Black Women and Racial Stereotypes

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Black Women and Racial Stereotypes: A Black Feminist Reading of Morrison's Novels

Qasim, Khamsa, et al. "Black Women and Racial Stereotypes: A Black Feminist
Reading of Morrison's Novels." Language in India, vol. 12, 5 May 2012, pp.
212-24. Artemis Literary Sources. Accessed 13 Feb. 2017.

Many black women writers have challenged the negative representation of black women in their
fiction but Morrison's novels not only challenge those stereotypes but also destroy them. Her
novels give us deep insight into black women's minds and souls. She makes us listen to the voice of the suppressed group who are left out of literature. Black women are not positively defined by the dominant discourse. In her novels, she presents black women as subjects who try to cultivate positive identity in a very hostile world.

Collins in Black Feminist Thought points out the logic behind the negative representation of
black women. She says that no system of oppression can work without "powerful ideological
justification."1 Thus the portrayal of black women as the breeders, mammies, matriarchs, and hot girls, women with the deviant sexuality, welfare recipients and the ugly and unfeminine creatures justifies their oppression. The portrayal of black women as others is enough to justify any kind of oppression. This negative representation has caused great harm to them and presents just the one side of reality. It distorts their true image. Morrison makes us see the other side of the coin. Thus the destruction of those prevailing and controlling images gives birth to a new definition.

Challenging the Stereotypes

Morrison's black female characters challenge all the stereotypical negative images which are
associated with black women. They are considered extremely ugly as compared to delicate and
beautiful white ladies who are equally admired and appreciated by both black and white men.
Linda Peach says that skin lightening and hair straightening creams are basically "a part of the
process" which denies black women subjectivity

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and the "history that was in their bodies." The white standard of beauty dominates the American society. Straight hair, blue eyes and white skin are the symbol of beauty while dark skin is "associated with ugliness and lack of morality."2 Collins says that the derogatory representation of black women enhances the value of white women. In binary thinking, "blue-eyed, blond thin white woman" cannot be called beautiful without black women. They are others and their African features, kinky hair, lips, nose are associated with ugliness.3 It is almost impossible to live in any society without internalizing its standard of beauty. Black women are forced to accept the white standard of beauty which is accepted by both white and black men.

What Critics Say

Naomi Wolf in The Beauty Myth says that one hurdle in the struggle for equality that all women
have yet to face is the myth of female beauty. She calls it a destructive form of social control.
She argues that during early 1970s, the standard of beauty was very rigid and it was almost
impossible for women to attain that ideal and especially "women of colour were seldom shown
as role models." She also criticizes the prevailing controlling images which are used to dominate
women all around the world and argues that "beauty is not universal and changeless; though the west pretends that all ideals of female beauty stem from one platonic ideal woman.... Beauty is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy it is determined by politics."4 These ideal images of beauty promoted by the cosmetic industry and the white racist society are used to humiliate black women. They do not allow alternate images and standards. In the absence of

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alternate images which might validate and endorse a kind of virtue not linked to physical beauty, black girls begin to hate themselves.