The Legacy of Lynching: The Effects on Contemporary Black Masculinity in Relationship to Black Violence

 

A. Cooley*

 

After he was stripped and castrated Claude Neal was forced to eat his own penis and testicles. As the angry mob of White women, men, and children applauded; he was then forced to exclaim that he liked them. [1] The trauma of this physical mutilation proves slight in comparison to the psychological angst inflicted on Black men daily as they watched their mothers, wives, and sisters raped and beaten while they stood powerless. The overt removal of authority within a family from a Black father to his White master, created despondency and disorder in the Black man's life. His concept of masculinity was tainted by the constant swallowing of his manhood and his inability to defy his aggressors. This original defeat ignited the spark of violence that we see today in the Black community.

In the last decade, violence in the Black community has been referred to as an epidemic, a plague, a burden on society as a whole, and a drain on the Black community itself. The brutality is often blamed on everything from the innate inferiority of African Americans to the White patriarchal politics aimed at disabling minorities. [2] University of Delaware Professor William Oliver states,

“Advocates of the genetic inferiority perspective argue that the high rates of social problems among Blacks is a product or expression of Black peoples' innate inferiority to Caucasians and other racial groups…(they) possess genetic traits and characteristics that predispose them to engage in problematic behavior at higher rates than Whites.” [3]

The Black Association of Sociologists then argues, “White racism is the underlying cause of the problems that blacks confront”. [4] However, the actual primary initiating factor is of a social origin. The particular sadistic violence bestowed upon Black men in the Postbellum South has perpetuated itself in different forms through custom, and in doing so, molded the Black male perspective of masculinity and its synonym of violence. This progression, in combination with the combating sociological theories, creates a hostile atmosphere for the modern Black man. This is not an unpredictable phenomenon; White aggression towards the Black man has been heavily contested throughout history.

Ida B. Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi in 1862 shortly after the Civil war. Her parents had both been slaves that had prevailed through hard times, and so she was afforded an education and a livelihood in her young adult years. Despite her early formal education, Wells learned the name Ku Klux Klan before she learned to read. Armed with oral history and the guidance of her loved ones, she discovered the depth of racism in the south. Later in life she was enraged, but not surprised by the brutalities she encountered. [5]

In 1892 Wells became overcome with the need to expose the mob violence and lynching in the South when two of her close friends, successful businessmen, were tortured and lynched in Memphis, Tennessee. This was quite contrary to the public statements of the time that accused Blacks of being naturally inferior. Blacks were rumored to demonstrate their overall stupidity through apelike behavior, but the friends of Wells' had been model citizens, even excelling into an entrepreneurship within the grocery business. [6] When their successful establishment quickly became a monopoly, they were murdered. Between 1880 and 1890 over a hundred Blacks were murdered annually with 1892 marking its peak with 161 dead from lynching alone. [7] Worthy of Wells' outrage this personal and particular lynching was an act against social equality.

Wells was not the first to bristle with the brutality of lynching. Mary Church Terrell, the honorary president of the National Association of Colored Women, dared to reach into the complexities of mob violence with regard to lynching in her 1904 article “Lynching from a Negro's Point of View”. However, she sought the effects on the Black man as opposed to the actions of his aggressors. In her article she states:

“Even those who condone lynching do not pretend to fear the delay or the uncertainty of the law, when a guilty Negro is concerned. With the courts of law entirely in the hands of the white man, with judge and jury belonging to the superior race, a guilty Negro could no more extricate himself from the meshes of the law in the South than he could slide from the devil-fish's embrace or slip from the anaconda's coils. Miscarriage of justice in the South is possible only when white men transgress the law… Those who live in the section where nine-tenths of the lynchings occur do not dare to tell the truth, even if they perceive it. When men know that the death-knell of their aspirations and hopes will be sounded as soon as they express views to which the majority in their immediate vicinage are opposed, they either suppress their views or trim them to fit the popular mind.” [8]

Terrell understood the nature of lynching and its animalistic cruelty. She realized that the actual character of the individual Black man had no effect on his fate because of his perceived rapacious nature and innate inferiority. Regardless of actual sin, he was guilty in the eyes of a White jury. He was helpless against White domination and at this point and the theories of the Black sociologists are entirely accurate, White racism was the sole reason for the lynching of these Black men.

