Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Controlling Images
- Patricia Hill-Collins
- race, class, gender
oppression could not
exist without ideological
justification
- controlling images are
part of a generalized
ideology of domination
- "major instrument of power" (68)
- designed to make racism,
sexism and poverty seem
natural
- ↪ maintain subordination
- objectification
as the other
- either/or dichotomous
thinking
- e.g. black/white,
male/female,
reason/emotion,
culture/nature...
- "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)
- "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
- MAMMY
- desexualized faithful
servant
- has accepted her subordination
- puts the needs of her white
family before that of her own
- created to justify the economic
exploitation of house slaves
- BLACK MATRIARCH (SAPPHIRE)
- symbolizes the "bad" black
mother
- allows the dominant group to
blame African-American
women for the success or
failure of their children
- overly aggressive, unfeminine,
emasculating anger
- WELFARE MOTHER
- stigmatizes black
women as the cause
of their own poverty
- signify a threat to political
& economic stability
- takes the focus away from
structural sources of poverty by
blaming the victim
- JEZEBEL
- sexually aggressive,
hypersexuality
- originated under slavery to provide
rational for the widespread sexual
assault suffered under slavery