Throughout the semester, prompts based on class readings, screenings, lectures, and discussions will be posted on this blog. Responses will be graded on their level of critical thinking, pertinence, engagement with class texts, and grammar/spelling/proofing/
length. Be sure to read the prompt carefully and fully engage with the content of the class materials. At the bottom of your response, type your FIRST NAME and the FIRST INITIAL OF YOUR LAST NAME (e.g. Claudia Z.).
Saturday, March 11, 2017
Week Seven: Response 7.2
In Harris’ essay, what is the historical purpose of
respectability politics, what is an example of it in popular culture, and why
does Harris believe it should be eradicated?
According to Harris, the historical purpose of respectability politics began in the late 19th century as a way to push back against the white idea of black people being the “other” - a way to show white people that black people were just like them and deserved equal rights. This is done by taking on aspects of white culture. For instance, in the Netflix show, “Dear White People”, the character Troy is meant to be the epitome of the idea of a black person adhering to the idea of respectability. In order to succeed, his father expects him to smile, be polite, become the student body president, and not engage in the conversations that his peers are having about racial inequality on their college campus. Throughout the first season, Troy fields different situations that threaten to break the “perfect image” that he adheres to, often in ways that are exaggerated and show the strain that comes with the pressure. As his journalist roommate describes him in the series’ eighth episode, “...our first black president, our great hope, stuck between a rock of a world that demands one hundred and ten percent from people of color, and the hard place of an overbearing father determined to save his son from inequality by demanding he be perfect. But a system that requires perfection in exchange for equality is untenable and unjust.” Harris feels that respectability politics should be eradicated because they further oppress a society that is trying to achieve equality and give the public a scapegoat to blame an individual that is merely trying to succeed in society while rendering the true oppressors invisible. While the intentions are meant to be helpful, they increase the pressure on black people to be representatives of their whole race, rather than giving them the freedom to be their own individual.
Harris explains that respectability politics emerged in the late 19th century in America after slavery was abolished. In order to assimilate, black women tried to take on the same interpretation of womanhood that white women were portraying. This understanding of what a woman should be like included a lot of Victorian values such as being docile, chaste, and submissive. Eventually this turned into a way that black women were policing each other because there was now a certain way they were expected to be as a black person as well as a woman to not be considered “other” in society. Through this policing, a “Culture of Dissemblance” was created where black women tried to become the opposite of minstrel stereotypes that were applied to them. For example, to avoid being called a “jezebel”, they had to present themselves as asexual, and to not be labelled a “sapphire”, they had to be almost silent.
An example of how respectability politics are still present are all the think pieces and articles written about Viola Davis’s character on the television show How to Get Away With Murder. Davis’s character, Annalise Keating, is a black, queer, female lawyer with an alcohol addiction problem. Throughout the series, Annalise has been portrayed as an independent, powerful, and extremely intelligent lawyer, but she is also allowed to be sexual, angry, and have emotional outbursts. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in September 2015, Davis explained that before she got the role as Annalise, “[I] was not able to be sexualized. Ever. In my entire career. And I’ve never seen anyone who looks like me be sexualized on television or in film. Ever.” Multiple people have argued that Annalise is just an “angry black woman”, when in reality she is a multidimensional character battling addiction, grief, past traumas, and countless scandals. Clearly, Annalise would have more than enough reason to be pissed off at times.
Harris argues that respectability politics are troubling because they place the blame and burden of representation on an individual rather than the entire industry. Instead of turning the situation around and asking why people are critiquing a character played by a woman of color, the specific actress/actor playing that role is criticized. Also, people largely ignore the fact that the entertainment industry is responsible for creating a limited amount of characters that people of color are allowed to play.
In her essay “No Disrespect: Black Women and the Burden of Respectability”, Tamara Winfrey Harris addresses the culture of respectability politics surrounding black women by first looking at the historical moment it first emerged in society. Harris explains that the politics of respectability became a set of social standards that aggressively adopted the manners and morality that the dominant (white) culture deemed “respectable” in order to counter negative views of blackness in the late nineteenth-century that portrayed the newly freed black community as inferior and degenerate. Black women, however, faced the double-binding oppression of their race and gender and therefore were forced to disprove the stereotypes depicting them as “lascivious Jezebels, animalistic beasts of burden, and disrespectable antiwomen;” to do so, black women were forced (often by their black male counterparts) to adhere to the Cult of True Womanhood cultural standards identifying respectable white women as “chaste, pious, childlike, [and] submissive.” Harris unapologetically acknowledges the impossible achievement of the goal behind these politics, as an oppressed community can never successfully assimilate into the problematic culture that structures their oppression, and in doing so, she expresses the unprogressive nature of these politics in contemporary culture. To support her argument, Harris uses multiple examples in popular culture like the backlash towards Halle Berry’s role in Monster Ball and Angela Bassett’s refusal of the role for its “reinforcement” of black women's stereotypes, or the critiques of Erykah Badu’s three pregnancies (all of which were from different fathers) and her comparison to Beyonce’s respectable nuclear family. Using such examples, Harris demonstrates how policing individual black women’s actions and criticizing those that don’t adhere to the politics of respectability only reinforces stereotypes and further oppresses the black community as a whole. The solution, therefore, is not the seemingly easy tactic of attempting to control the oppressed but it is the more difficult challenge of critiquing the oppressive institutions.