Wells begins to form a similar opinion when she examines further lynchings in the Postbellum South. In one example:

“… a wealthy colored man named Allen Butler, who was well known in the community, and enjoyed the confidence and respect of the entire country, was made the victim of a mob and hung because his son had become unduly intimate with a white girl who was servant around his house.” [9]

Later, when responding to her feelings on two desperado Black men pursued by a White mob in New Orleans, Wells proposes her plan of action to refute the murderous rampage:

“...The lesson this teaches and which every Afro American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every Black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs a great risk of biting the dust every time his Afro American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro American life. The more the Afro American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched.” [10]

Although the main justification of violence within the Black community against White oppressors, it is not singular and it branches much farther, reaching into the minority populations themselves.

Black men are hungry and desperate for emotional and physical fulfillment. They brawl through the world in varying degrees of fury, banging at unrelenting glass ceilings placed in their way long before their personal conception. They are subjected to stereotypes and crippling profiles throughout their lives, contributing to an overall sense of despondency. [11] This concept was born in the early years of America and especially in the height of lynching. At that point in history, the perception of race was made clear. As proved by Wells and illustrated by Terrell culpability, class was not a factor; sheer blackness being the only reason for violence against Blacks. Lynching, the murdering of innocent Black men regardless of their virtue, provided was the primary violence perpetrated amongst African American men. It provided the hopelessness and dejection that has progressively increased in the last century.

Blacks during the height of lynching were psychologically scarred and forced to learn survival tactics that rebelled against passivity. As photographs and other publications emerge, demonstrating the brutality of White aggressors, Blacks understood the consequences of powerlessness and sought to defy their fate. [12] Through the civil rights movement, we then see the rise of militant groups such as the Black Panthers standing armed with fierce weapons designed to physically and emotionally reclaim their manhood. [13] The same tactics can be seen today on the streets, but these new revolutionary bullets are manifested in all forms of violence and they are no longer aimed at just the White oppressor. The spray has now widened to include anyone threatening the Black man's sense of masculinity.

The target for violence has enlarged due to two reasons: one being external to the Black community and the other internal, but the background for these foundations is in the disproportionate number of Black men in the American prison system. According to author Marc Mauer:

“One in three black men between the ages of 20 and 29 was either in jail or prison, or on parole or probation in 1995. One in ten black men in their twenties and early thirties is in prison or jail. Thirteen percent of the black adult male population has lost the right to vote because of felony disenfranchisement laws.” [14]

The judicial injustices responsible for the disproportions are clearly documented in qualitative evidence dating back to distinct rules of conduct separated by race in the Antebellum South, to the issues surrounding the Rockefeller Drug Law convictions of today. Contrary to rational basis; in 1990 The Rockefeller Drug Laws placed 97% of Black citizens of Minnesota, found with 3 grams of crack, in the prison system serving 20 year sentences. [15] The same year, 80% of persons caught possessing 3 grams of cocaine were white; and only incarcerated for 5 years. This methodical disenfranchisement is a basis for violence in the Black community. This foundation of aggression, referred to as the “Inferiorization Process” is described by William Oliver as:

“the systematic stress attack involving the entire complex of political, legal, educational, economic, religious, military, and mass media institutions controlled by Whites; designed to produce dysfunctional patterns of behavior among Blacks in all areas of life. Through the inferiorization process, Blacks are socialized to be incapable of solving or helping to produce solutions to problems posed by the environment. However, for Whites, the inferiorization process is designed to facilitate their development as functional superiors. Thus, under the system of White supremacy, Whites are conditioned to solve or help to provide solutions to problems posed by the environment…As a result of their exposure…a substantial number of Black males have opted to re-define manhood in terms of toughness, sexual conquest, and thrill seeking.” [16]

As a direct effect of their disenfranchisement, Black men are then subjected to joblessness and the inability to contribute to an egalitarian household. Many due to felony conviction, can no longer vote and they remain unable to play a role in social change. [17] While they are no longer physically lynched they are psychologically sundered from their manhood and yet expected to cope through the panic of desperation.

