History of Arkansas
Dangerous Liaisons: Sex and Love in the Segregated South
Charles F. Robinson II is the author of Dangerous Liaisons: Sex and Love in the Segregated South. His main objective in writing this novel was to examine how white southerners enforced anti-miscegenation laws. Robinson shows that the real crime was to suggest that black and white individuals might be equals.
When writing the book, Robinson used various sources. He examined legal cases from across the South, U.S. Supreme court decision, debates in state legislatures, comments in the U.S. Congressional Record, newspaper editorials, anti-miscegenation laws, private correspondence, and some personal writings by African Americans.
From the conclusion: “For the white South, punishing black/white intimacy had more to do with maintaining caste divisions between the races than preventing interracial sex…Love or the appearance of sincere affection mattered more than sex because it suggested that the two individuals involved in the interracial relationship saw each other as social equals. Whites scarcely tolerated such open breeches, for to do so undermined the legitimacy of an economic, political, and social structure that ensured the supremacy of whites” (Robinson).
Public, domestic unions between blacks and whites threatened the political, social, and cultural structure of white supremacy and suggested the possibility of racial equality. Prior to, and even after the Civil War, interracial relationships and sex has been a known thing. In 1662, the Virginia colonial assembly passed a law dealing with special illicitness of interracial couples. If convicted, fines would be doubled and penalties would be twice as severe. In 1691, interracial marriages becam...
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...aged in interracial sex to show that whites and blacks are equal and on the same playing field. Many people did not agree with interracial relationships, which holds true even today in the South. By having a relationship, especially an intimate one, couples were showing that color should not matter.
Personally, I think the book was an interesting read. It is crazy to even imagine a time when blacks and whites were segregated. Reading stories of how people viewed and acted about interracial couples is saddening because of the harsh punishment that they would endure, but also gives an explanation of why many southern white men, especially older ones, have such a strong opinion on interracial couples to this day.
Works Cited:
Robinson, Charles F. Dangerous Liaisons: Sex and Love in the Segregated South. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas, 2003. Print.
There are other factors that far more important than color of one’s skin. “Property, even a few cows or pigs, provided legal and social identity in this society” (Myne Owne Ground, 17). Therefore, Anthony Johnson and other successful free Black men have a better status and social identity than those White men serving their term as indenture servants. The testimony from Virginia Court Record of a white woman, Katherine Watkind, and John Long, a Negro, supports that there were no extreme discrimination between colors yet. Katherine Watkind claims that neighbor’s slave rapped her in the wood. However, the witnesses, a group of white and black men, say that Katherine initiates this event “soe she tooke him about the necke and kissed him” (Reading the American Past, 46). It seems like Black slaves and white servants are united as a group. They probably come to drink and enjoy their social life together behind their master. However, this kind of bonding is what the colonial elites fear the most –might overturn their master. Black and White Virginians on the eastern shore experience relative equality for much of the seventeenth century because it was a multiracial conservational with “blurred and constantly shifting “ racial boundaries, and that whites and blacks
I enjoyed that the book challenged some of the biggest problems in our legal system, or even society as a whole. There is still a lot of racism going on, and this book was not afraid to exploit that. I enjoy those kinds of readings. They are the things that will eventually spark a change and shed some light on the problems that are happening right now.
It is a book that holds up to its weighty praise of being “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” The book is presented in a light that is free from petty bias and that is shaped by a clear point of view that considers all facts equally. It is a book that will remain one of the best explanations of this time period.
Although some of Woodward’s peripheral ideas may have been amended in varying capacities his central and driving theme, often referred to as the “Woodward Thesis,” still remains intact. This thesis states that racial segregation (also known as Jim Crow) in the South in the rigid and universal form that it had taken by 1954 did not begin right after the end of the Civil War, but instead towards the end of the century, and that before Jim Crow appeared there was a distinct period of experimentation in race relations in the South. Woodward’s seminal his...
Assumptions from the beginning, presumed the Jim Crow laws went hand in hand with slavery. Slavery, though, contained an intimacy between the races that the Jim Crow South did not possess. Woodward used another historian’s quote to illustrate the familiarity of blacks and whites in the South during slavery, “In every city in Dixie,’ writes Wade, ‘blacks and whites lived side by side, sharing the same premises if not equal facilities and living constantly in each other’s presence.” (14) Slavery brought about horrible consequences for blacks, but also showed a white tolerance towards blacks. Woodward explained the effect created from the proximity between white owners and slaves was, “an overlapping of freedom and bondage that menaced the institution of slavery and promoted a familiarity and association between black and white that challenged caste taboos.” (15) The lifestyle between slaves and white owners were familiar, because of the permissiveness of their relationship. His quote displayed how interlocked blacks...
