Assignment #3 Morgan

In Jennifer Morgan’s book she often depicts a theme of how women of color were often seen as barbaric and often were synonymous to animals. The connection between the female body and racism is often seen as the downfall for women in terms of rights. An example of the connection is the description of how the size of an African American woman’s breast would make it seem as if they were a six legged animal. When people visualized this image it would make people see black women as animals. Several
European writers including Richard Ligon held this view of extreme racism. He held the view that the hanging of the breasts when symbolize the only purpose that black women served which was to produce crops. Ligon created the idea that there was foreign creatures working for white men out in the fields. This basically gave the harshest view on slavery were black women were no longer human. This had a big impact on the view that Europeans held on black women now.

Women in addition to being called animals, were being shamed when they were to give birth to children. The barbaric and nomadic women would often interrupt travels due to birth. If a women were to give birth to more than one child than the she would be considered a devil and the following children would be considered monsters. Also, writers would often be thought of as sexual deviants. Instead of throwing their breasts over their shoulders, they would let them hang and crave for the love of men. It would symbolize youth and beauty. The punishment of sexual deviance would be to give away their children to any man that desired them. The constant reoccurring coming up is shame, as basically black women would be shamed for anything that they did-bending over or even walking.

Question: Why were their interracial relationships if black women were considered animals?

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