The internal reason for the increased scope of violence originates in this dejection. Contrary to the patriarchal view of man as the provider, Black men and women earn similar incomes and Black men are frequently removed from the homestead as they are incorporated into the prison system. [18] Black men are unable to provide for their families in the traditional fashion and this leads to confusion over gender roles. Many Black women, forced to take on the customary male roles in the absence of husbands and fathers; offer a challenge to the Black man's view of masculinity. Black women, taught from adolescence the importance of independence due to the shortage of free and professional Black men, shun the Black man and further increase his feelings of worthlessness. [19] In response, Black men become unreceptive and harsh. His sense of personal despair is then manifested through outbursts towards the homestead. [20] This is especially prevalent in the lower class Black male.

All Black men suffer from subjugation due to their assumed inadequacies; however, the most violent reactions stem from the lower economic rungs. In 1985, 44% of Black men were functional illiterates. During the same year, major cities suffered a Black male high school dropout rate upwards of 60%. By the next year 46% of 8.8 million Black men were unemployed. This marked the drastic increase in the ‘thug' behavior of the low class. Grappling with survival these emotionally impoverished men sought to reclaim power with Black men participating in domestic abuse 400% more than White men of the time. As well as in violence, these men searched for manhood in primitive sexual promiscuity, as statistics in 1986 demonstrate, 55% of Black babies were born out of wedlock. In their quest for esteem Black men in the lower class tried to create a hierarchy with women at the foot. [21]

The other culprit and external reason for the widened violence in the Black community originates with Black men's perception of Black women through the European lens. Black men have traditionally seen White men abuse not only Black women but, weak Black men. If the oppressor is successful economically and socially, he is to be emulated just through the basic laws of social evolution. [22] Therefore, the White patriarchal views of Black women, exemplified through rape and overt physical abuse, have been perpetuated in Black male violence against the same party. [23] In the Black man's struggle to gain equality with his White counterpart, he mimics the same negative behavior in hopes of a comparable outcome.

In regards to the Black man's perspective of violence against women, examples can be found most readily in pop culture music. Rapper “Fabolous”, in his song “Can't Let You Go”, says:

“You aint ever step out of line
Or get out a pocket
So I made sure canary sent out your locket
To protect you, I'll get out and cock it
And you know the barrel of my gun is big enough to spit out a rocket” [24]

This selection speaks the rules for Black women clearly. As long as they respect the rules of patriarchal masculinity, then their men will protect them. Otherwise, they may become victimized as seen in the song “Georgia Dome”:

“Shawty so crunk she comin out her clothes
dick so big got caught in her throat.
do it hurt?(yeah) do it hurt?(hell yeah)
one nut, two nuts that's what you get…

Niggas, I'm a tell yea
you can't trust a bitch faras you can smell em'
you better lick that stamp and mail em'
back over there to the otha fella
I care less(like i pose to)
Always gotta stay fresh (like I 'pose to)
Don't tolerate that stress(like i 'pose to)
I'll punch a bitch in the breast (in the chest)…

The only time you use your mouth is when you get on your knees.
So Don't speak you shouldn't be saying nothing at all
cause it's hard to talk with a mouth full of dick and balls
So put it in your mouth and blow
Put it deep down in your throat
Nigga like me don't wanna hear that shit so do what the fuck you been told…” [25]

These selected lyrics the view about women held by the performers of such music, and the audience who condones their ideologies. The first stanza pardons vile and violent sodomy between an eager male and a tortured woman. The second poses outright physical violence towards women as justifiable, because they are untrustworthy and stressful. The third verse points to the power dynamic between genders, namely how men that have no control over their larger surroundings must bully those socially inferior by first silencing them and then insuring that social role through threats. The last line suggests that the rapper would leave a woman that disobeyed his orders. Considering the high levels of incarceration, suicide, and addiction still lingering over Black men, the ratio between eligible Black men and women is disproportionate. In 1993, it was reported that 33% of unmarried women desired to have a relationship with a Black man, but they found few eligible and decent. [26] Therefore, the threat in the final line may give light to issues of domestic abuse. As men are socially castrated, they reach for outlets in Black women. When these women in turn de-masculinize Black men by announcing their failure in achieving White patriarchy, Black men turn violent in helplessness.