Although the main character in the book was white, the author, Sue Kidd, does a great job of depicting the African American culture during the time. Whether it was Rosaleen getting beat up in jail, or Zach dreaming of being a lawyer, this book showed you what it was like being a minority during a time when rights where still being fought for. One of the smaller conflicts in the story was a man verses man conflict, when Lily and Zach started to like each other. Though they knew that a colored man, and a white girl could never be together, they both were attracted to each other. Were they not from different cultures, people would have been fine with them dating, but because Zach was black, it couldn?t work out.
C. Vann Woodward’s book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, has been hailed as a book which shaped our views of the history of the Civil Rights Movement and of the American South. Martin Luther King, Jr. described the book as “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” The argument presented in The Strange Career of Jim Crow is that the Jim Crow laws were relatively new introductions to the South that occurred towards the turn of the century rather than immediately after the end of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Woodward examines personal accounts, opinions, and editorials from the eras as well as the laws in place at the times. He examines the political history behind the emergence of the Jim Crow laws. The Strange Career of Jim Crow gives a new insight into the history of the American South and the Civil Rights Movement.
Religion is one point McDowell brings forth in her essay, during the Jazz era she stated that singers such as Bessie Smith, Gertrude Rainey, and Victoria Spivey sung about sexual feelings in their songs. Women during this Jazz era were freer about their sexuality, but due to this freeness, an article called “Negro Womanhood’s Greatest Need” criticized the sexuality of Black women. In this article, the writers criticized Black women of the Jazz era; one part stated “…“speed and disgust” of the Jazz Age which created women “less discreet and less cautious than their sisters in the years gone by”. These “new” women, she continued, rebelling against the laws of God and man” (p.368). Women showing expressing their sexuality is not only an act against God, but also against men.
Trilling, Lionel. "Review of Black Boy." Richard Wright: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. Eds. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and K. A. Appiah. New York : Amistad, 1993.
The Strange Career of Jim Crow, by C. Van Woodward, traces the history of race relations in the United States from the mid and late nineteenth century through the twentieth century. In doing so Woodward brings to light significant aspects of Reconstruction that remain unknown to many today. He argues that the races were not as separate many people believe until the Jim Crow laws. To set up such an argument, Woodward first outlines the relationship between Southern and Northern whites, and African Americans during the nineteenth century. He then breaks down the details of the injustice brought about by the Jim Crow laws, and outlines the transformation in American society from discrimination to Civil Rights. Woodward’s argument is very persuasive because he uses specific evidence to support his opinions and to connect his ideas. Considering the time period in which the book and its editions were written, it should be praised for its insight into and analysis of the most important social issue in American history.
Rothman, Joshua D. "James Callender and Social Knowledge of Interracial Sex in Antebellum Virginia." Jan Ellen Lewis, and Peter S. Onuf. Sally Hemings & Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999.
There is an assumption that black women–as described in Absalom! Absalom! – are a complex combination of sexuality and raw nature. George E. Kent concurs that black women serve as a barrier between the sexual desires of the white male and the metaphysical privilege of white females. This is intended to demonstrate why Henry Supten objected to his sister having relations with Charles Bon who has a mixed blooded mistress. Psychological tenants are connected to the relationship of the white male and black women. The black female keeps the white male from obtaining a piece of the “American Dream” which is having a pure White decent blood
Gates, Henry Louis Jr., and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997. 164-167.
These were women who weren’t directly under the supervision of a white male; and were thought to be a threat to the social order. Free black women regardless of their economic standing or family situations were suspect along with poor white women who either bore children out of wedlock, or had black lovers. To antebellum society motherhood is thought of as the most noble calling for southern white women, but becomes the “most appalling system of degradation when occurred outside marriage”(p.2). Interracial sexual relations are “regarded as the greatest moral outrage against [antebellum] society” (p.69) Poor women during this time often broke the norm of this times female behavior, and were the most likely to engage in an interracial social or sexual relationship. The respected white women in the community would often refer to these women as “vile”, “lewd”, and “vicious” “products of an inferior strain of humanity” (p. 90). While these relationships were seen as being unmoral, whenever a white man had a sexual relationship with a black women he had little to no fear of disapproval from society as long as the woman was still treated as a black women instead of getting the respect that was reserved for white women. Women were often harassed by court officials threatening charges of prostitution, bastardy, or fornication they then would assume the role of the patriarch and attempt to forcibly
Sollors, Werner. I Interracialism: Black-White Intermarriage in American History, Literature, and Law. New York: University Press, 2000.