The historical purpose of respectability politics began as a way to counteract white racism that viewed black people as a substandard race. It was an assimilation effort in the 19th century brought by U.S. black activists and allies. Their main goal was to prove that they were no different than the white folks and that they were similar to them, in terms of respectability. In other words, respectability politics is a method of trying to shut down negative views of the black community; this is done by adopting the ideas, values, and morals of the white race in an effort to make the black community seem more respectable. One of the underlying ideas of respectability politics is that black women should portray themselves as examples of what black excellence should be. This includes women that follow patriarchal ideals, are Judeo-Christian, heteronormative, and are middle class. However, black women that do not adhere to these standards of “respectability” are ostracized by other black women. For example, neo-soul singer Erykah Badu had three pregnancies outside of marriage. She was attacked with comments such as her having a “growing list of baby daddies.” She was seen as a shameful example of a black woman, due to acting like a Jezebel, which is not seen as respectable. However, Beyonce is regarded as a model example of what a black woman should be, because she became pregnant within marriage. Shaming Badu is wrong because becoming pregnant out of wedlock puts down an entire race. Not only that, but single mothers are also shamed in this process, even if they are hardworking and sexually independent. Harris believes respectability politics should be eradicated because even though it began as a way to gain equality for the black community, it is a damaging system that is now putting members of the black community down. It is ironic the way this worked out because respectability politics is degrading the same community it was trying to uplift. When black women police other black women on how they should behave, they are just degrading members of their own race.
Respectability politics were meant to show that women of color were capable of being as respectable as white women, by adopting the manners and morality of those in the dominant “white” culture. It’s purpose was to counter act the negative stereotypes that had been bestowed upon black women such being “lascivious Jezebels, animalistic beasts of burden, and disreputable antiwomen”. While white women were stereotyped to be “chaste, pious, childlike, submissive” all of which society has considered respectable. When Beyoncè had announced she was pregnant, many praised her for being married and successful with a career before becoming pregnant. All qualities that the dominant culture would say is respectable. That does not mean women who are single and have children should be considered unrespectable and should not be condemned for their actions. There are a majority of ways for women of color to be considered respectable in their career choices and personal lives and there is no one way to be a respectable woman in general.
Harris believes that critiquing should be done on Hollywood for not producing more films and tv about black women that are created by women. Criticizing individuals for their choices in life only feeds into the falseness of black stereotypes. Being respectable is a positive goal to aim for, for all people but respectability politics’ downfall is that it is a very narrow standard to go by and life and opportunity is more complicated than those narrow standards. Harris believes that “we fail to solve our problem, because we move the responsibility for eradicating race and gender biases from the powerful institutions and systems that perpetrate them to those oppressed by them.”