If Black women are at the foot of the social hierarchy, gay Black men are at the sole of the matter. According to Paul Outlaw:

“…A gay African-American is supposed to be a ‘real' man, which, by implication, means denying any womanliness, which is considered weak, passive, and powerless. And being a ‘real black man' has always meant taking it further to survive in a white world. The rage to assert one's manhood…(makes) the queer the worst kind of freak: He is not a real man, he's more of a bitch than any ho' could ever be. For African-American males, whose history is filled with centuries of debasing emasculation, it would be uncomfortable to see—let alone accept—a brother who chooses to spread his cheeks for another (possibly white) man.” [27]

The connection between these internal and external stresses, which originated in the psychological castration found in lynching and violence; becomes abundantly clear when Black men strike out against other men in the community. Rapper Ice-T goes further and speaks to the theory that Black men see themselves in a desperate situation that warrants violent reaction. They must prove themselves to be men as a matter of survival against one another. They must fight the system in much the same manner as the Black Panthers or the anti-lynching activists in Terrell's time. They must be aggressive in order to avoid being trampled. In his book The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck Rapper Ice-T says:

“The greatest tragedy in the ghetto is watching people become accustomed to the prospect of a bleak future, you'll learn that they don't really see no future…displays of strength and aggression are prized because you're always walking like a prison inmate. In the ‘hood, violence and even murder become something honorable. The most violent person, the most defiant person, will get the highest ranking. The person who pushes it to the limit and is willing to go to jail earns the most props because he's willing to put his life on the line to fight for what he believes in.” [28]

Lyricist “Nas” then illustrates yet another thought. In his song, "Take it in Blood" he states:

“We living in dangerous lives, made leak and battered wives
A lifestyle where bad streets is patternized
Wise men build and destroy while the real McCoy
Dope fiends, name of Troy is still dealing boy
Coke suppliers actin' biased…
Cuz rumors say that niggas wear wires and we liars
But every night the gat's fired and every day a rat's hired” [29]

This is a theory set to the idea that Black men will turn on one another to avoid the wrath of their common enemy. While it is clear that the true rival is found outside of the community, the Black men who allow the foe within their walls must be stopped as well. Any Black man, outside of a religious leader, who refuses to subscribe to this concept of masculinity is not considered above the fight, but rather on the opposition. During the Postbellum period those classified as ‘good Negroes' were encouraged to find fault in those lynched in order to improve his own innately poor sense of morality. [30] White supremacy; embodied in contemporary racist institutions such as the United States judicial system; continue to foster this belief in the same manner. Law enforcers rely on the use of Black informers to tyrannize the Black community in an identical fashion to the way White masters would use field spies to control his slaves. The masses are then unable to form a coherent union amongst themselves, and they are controlled by fear. [31]

Lynching has most certainly lead to violence in contemporary times through its absolute psychological shock to Black men. The way they were routinely stripped and castrated as seen in first hand reports of lynching, marks the beginning of the emotional castration we see in Black men today. In one story found in James Baldwin's book Going to Meet the Man , he describes a unique dynamic between European masculinity and Black male sexuality when he states:

“He took the nigger's privates in his hand, one hand, still smiling, as though he were weighting them. In the cradle of the one white hand, the nigger's privates seemed as remote as meat being weighed in the scales; but seemed heavier, too, much heavier, and Jesse felt his scrotum tighten; and huge, huge, much bigger than his father's, flaccid, hairless, the largest thing he had ever seen till then, and the blackest. The white hand stretched them, cradled them, caressed them. Then the dying man's eyes looked straight into Jesse's eyes—it could not have been as long as a second, but it seemed longer than a year. Then Jesse screamed, and the crowd screamed as the knife flashed, first up, then down, cutting the dreadful thing away, and the blood came roaring down.” [32]

This homoerotic exhibition of White masculinity was typical of the time and it is still discernible today. In the Postbellum South the progression from the passionate masculine nature, birthed in Victorian culture as the controlling of emotion and sexual passion; to the masculinity of the 1890's involving leisure and lustful domination; left White men in direct clash with their moral upbringings. [33] The product of this frustration was seen in the physical removal of the offending sexuality. When the Black man's genitals were butchered from his tortured body, the White men could symbolically free themselves from their own erotic fascinations with supreme physical masculinity. In contemporary times the new White master, in the form of CEO or politician, forces Black men to ‘eat' their manhood when they are incarcerated or forced to work for unfair wages. This forced submission is not reflected in their income, but rather in their violence against themselves and their oppressors. This nullifies the most common argument against the theory of White involvement in Black violence.

