Black brute

{{significantly problematic}}[[File:Dangerous black man (NYPL Hades-608827-1256137).jpg|right|thumb|165px|Front cover of an 1899 book of sheet music.]]
{{race}}
{{sources needed}}
{{cquote|White people don't need a law against [[rape]], but if you fill this room up with your normal black bucks, you would, because [[nigger]]s are basically primitive animals.|||[[David Duke]] being a racist douchebag.<ref>[https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/assets/pdf/combating-hate/David-Duke-long-article.pdf David Duke: In His Own Words], Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved 4 February 2021</ref>}}
The '''black brute''' is a [[racist]] [[stereotype]] that is most known for its use in the [[American Civil War|post-bellum]] [[The South|South]] of the [[United States]]. It survives to this day in something of a muted and less overt form, though it's still readily apparent when employed.<ref>[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5004736/ From "brute" to "thug:" the demonization and criminalization of unarmed Black male victims in America]</ref>

==History==
===Pre-Civil War===
Prior to the Civil War, black stereotypes in the media often portrayed them as dumb and docile, perpetually childlike, willing, or happy-go-lucky servants. Think Uncle Remus in ''[[Song of the South]]'' or Aunt Jemima, which were based on these earlier stereotypes (these are now generally referred to as the "[[Uncle Tom|Tom]]" and "Mammy" stereotypes respectively, and are something of a spin on the [[noble savage]], although people had initially viewed the publication of Uncle Remus stories as an effort to ''help'' the black community). While the black brute stereotype, which portrayed black men as ape-like savages ruled by base instincts, was common as well, it became much more dominant over the other stereotypes after the Civil War.

===Reconstruction===
During [[Reconstruction]], the [[white supremacist]]s in the South developed a gargantuan [[persecution complex]] that fruited into various rumors and [[conspiracy theories]]. These rumors postulated a variety of [[paranoia|paranoid]] possibilities, including black people stealing all the whites' jobs, loss of white franchise, [[race war]], forced mixing of the races, and the total control of the American government by black people. These were all variations on the persistent theme of a slave or [[Race war#Black uprising|black uprising]] updated for the Reconstruction era.

The black brute stereotype relied on the two central themes of violence and [[sexuality]]. In regard to the former, white supremacists generally believed that black men were inherently physically powerful (an image that was a product of many such men at the time having physiques reflective of grueling manual labor) with a savage and violent nature and that the institution of slavery was necessary to "tame" them. They feared that abolition would cause them to return to their "primitive" state and would lead to mass violence against whites in a race war. Stories of criminal acts by blacks were often exaggerated or outright fabricated by newspapers, which helped perpetuate this fear. New tensions between lower-class whites and freedmen also grew as the two groups now competed for employment. This resulted in a number of racial riots that came on the tail end of the Civil War.<ref>See, for example, the [https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=5641 New Orleans] and [https://www.memphishistory.org/Events/TheRaceRiotsof1866/tabid/381/Default.aspx Memphis Riots] of 1866.</ref>

===Miscegenation===
{{main|Miscegenation}}
The forced racial mixing narrative became central to the sexual aspect of the black brute [[mythology]]. This 
theory
 horseshit first appeared in a pamphlet published in 1863 called ''Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races'', which posited that [[Republicans]] ought to bring about some kind of master race through interbreeding blacks and whites.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/miscegenationthe00crol The "Miscegenation" pamphlet at the Internet Archive]</ref> The pamphlet was later revealed to be a [[hoax]].<ref>[https://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/archive/permalink/the_miscegenation_hoax/ The Miscegenation Hoax], Museum of Hoaxes</ref> Anti-miscegenation laws had been in place in many states dating back to pre-[[American Revolution|Revolution]] days. While mixed-race marriages were technically legal in some northern states, they were still considered taboo. In the belief that miscegenation was inevitable, many southern states made the penalty for mixed-race marriages or any relationship at all much harsher.

===Voodoo===
{{main|Voodoo}}
The black brute mythos managed to pack a monumental amount of [[bigotry]] into one stereotype. Not only did it rely on racism, but also religious intolerance and [[sexism]]. Before emancipation, slaves were indoctrinated into [[Christianity]]. This resulted in hoodoo, voodoo, and other folkloric religious practices that fused Christianity with traditional African religions.<ref group=note>Note that hoodoo generally refers to a collection of superstitious magical practices while voodoo is a complete (syncretic) religion mixing the West African religion of Vodun with Catholicism.</ref> These practices were, of course, considered [[Satanic]], immoral, and a perversion of Christianity by whites. Whites feared that they would be the victims of curses through this "black magic": this is not the origin of that term, though, since it dates back to at least 1200.<ref>''Witchcraft and Black Magic'', Montague Summers, 1946</ref>