Respectability politics came around after slavery had been abolished. To assimilate into white society many black women took on the Cult of True Womanhood, which said they were to be chaste, docile, submissive, “respectable”. Even though it helped black women, it ultimately hindered them since there was a way to “be black” and another way to be a woman. The main benefit from respectability politics was that it foiled whatever negative opinions of blackness the white population had. However, the way these outlooks were foiled was by violently conforming to whatever the white majority deemed “respectable”. Through the Culture of Dissemblance, black women policed other black women into becoming the opposite of stereotypes; having no sexuality to combat the Jezebel, and becoming silent to counteract the Sapphire. This sense of policing is still around today. When Erykah Badu got pregnant with her third child, loads of people attacked her saying that she was trash and a poor representation of black women. However, when Beyonce got pregnant, everybody and their mother was praising her for doing it “the right way”. The right way meaning that Beyonce got pregnant while being married, unlike Erykah. This isn’t to say that Beyonce is in the wrong either, both Badu and Knowles are simply living their lives, yet people are quick to label them as either being the right or wrong type of black women. The main reason respectability politics needs to be eradicated is because instead of focusing on tearing down institutions themselves, the main focus shifts to the individual that’s doing something “bad”. Erykah isn’t a representation of every black woman, she represents herself. Instead of people attacking Erykah, they should have focused more on the systems of racism and sexism that made it unacceptable for her to have a baby out of wedlock. -Hector B
According to Harris, the historical purpose of respectability politics began in the late 19th century as a way to push back against the white idea of black people being the “other” - a way to show white people that black people were just like them and deserved equal rights. This is done by taking on aspects of white culture. For instance, in the Netflix show, “Dear White People”, the character Troy is meant to be the epitome of the idea of a black person adhering to the idea of respectability. In order to succeed, his father expects him to smile, be polite, become the student body president, and not engage in the conversations that his peers are having about racial inequality on their college campus. Throughout the first season, Troy fields different situations that threaten to break the “perfect image” that he adheres to, often in ways that are exaggerated and show the strain that comes with the pressure. As his journalist roommate describes him in the series’ eighth episode, “...our first black president, our great hope, stuck between a rock of a world that demands one hundred and ten percent from people of color, and the hard place of an overbearing father determined to save his son from inequality by demanding he be perfect. But a system that requires perfection in exchange for equality is untenable and unjust.” Harris feels that respectability politics should be eradicated because they further oppress a society that is trying to achieve equality and give the public a scapegoat to blame an individual that is merely trying to succeed in society while rendering the true oppressors invisible. While the intentions are meant to be helpful, they increase the pressure on black people to be representatives of their whole race, rather than giving them the freedom to be their own individual.
ReplyDeleteCaitlyn B
Harris explains that respectability politics emerged in the late 19th century in America after slavery was abolished. In order to assimilate, black women tried to take on the same interpretation of womanhood that white women were portraying. This understanding of what a woman should be like included a lot of Victorian values such as being docile, chaste, and submissive. Eventually this turned into a way that black women were policing each other because there was now a certain way they were expected to be as a black person as well as a woman to not be considered “other” in society. Through this policing, a “Culture of Dissemblance” was created where black women tried to become the opposite of minstrel stereotypes that were applied to them. For example, to avoid being called a “jezebel”, they had to present themselves as asexual, and to not be labelled a “sapphire”, they had to be almost silent.
ReplyDeleteAn example of how respectability politics are still present are all the think pieces and articles written about Viola Davis’s character on the television show How to Get Away With Murder. Davis’s character, Annalise Keating, is a black, queer, female lawyer with an alcohol addiction problem. Throughout the series, Annalise has been portrayed as an independent, powerful, and extremely intelligent lawyer, but she is also allowed to be sexual, angry, and have emotional outbursts. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly in September 2015, Davis explained that before she got the role as Annalise, “[I] was not able to be sexualized. Ever. In my entire career. And I’ve never seen anyone who looks like me be sexualized on television or in film. Ever.” Multiple people have argued that Annalise is just an “angry black woman”, when in reality she is a multidimensional character battling addiction, grief, past traumas, and countless scandals. Clearly, Annalise would have more than enough reason to be pissed off at times.
Harris argues that respectability politics are troubling because they place the blame and burden of representation on an individual rather than the entire industry. Instead of turning the situation around and asking why people are critiquing a character played by a woman of color, the specific actress/actor playing that role is criticized. Also, people largely ignore the fact that the entertainment industry is responsible for creating a limited amount of characters that people of color are allowed to play.
Madison V.
In her essay “No Disrespect: Black Women and the Burden of Respectability”, Tamara Winfrey Harris addresses the culture of respectability politics surrounding black women by first looking at the historical moment it first emerged in society. Harris explains that the politics of respectability became a set of social standards that aggressively adopted the manners and morality that the dominant (white) culture deemed “respectable” in order to counter negative views of blackness in the late nineteenth-century that portrayed the newly freed black community as inferior and degenerate. Black women, however, faced the double-binding oppression of their race and gender and therefore were forced to disprove the stereotypes depicting them as “lascivious Jezebels, animalistic beasts of burden, and disrespectable antiwomen;” to do so, black women were forced (often by their black male counterparts) to adhere to the Cult of True Womanhood cultural standards identifying respectable white women as “chaste, pious, childlike, [and] submissive.” Harris unapologetically acknowledges the impossible achievement of the goal behind these politics, as an oppressed community can never successfully assimilate into the problematic culture that structures their oppression, and in doing so, she expresses the unprogressive nature of these politics in contemporary culture. To support her argument, Harris uses multiple examples in popular culture like the backlash towards Halle Berry’s role in Monster Ball and Angela Bassett’s refusal of the role for its “reinforcement” of black women's stereotypes, or the critiques of Erykah Badu’s three pregnancies (all of which were from different fathers) and her comparison to Beyonce’s respectable nuclear family. Using such examples, Harris demonstrates how policing individual black women’s actions and criticizing those that don’t adhere to the politics of respectability only reinforces stereotypes and further oppresses the black community as a whole. The solution, therefore, is not the seemingly easy tactic of attempting to control the oppressed but it is the more difficult challenge of critiquing the oppressive institutions.
