Changing the way you learn

Controlling Images

Patricia Hill-Collins
race, class, gender oppression could not exist without ideological justification
1. controlling images are part of a generalized ideology of domination
  1. "major instrument of power" (68)
  2. designed to make racism, sexism and poverty seem natural
    1. ↪ maintain subordination
objectification as the other
1. either/or dichotomous thinking
  1. e.g. black/white, male/female, reason/emotion, culture/nature...
  2. "In either/or dichotomous thinking, difference is defined in oppositional terms. One part is not simply different from its counterpart; it is inherently opposed to its 'other'." (69)
    1. "As objects, one's reality is defined by other's, one's identity created by others, one's history named only in ways that define one's relationship to those who are subject." - bell hooks (1989, 24)
➤ 4 interrelated, socially constructed controlling images
1. MAMMY
  1. desexualized faithful servant
  2. has accepted her subordination
  3. puts the needs of her white family before that of her own
  4. created to justify the economic exploitation of house slaves
2. BLACK MATRIARCH (SAPPHIRE)
  1. symbolizes the "bad" black mother
  2. allows the dominant group to blame African-American women for the success or failure of their children
  3. overly aggressive, unfeminine, emasculating anger
3. WELFARE MOTHER
  1. stigmatizes black women as the cause of their own poverty
  2. signify a threat to political & economic stability
    1. takes the focus away from structural sources of poverty by blaming the victim
4. JEZEBEL
  1. sexually aggressive, hypersexuality
  2. originated under slavery to provide rational for the widespread sexual assault suffered under slavery

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Controlling Images

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