===Rape and lynchings===
As the stereotype portrayed blacks as virile young men, they were believed not only to have sizable [[penis|endowments]] but to be extremely skilled in the art of [[sex|procreation]] as well. Even if a black man didn't fit this description, it was believed by many of the more superstitious types that they could always increase their strength or virility through [[magic]] spells anyway. It was also believed that black people were hyper-sexual due to their "savage" nature and that ages of slavery had repressed this sexual desire, which they would inevitably seek an outlet for. Thus, it was thought that they would immediately target white women and rape them. This was sometimes known as the "Mandingo theory."<ref>Kofi Piesie, ''Mandingo Theory: Castration of Africans & Sex-crazed Conceptualization''. Lulu.com, 2021. {{isbn|9798985190984}}</ref> This also played on sexist stereotypes of the time. As the "weaker sex," women were considered to be easily tempted and possibly unable to resist the sexual advances of virile black men. White supremacists feared that the mixed race would come about through widespread rape and intermarriage of their easily seduced wives and daughters with black people (in reality, white-on-white and white-on-black rape, which was only rarely prosecuted, were far more common). Women were thus idealized as the keepers of white racial purity but simultaneously objectified as helpless pieces of property to be protected. Folk psychology has frequently speculated that fear of retribution for the common sexual exploitation of female slaves by their masters also was involved even among people who did not see such as rape.

The accusation of rape was often the easiest way to stir up a [[lynch mob]], and [[moral panic]]s over fabricated cases of rape were common. Even the nature of the lynchings themselves was exaggerated in the public perception, which was that almost all lynchings were of rapists: a 1919 study of 2,500 lynchings found that only one-sixth of victims had actually been accused of rape or sexual misconduct.<ref>[https://scalar.usc.edu/nehvectors/stakeman/dyer-anti-lynching-bill Dyer Anti-lynching Bill]. The Walter White Project, University of Southern California, 2012.</ref> During lynchings, castration was often employed to symbolize the destruction of the black man's sexual powers. The black brute stereotype was a motivating force behind Southern opposition to anti-lynching laws (some 200 of which were rejected in the period between 1882 and 1968) and the persistence of segregation and [[Jim Crow laws]]. These laws were thought to be necessary to mitigate criminal violence by black people as well as to keep the maximum distance between them and white women. The rise of the [[Ku Klux Klan]] helped this ideology spread and it was exemplified in D.W. Griffith's ''[[The Birth of a Nation]]'' (1915), which was the first film to feature this stereotype, though other stereotypes about [[African American]]s were featured in earlier films.<ref>''Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films'' by Donald Bogle (1994) Continuum, 3<sup>rd</sup> edition. ISBN 0826405789.</ref>{{rp|10}}

==World War II==
[[File:Gino_Boccasile_(1901-1952)_WWII_Italian_anti-American_Fascist_propaganda_poster_c._1943_140x100cm_Repubblica_Sociale_Italiana_Black_US_soldier_selling_white_Venus_from_Milo_statue_for_2_dollars_No_known_copyright_196869-2.jpg|right|thumb|165px|Circa 1943 anti-American propaganda poster designed by Gino Boccasile.]]
{{main|World War II}}
During the middle of the war, the US government realized that there was a continued need to draft recruits into the armed forces. Illiterates had initially been excluded from the draft, and in the South, this had disproportionately affected black men: two-thirds of the illiterate population in the South were black at the time. There was also growing concern among white leaders that white women were being left in towns with few white men and a larger proportion of black men. Senator Theodore Bilbo of [[Mississippi]], one of the most openly racist people in Congress at the time, insisted that illiteracy no longer be used an exclusion from the draft to remedy this situation. The unintended consequence of this change was that the armed forces established crash courses in [[literacy]] and drafted illiterate men into service, giving Southern black men in particular an opportunity for literacy that they might never have received.<ref>''When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America'' by Ira Katznelson (2005) W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393052133.</ref>{{rp|108-109}}

[[Italy|Italian]] artist Gino Boccasile created [[propaganda]] posters for [[Benito Mussolini]]'s [[Fascism|fascist]] regime that depicted brutish black American soldiers as plunderers who posed a threat to civilized Europe's cultural heritage.<ref>[https://spartacus-educational.com/2WWboccasile.htm "Gino Boccasile" on ''Spartacus Educational'']</ref>

