their stories, fearing the punishments they would endure if the authorities were to find out. In spite of this, after the malicious arrest of one of their befriended maids, all of the maids begin to share their experiences, which consist of racial hostility and being treated as intrinsically subservient to white people. The story Skeeter publishes entitled The Help, creates a disturbance among the white families in Jackson, by exposing the racism the maids are faced with, forcing the white families to reflect upon how they have treated their maids. The storyline represented in The Help exhibits examples of the primordial approach to race and ethnicity, as well as numerous sociological concepts including segregation, internalized oppression, and white privilege, which will be exemplified in this paper in order to uncover the race relations evident within this film.

This pair seized upon the headlines generated from a case involving a woman named Mona Marshall, who alleged that she had been drugged, raped, and forced into prostitution by a pimp. There were elements of her story that were genuinely factual and terribly disturbing, but other parts seemed far-fetched. That included a tale in which the police reportedly received a note that she dropped from the window of the brothel where she worked stating, “I am a white slave.” In addition, Marshall’s recounting of events included several contradictions with dates and key details. Nonetheless, The Chicago Tribune and William Randolph Hearst’s Chicago American ran wild with the Mona Marshall story and it quickly gained a national audience.

As the issue of race and rape often entangled with one another, it was often observed that the issue of skin color greatly determined the punishment for crimes committed. White men on one spectrum were more than likely to not be convicted for the rape of an African American woman and were rarely convicted for raping white women. On the other hand, African American men were recommended for the death penalty if found guilty of raping a white woman; although most (if not all) were hung if even suspected of the act. The negative connotation of African Americans, more specifically African American women possessed by the Caucasian race can even be traced back into literature of the early 1900’s. An article published by a white southern woman in a periodical titled “The Independent” on March 17th, 1904 stated, “Degeneracy is apt to show most in the weaker individuals of any race; so Negro women evidence more nearly the popular idea of total depravity than men do. They are so nearly lacking in virtue that the color of a Negro woman’s skin is generally taken (and is quite correctly) as a guarantee of her immortality…I sometimes read of a virtuous Negro woman, hear of them, but the idea is absolutely inconceivable to me.”, (Cook,

The whites people considered the raped was unacceptable in their community; yet, they remained still if this crime happened on the black women. As the author portrayed, “Governor Tillman, of South Caroline… declared that he would lead a mob to lynch a negro who raped a white woman…But when the victim is a colored woman it is different” (58).

The story portrayed in White Lies by Natasha Trethewey displays the disheartening sense of shame in a young, interracial girl growing up in the post-integration South. Though she is half-black and half-white, the blending of the two races, more than likely, constitutes her ability to pass as a white girl. Because of this, she could adhere to the façade that her family resided uptown with only the finest of clothes, just as the other white families did. She could also allow her white classmates to believe that she was white like they were. However, her complete disregard of her true identity was a punishable offense by her mother, resulting in the speaker’s tongue being met with a bar of soap to “to purify and cleanse” her lying tongue (Trethewey

“Black in a white society, slave in a free society, woman in a society ruled by men, female slaves had the least formal power and were perhaps the most vulnerable group of Americans.” (Gray, 70) Deborah Gray White’s Ar’n’t I a Woman? is a much needed insight into the realm of the enslaved African-American woman, whose struggles transcended that of any other peoples. In her narrative, White explores the multifaceted identities of enslaved women in the South. She explains the prevalent images of the “Jezebel” and the “Mammy” that were designated to African American slave women. Each chapter in her text is accumulative, adding to the story and experiences of the archetypal enslaved African American woman.

Whites’ study of slavery and the experience of women show a marked contrast between the restricted femininity of white women and the sexual exploitation and perception of black women. White women were expected to be controlled and preserve their modesty and virtue, but black women were exposed and blamed for the sexual advances and exploits of their white masters. White sums of this contrast best:

on her plate, and as the steam rose from the boiled meat, waves of nausea rose from