Bell Hooks is one of the leading feminist writers dealing with the issues of masculinity within the Black community. Her logical theory on rising above ‘thug culture' places salvation for the Black man, regardless of class, at the feet of self-exploration and education. If he chooses to avoid the violent cycle through enlightenment, he will succeed. [34] However, many Black men remain unaware of their options due to a lack of vocal role models and through the continuance of a racially biased society. Instead, their concept of patriarchy models that of the Europeans, and they reach for unobtainable goals. Black men imitate the sexism of White men, but they lack the power to oppress. They strive for white-collar professions, but prejudices in society make this virtually impossible. Finally, in their inability to achieve this, they strike out in frustration against those weaker than themselves. If they remain both oblivious to the prospect of success, as seen in the accounts of Ice-T; and they continue to be subjugated in White America, as seen in incarceration rates; Black men are in dire straits and forced to act impulsively only using survival instincts. [35]

Lynching in the Postbellum South set the stage for a series of related and inescapable events. It first defined the impure criminals as having Black skin and most often being male. Secondly, considering its common justification involving the rape of a White woman, it reduced the value of the Black woman by its enforcement and then stereotyped the Black man as a barbarian incapable of controlling his desire, thus stripping him of genteel White masculinity. Black men were not prosecuted for raping Black women because these women were considered property and of low value. [36] However, they were lynched for such offenses as suspected attempted assault of a White woman. [37] Frequently, their genitals were then mutilated to ceremoniously prove White domination over Black sexuality. Black men were forced into submission and unable to recognize that the legitimate obstacles of their hostility were not women, but the particulars of a structure that programs the Black man to fear and despise women as well as his own Black self. [38]

As law abiding and the emulation of White lifestyle failed, violence was seen as a sound response to lynching and racist confinement. The rise of the Black Panthers led to young revolutionaries choosing arms over symposium. The short-term effects were drastic and so the cycle has continued to infest Black communities as they battle both the world and one another in pursuit of relief. Everything from domestic abuse, to racially motivated hate crimes, and gang activity can be explained through this straightforward concept of desperation and its path to violence. In order to simply survive, Black men must fight to define themselves as masculine and the most fit. As radical feminist Elaine Brown sings in her song “Yes, Sieze the Time”:

There is no existence for Black Masculinity without the power of violence.

 

Notes

(Post-publication Note: The following does not conform to the journal's style sheet. This error was discovered too late for correction by the 2004 editorial board.)

26. Lynda Dickson, The Future of Marriage and Family in Black America , Journal of Black Studies (Thousdand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. 1993), 472-49. (Return)

27. Paul Outlaw, If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night) , African American Review (St. Louis: St. Louis University 1995), 347-350. (Return)

28. Ice T, The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck (New York: Saint Martin's Press, 1994), 10-15. (Return)

29. Nas, It Was Written , Produced by Columbia Records, 1996. (Return)

30. Mary Church Terrell, Lynching from a Negro's Point of View, Cooper Union Hall, New York, 17 June 1904. (Return)

31. Gladys Marie Fry, The System of Psychological Control , Negro American Literature Forum (St Louis: St. Louis University, 1969), 72-82. (Return)

32. James Baldwin, Going to Meet the Man (Larchmont: Vintage, 1995), 216. (Return)

33. Gail Bederman, Civilization, the Decline of the Middle Class Manliness, and Ida B. Well's Anti-lynching Campaign (1892-94), We Specialize in the Wholly Impossible (Charleston: Carlson Publications, 1995), 408. (Return)

34. bell hooks, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity (Great Britain: Rutledge, 2004), 147. (Return)

35. bell hooks; Michele Wallace; Andrew Hacker; Jared Taylor; Derrick Bell; Ishmael Reed; Nathan Hare; Rita Williams; Cecilia Caruso; Carl H. Nightingale; Jim Sleeper; Elsie B. Washington; Yehudi Webster; Kenneth S. Tollett, Sr.; and Cecil Brown, The Crisis of African American Gender Relations , Transition (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 91-175. (Return)

36. Frances S. Foster, Changing Concepts of the Black Woman , Journal of Black Studies ( Thousdand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. 1973), 433-454. (Return)

37. Ida B. Wells, A Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynchings in the United States, 1892-1893-1894 (Chicago: Donohue & Henneberry, Printers, Binders, and Publishers, 1894), 48. (Return)

38. Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider (Freedom: The Crossing Press, 1984), 74. (Return)

39. Elaine Brown, Soothes the Savage Beast, Produced by Whodunit Records, 1999. (Return)