Media, Information and Technoculture 3210F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Patricia Hill Collins, Gwendolyn Brooks, Maya Angelou
10 Feb 2020
School
Department
Professor
MT 3210 Week 5
Women of colour
Black women and controlling images
• Patricia Hill Collins (important black theorist): dominant ideology (white people),
maintaining Black women’s subordination
• Consider stereotypes, how they can lead to real life consequences, how they become
internalized, etc.
Images
• Mammy trope:
o Faithful, obedient, maternal, but for a white family and she is doing this happily
o To say that she is “comfortable” in this state “justifies” the treatment towards her
o Speech and the way they talk was to represent how they are uncivilized and or
uneducated
o Usually portrayed as larger body type and darker skin
o Considered unattractive and asexual because she is giving her whole life to her
white family — she is unconcerned for other things
o Has natural hair — devaluing African American beauty
Inferiority of Black Beauty
• Example of children’s rhyme used to represent Black people as inferior “closer to
whiteness ideal”
• Maya Angelou’s autobiography
o From a young age there is a deep internalization that she was not beautiful, the
only way to be beautiful to her wad to be white
• Gwendolyn Brooks
o Similar to Maya Angelou, said she did not think her natural Blackness would once
be considered beautiful
• Throughout history, we continue to police black women’s’ hair , women who do not have
their hair done are considered unprofessional — they may be treated differently based on
their hair
• The military for example were policing Black women’s hair, they did not specify that it
was towards Black women but it was very clear
• Comedian and author Phoebe Robinson: “the word angry doesn’t get hurled at me nearly
as much as when my hair is straight then when it’s in an afro”
o Many black women have internalized the notion that their own hair doesn’t
belong to them, and that how they wear their hair may determine how they might
be treated in different contexts
Image
• Jezebel trope:
o Dates back to slavery, where black women were perceived as opposite of white
feminine ideal
o Portrayed a sexually aggressive, uncontrollable desires, and this “justifies”
assault, rape, etc. in history
o Looked at as the breeder for more workers
o Since the early days of colonialism, black women’s bodies have been looked at /
conform with hypersexuality more specifically in hip hop videos
