Rape Culture, Racism, and The Post-Bellum American South
Rape, in the South, has a long and troubled history. This trouble involves both its reality, and the accusation of rape. As civil-rights activist Ida B. Wells points out in 1895, the third set of reasons for lynching and oppression was retaliation for supposed rape by black men towards white women. As she argues, "The Southern white man" assumes that any interracial activity at all is rape on the part of the black man--though one might add cynically that interactions between white men and black women are almost never viewed as rape, even when they quite consciously are--and punishes him for it.
They defended themselves based on sexist constructions of gender which gave them an excuse to brutalize minorities in the name of protecting womanhood. Meanwhile, the South and the slavery system was rampant with sex that was, at best, problematic: and more bluntly by modern definitions rape. Ruth Thompson-Miller and Joe Feagin, in a paper released in 2008, calculated the number of pople that were "visibly mulatto" in the South in 1850. It was 11% of the population, and Carolyn West's 2006 paper which estimates that 58% of enslaved women between 15 and 30 years of age were "sexually assaulted by white men" during the period before the Civil War.
In other words, put bluntly, the South in their fears of black rape were disgusting hypocrites, whose very system and supposed racial demographics were in part defined by frequent and common rape, whose excuses and panics and victim blaming all successfully hid the scale of their crimes. It would defy all sense that such crimes would merely disappear because a war came and went.
No, historical logic all hints at a depth of pain and suffering which we have only a few sources for. But that we did have sources, during Reconstruction, speaks of African-American willingness to tell their own story in the hopes that it could be believed.
Where one is unwilling to speak out, then there is no hope.
******
Which brings us, of course, to #MeToo. Speaking out, even if it isn't always believed, or if it is twisted as part of sexist narratives, is an important first step. People were stunned at how common their stories were, how they were not the exception but the rule. Just as when 58% of slave women were sexually assaulted, what cultural documents said was not *that* common was in fact ubiquitous.
In the 1860s and 70s, there was, it seemed, no chance that speaking out would end well. Defying Whig history, the 1880s, 90s, and 1900s were a time in which things regressed for African-Americans in the South, and the lynch laws would trap many. In fact, murder as a payment for mere accusations of sexual impropriety on the part of black men would continue into the 1950s and 60s, and possibly beyond.
To speak out is a good first step: it is not the only step.
Let us consider false accusations. Consider, WHO makes false accusations.
https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations/
False Rape Accusers usually have a rather specific profile, and it's one that doesn't really fit many of the modern accusations that have blown up in the news. Men and women in the 19th century who made accusations based on racial prejudice and excuse fit perfectly the profile of false accusers, all while working diligently to falsify more credible accusations.
The more things change...
That, at least, is an important lesson in history, not merely that there are precedents for the present, but that many of the struggles that seem new are ancient, even as other problematic behavior that is portrayed as traditional can be remarkably new.
*****
When it came down to trials, only "legitimate victims of rape" in the eyes of 19th century contemporaries (virgins ravished by force by faceless, nameless monsters) counted. The deck was stacked against women who could do very little against powerful men who found that indiscretions and crimes, if not punished or noticed, wouldn't stop them from gaining yet more power.
If one took out 19th century and put in 21st century, it'd still honestly fit, wouldn't it?
And that, more than anything, is a damning indictment.
Rape, in the South, has a long and troubled history. This trouble involves both its reality, and the accusation of rape. As civil-rights activist Ida B. Wells points out in 1895, the third set of reasons for lynching and oppression was retaliation for supposed rape by black men towards white women. As she argues, "The Southern white man" assumes that any interracial activity at all is rape on the part of the black man--though one might add cynically that interactions between white men and black women are almost never viewed as rape, even when they quite consciously are--and punishes him for it.
They defended themselves based on sexist constructions of gender which gave them an excuse to brutalize minorities in the name of protecting womanhood. Meanwhile, the South and the slavery system was rampant with sex that was, at best, problematic: and more bluntly by modern definitions rape. Ruth Thompson-Miller and Joe Feagin, in a paper released in 2008, calculated the number of pople that were "visibly mulatto" in the South in 1850. It was 11% of the population, and Carolyn West's 2006 paper which estimates that 58% of enslaved women between 15 and 30 years of age were "sexually assaulted by white men" during the period before the Civil War.
In other words, put bluntly, the South in their fears of black rape were disgusting hypocrites, whose very system and supposed racial demographics were in part defined by frequent and common rape, whose excuses and panics and victim blaming all successfully hid the scale of their crimes. It would defy all sense that such crimes would merely disappear because a war came and went.
No, historical logic all hints at a depth of pain and suffering which we have only a few sources for. But that we did have sources, during Reconstruction, speaks of African-American willingness to tell their own story in the hopes that it could be believed.
Where one is unwilling to speak out, then there is no hope.
******
Which brings us, of course, to #MeToo. Speaking out, even if it isn't always believed, or if it is twisted as part of sexist narratives, is an important first step. People were stunned at how common their stories were, how they were not the exception but the rule. Just as when 58% of slave women were sexually assaulted, what cultural documents said was not *that* common was in fact ubiquitous.
In the 1860s and 70s, there was, it seemed, no chance that speaking out would end well. Defying Whig history, the 1880s, 90s, and 1900s were a time in which things regressed for African-Americans in the South, and the lynch laws would trap many. In fact, murder as a payment for mere accusations of sexual impropriety on the part of black men would continue into the 1950s and 60s, and possibly beyond.
To speak out is a good first step: it is not the only step.
Let us consider false accusations. Consider, WHO makes false accusations.
https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations/
False Rape Accusers usually have a rather specific profile, and it's one that doesn't really fit many of the modern accusations that have blown up in the news. Men and women in the 19th century who made accusations based on racial prejudice and excuse fit perfectly the profile of false accusers, all while working diligently to falsify more credible accusations.
The more things change...
That, at least, is an important lesson in history, not merely that there are precedents for the present, but that many of the struggles that seem new are ancient, even as other problematic behavior that is portrayed as traditional can be remarkably new.
*****
When it came down to trials, only "legitimate victims of rape" in the eyes of 19th century contemporaries (virgins ravished by force by faceless, nameless monsters) counted. The deck was stacked against women who could do very little against powerful men who found that indiscretions and crimes, if not punished or noticed, wouldn't stop them from gaining yet more power.
If one took out 19th century and put in 21st century, it'd still honestly fit, wouldn't it?
And that, more than anything, is a damning indictment.
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