I'm sorry -- I felt like I was being heinously unclear at the end of class, and part of the struggle was to respond in the short amount of time I had left -- things were said I wasn't anticipating that complicated what I intended to state a bit.
Here is what I was saying:
1. There was a vested interest in keeping whites superior to blacks.
2. There was the common thought that men were superior or more authoritative than women.
3. When a man had sexual connection to a woman, it was seen as underlining the power of the man.
4. When a white man had sexual contact with a black woman, the act could be seen as reasserting his authority over the black race by association, because he was white (and thus superior to blacks) as well as a man (and thus superior to women). The superiority of masculinity reinforced the superiority of whiteness, and the superiority of his whiteness reinforced the superiority of his masculinity (read that a couple times if it is tough for you to get). Thus, often black women got raped (as you see when the man was surprised the woman beat up by store ownwers wasn't raped) and it was no big deal -- it was whiteness and masculinity reinforcing their power over the inferiority of femininity/blackness. Interestingly, there is a lot of scholarship about attempts to "feminize" males that is related to this desire (ever seen the movie "White Chicks"? Believe it or not, that's been part of the discussion).
5. When a black man had sexual contact with a white woman, as the discussion of him looking at the white prostitute as well as numorous lynchings show, things were mixed up. He was black (and was thus supposed to be inferior to the woman's whiteness) and a man (and thus supposed to be superior to the woman's womanhood -- I realize this small addition is just a bit contrary to what was said in class -- this is what I was trying to clarify). The result, then, of such contact was frustration for many Southern whites. This frustration occured because this contact got in the way of attempts to simultaneously uplift belief in the superiority of manhood and support belief in the inferiority of blackness. Thus, Southern whites often went to great lengths to seperate black men and white women and harshly punished black men who did not seperate themselves from white women (often, the women were punished less severely or not at all -- they were, after all, much weaker than the black man). Often, to admit the man's superior power but make it OK to seperate him from the woman or kill him, the black man was seen as powerful but not fully human, or as a beastlike "monster."
7. Although this practice of keeping black men away from white women might seem to make a white woman superior, the reality is that this seperation was only necessary to keep the illusion of superior masculinity and inferior femininity, as well as the illusion of superior whiteness and inferior blackness, intact. White women were kept from black men because many thought their femininity was an inferior quality, not because they thought it was a superior quality (you can read that twice if you don't get it).
8. Because masculinity depends on the definition of femininity, this divide was also there to keep in place the illusion that black masculinity was inferior to white masculinity. This is important because, oftentimes, we seperate issues of race and gender, just as they tried to do then by trying to ensure that sexual acts between men and women didn't violate raced or gendered lines that would confuse the hierarchies.
9. This is also important because it shows gender played into issues of race, and vice versa -- it isn't always healthy to seperate the two.
10. It may be partially true that white women could use this position as a position of power in some circumstances, but it is also true that this power only existed because of the fear connected to the conviction that women, in general, were weaker, less authoritative, and more vulnerable than men. So by asserting that power they would, paradoxically, be reinforcing that stereotype of inferiority and weakness.
It was difficult trying to cram all that clearly into 2-3 minutes, but hopefully that's clear. Feel free to comment.
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