==Broader context==
The "black brute" stereotype is part of a larger context of using propaganda that exploits sexual anxiety to perpetuate fascism in the form of unequal treatment under the law of politically disempowered groups.<ref name=stanley>''How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them'' by Jason Stanley (2018) Random House. ISBN 9780525511830.</ref>{{rp|127-140}} Examples including widespread [[lynching]]s of (mostly) African Americans in the United States (as previously mentioned, the majority of victims had not even been accused of rape),<ref name=stanley/>{{rp|129-131}} the "Black Horror on the Rhine" moral panic in which German propagandists falsely claimed that French soldiers of African descent committed mass rape on women in the Rhineland following [[World War I]],<ref name=stanley/>{{rp|128-129}}<ref>"The 'Black Horror on the Rhine': Race as a Factor in Post-World War I Diplomacy" by Keith L. Nelson (1970) ''The Journal of Modern History'' (42)4:606-627.</ref> the Rohingya [[genocide]] and [[ethnic cleansing]] in [[Myanmar]] was instigated by paranoid conspiracy theories that [[Islam|Muslim]] Rohingya men were preying on [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] women,<ref name=stanley/>{{rp|131-132}} [[BJP]]-affiliated people propagating the [[love jihad]] conspiracy theory that Muslim men are deceiving [[Hindu]] women into marrying them,<ref name=stanley/>{{rp|132}} various unsubstantiated allegations that immigrants are rapists,<ref name=stanley/>{{rp|132-134}} and various [[Sex segregation in public restrooms|"bathroom bills"]] that make the unsubstantiated allegations that [[trans]] women somehow endanger [[cis]] women in public restrooms.<ref name=stanley/>{{rp|135-136}}

==Modern incarnations==
===Racialism===
While racial theories had existed long prior, the late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the rise of the [[pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]] field of "[[racialism|raciology]]" or "scientific racism." This attempted to give a scientific veneer to racism by "proving" the inferiority of blacks and rationalizing their oppression, largely through comparisons claiming that blacks were more "ape-like" than whites. This pseudoscience simply reiterated the brute stereotype.

The brute stereotype is specific to men: in common with typical patriarchal mythology, black women were instead depicted as lascivious seducers (the "Jezebel" stereotype).

===Other uses===
The stereotype was often invoked by those who demanded the [[War on Drugs|criminalization of drugs]] starting with the 1930s "reefer madness" panic. 

Popular culture reinforces the black brute stereotype in a celebratory fashion.  The blaxploitation genre that came about in the 1970s played heavily on this stereotype. While movies like ''Superfly'', ''The Mack'', and ''Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song'' portrayed blacks as empowered, they also continued to cast their characters as thugs involved in illegal activities like pimping and pushing drugs. [[Gang|Gangsta]] rap and interracial [[pornography]] have also been accused of perpetuating this stereotype (Though when it comes to porn, one wonders what stereotype it ''doesn't'' perpetuate, and, per [[Rule 34]], the answer may well be "none at all").

{{wpl|Charles Stuart (murderer)|Charles Stuart}} in 1989 and {{wpl|Susan Smith}} in 1996 capitalized on the black brute stereotype as a foil for the murders they committed.

[[Donald Trump]] used the stereotype for his first foray into politics in 1989 by taking out a full-page advertisement in ''[[The New York Times]]'' calling for the [[death penalty]] for the Central Park Five, five black and brown adolescent males, accused of a brutal rape in Central Park. The five were later exonerated after conviction and imprisonment, but Trump never apologized.<ref>[https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1361&context=senproj_s2016 Saintly Victim(s), Savage Assailants: Race, Rape and, Media Portrayals of the Central Park Jogger Case] by Thomas Palacios Beddall (2016) ''Senior Projects Spring, Bard College'' 194.</ref><ref>[https://lawreview.law.miami.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Jones_The-Big-Black-Man.pdf The “Big Black Man” and Other Stories: George Floyd, Stereotypes, and the Shape of Fear] by D. Marvin Jones (2021) ''University of Miami Law Review Caveat'' 75:97-115.</ref>

==See also==
*[[Lost Cause of the South]]
*[[Sexual objectification]]
*[[Uncle Tom]]
*[[1988 U.S. presidential election|Willie Horton]]

==External links==
*[https://www.ferris.edu/JIMCROW/brute/ The Brute Caricature], Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Ferris State University
*Lisa Cardyn. [https://www86.homepage.villanova.edu/maghan.keita/readingsterrorism/terrorism/Lisa%20Cardyn,%20Sexualized%20Racism,%20Gendered%20Violence.pdf Sexualized Racism/Gendered Violence: Outraging the Body Politic in the Reconstruction South.] ''Michigan Law Review'', Vol. 100, No. 4. (Feb., 2002), pp. 675-867.
*[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScaryBlackMan Scary Black Man entry at TV Tropes]

==Sources==
*''Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction'' by Forrest G. Wood [https://books.google.com/books?id=4FXXV9H0Y-oC&printsec=frontcover&dq=black+scare+forrest+wood&hl=en&ei=9ZtJTqy6NPG60AH57ZXrBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false]

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Conspiracy theories]]
[[Category:Discrimination]]
[[Category:Moral panics]]
[[Category:Racism]]
[[Category:Sexism]]
[[Category:Sexuality]]
[[Category:Stereotypes]]

Categories: Conspiracy theories, Discrimination, Moral panics, Racism, Sexism, Sexuality, Stereotypes