ReplyDeleteKodie A.
The historical purpose of respectability politics began as a way to counteract white racism that viewed black people as a substandard race. It was an assimilation effort in the 19th century brought by U.S. black activists and allies. Their main goal was to prove that they were no different than the white folks and that they were similar to them, in terms of respectability. In other words, respectability politics is a method of trying to shut down negative views of the black community; this is done by adopting the ideas, values, and morals of the white race in an effort to make the black community seem more respectable.
ReplyDeleteOne of the underlying ideas of respectability politics is that black women should portray themselves as examples of what black excellence should be. This includes women that follow patriarchal ideals, are Judeo-Christian, heteronormative, and are middle class. However, black women that do not adhere to these standards of “respectability” are ostracized by other black women. For example, neo-soul singer Erykah Badu had three pregnancies outside of marriage. She was attacked with comments such as her having a “growing list of baby daddies.” She was seen as a shameful example of a black woman, due to acting like a Jezebel, which is not seen as respectable. However, Beyonce is regarded as a model example of what a black woman should be, because she became pregnant within marriage. Shaming Badu is wrong because becoming pregnant out of wedlock puts down an entire race. Not only that, but single mothers are also shamed in this process, even if they are hardworking and sexually independent.
Harris believes respectability politics should be eradicated because even though it began as a way to gain equality for the black community, it is a damaging system that is now putting members of the black community down. It is ironic the way this worked out because respectability politics is degrading the same community it was trying to uplift. When black women police other black women on how they should behave, they are just degrading members of their own race.
Amber M
Respectability politics were meant to show that women of color were capable of being as respectable as white women, by adopting the manners and morality of those in the dominant “white” culture. It’s purpose was to counter act the negative stereotypes that had been bestowed upon black women such being “lascivious Jezebels, animalistic beasts of burden, and disreputable antiwomen”. While white women were stereotyped to be “chaste, pious, childlike, submissive” all of which society has considered respectable.
ReplyDeleteWhen Beyoncè had announced she was pregnant, many praised her for being married and successful with a career before becoming pregnant. All qualities that the dominant culture would say is respectable. That does not mean women who are single and have children should be considered unrespectable and should not be condemned for their actions. There are a majority of ways for women of color to be considered respectable in their career choices and personal lives and there is no one way to be a respectable woman in general.
Harris believes that critiquing should be done on Hollywood for not producing more films and tv about black women that are created by women. Criticizing individuals for their choices in life only feeds into the falseness of black stereotypes. Being respectable is a positive goal to aim for, for all people but respectability politics’ downfall is that it is a very narrow standard to go by and life and opportunity is more complicated than those narrow standards. Harris believes that “we fail to solve our problem, because we move the responsibility for eradicating race and gender biases from the powerful institutions and systems that perpetrate them to those oppressed by them.”
Claudia S.
Respectability politics came around after slavery had been abolished. To assimilate into white society many black women took on the Cult of True Womanhood, which said they were to be chaste, docile, submissive, “respectable”. Even though it helped black women, it ultimately hindered them since there was a way to “be black” and another way to be a woman. The main benefit from respectability politics was that it foiled whatever negative opinions of blackness the white population had. However, the way these outlooks were foiled was by violently conforming to whatever the white majority deemed “respectable”. Through the Culture of Dissemblance, black women policed other black women into becoming the opposite of stereotypes; having no sexuality to combat the Jezebel, and becoming silent to counteract the Sapphire.
ReplyDeleteThis sense of policing is still around today. When Erykah Badu got pregnant with her third child, loads of people attacked her saying that she was trash and a poor representation of black women. However, when Beyonce got pregnant, everybody and their mother was praising her for doing it “the right way”. The right way meaning that Beyonce got pregnant while being married, unlike Erykah. This isn’t to say that Beyonce is in the wrong either, both Badu and Knowles are simply living their lives, yet people are quick to label them as either being the right or wrong type of black women.
The main reason respectability politics needs to be eradicated is because instead of focusing on tearing down institutions themselves, the main focus shifts to the individual that’s doing something “bad”. Erykah isn’t a representation of every black woman, she represents herself. Instead of people attacking Erykah, they should have focused more on the systems of racism and sexism that made it unacceptable for her to have a baby out of wedlock.
-Hector B