Scholar Essay

Who am I to judge ones race, class or gender? , from the way they to look to the sway in their, who am I to judge what they should be called or what they shouldn’t be called. Just because the individual is a lighter color than me or from a different ethnicity, aren’t we all consider to be as an equal? The binary stereotyping and mixed cultural signals of African American and Latino females are identified in Mammies, Matriarch and Other Controlling Images and The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria examines the race, class, gender, and sexuality and how these representations speak to the African American and Latino women .Race, Class, and Gender are constructed categories that causes controlling images such as Mammy, Hot Tamale, Bad Black Woman, and Jezebels to become a natural way of thinking leading women to act and believe that is who they are and eventually they who will become.
Patricia Collins article (Chap 4), “Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images” (2000), defines the oppression, objectification, and controlling images of African American women in the society, as well as the social acceptance of African American women. Collins supports her theories and hypothetical thinking with supporting statements from other black feminist that illustrate similar beliefs and theories that she asserts in her article. Collins purpose and objective is to point out the stereotypical condition of African American women in the society and also the binary of stereotyping. Given the content and source of this publication, Collins intended audience is people who have a unique interest in knowing the condition of stereotypes of African American women. Judith Ortz Cofer’s article “The Myth of the Latino Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” (2000) asserts that the Latino woman is being treated differently because of her nationality. Cofer supports her claim by illustrating a few stereotypical situations that happen to the Latino women. Cofer’s purpose is to show the cross- cultural conflict between Hispanics and Caucasian people. Given the content of this article, Cofer’s intended audience are individuals who perceive Latino or Hispanic women with mixed cultural signals. Hill Collins quote “Black women emerged from slavery firmly enshrined in the consciousness of white America as “Mammy” and “the bad black woman”. African American women are often portrayed as the nursemaid or nanny in charge of white children, so when the slavery days were over this is what America converted African American women into.
Cofer quotes “Certain stereotypes that of the Hispanic woman as the “Hot Tamale” or “Sexual Firebrand”. Latino women are often consider to be viewed as sexy sensual women with their tight clothing, reveling dress, sensual accents, and multi colored wardrobe.
In the early nineteenth century. Baartman was a Khoisan woman from South Africa, brought to England to a strange career on the stages of first London, then the provinces, and finally Paris. Billed as the “Hottentot Venus” when she first appeared in London in 1810, she quickly became a public figure in an age when western Europeans were increasingly curious about the subjects of Empire and the potentials of scientific classification of the human species. She appealed to the tastes of both late Georgian Britain and Napoleonic France. Baartman was an overnight sensation, dressed in a body stocking that openly revealed her large bottom and what was imagined to be enlarged labia.
The intention was to convey assumed sexuality, as indicated in her stage name and her performance of song and dance. Her cutthroat managers carefully promoted her career, initially through their efforts to sell her image to the London elite, whose interest was both scientific and prurient, and then by securing wide public attention through advertising and public display. Despite her instant fame, abolitionists, human welfare and social reform latched onto her case, formally bringing charges against her managers that Baartman was, in fact, a slave and performing against her will. As a consequence, she became a celebrity of another kind, and when the case was dismissed from court for lack of evidence, her career reached new heights. Moreover, in the context of the court challenge, her managers arranged a legal contract with her that publicly, at least, gave the appearance that she controlled her own fate, and hence was not a slave or otherwise forced to perform against her will.
Baartman’s sad career reached new levels in Paris, when her managers sold her contract to even more unscrupulous employers. She became the subject of anthropological curiosity, and was painted, sketched, and examined. Neglected and abused, Baartman died on December 29, 1815, cause of was a undiagnosed diease she contracted less than five years after she had left South Africa, her corpse was subjected to study that was part of the development of racist theories of the origins of humans and the apparent, but now clearly recognized as insignificant, differences among people. Although denied a proper burial in France, the fact that her remains were preserved, and repeatedly examined and desecrated, meant that, in a sense, she survived. This short biography also considers the legacy of Baartman, whose remains were returned to South Africa after the fall of racial segregation, when Sara Baartman country recognized her as a national heroine. . They removed her skeleton and cut out her brain and genitals, which he pickled in bottles that were put on display at museum in Paris, France for more than 150 years. Her remains were removed from public exhibition 10 years ago but remain the property of the museum.

Both Cofer and Hill Collins discuss and explain the race, class and gender issues they tend to come across. Cofer refers back to her days of transforming form a young girl to a teenager. Cofer explains her upbringing as a young girl transforming into a teenager. She then discusses the mixed cultural stereotypes perceived by the people she has met. Cofer provides detailed stereotyped incidents she has encountered. Cofer then concludes the essay by hoping the stories she tell will achieve some universal truth which will get people to look past her skin color, her accent, and her colorful clothing. Hill Collins explains the controlling images and social that schools, media, music government agencies continues to constitutes the reiteration of these controlling images making a young woman feel like this is who she is who she needs to be and how she supposed to act and so that individual grows up portraying that so called “Ideal Image” or Socially constructed image and it becomes a natural way of thinking for that individual.
In conclusion of my paper I provided the reader with examples on how all stereotyping and imaging works together in society and also a summary of my third source. Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality all ties in with identity and believing who you are based on your environment and social settings. Sara Baartman was a slave that was turned into a phenomenal showcase overseas for the Europeans and a famous prostitute her class of status went high than she could ever imagine, she even pronounced a free woman, and she of prostitution will go down in history. Baartman believe that what she was a prostitute, that what society said she was so that was what she accepted, and that what she naturally started to think but when her health started to decline and she couldn’t live up to her it took a toll on her mentally and physically. As I stated in my thesis early on in the paper and this is just my I truly believe that as Mammy, Hot Tamale, Bad Black Woman, and Jezebels to become a natural way of thinking leading women to act and believe that is who they are and eventually they who will become.

Work Cited
Collins, Patricia H. Mammies, Matriarch, and Other Controlling Images.” Black Feminists Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. New York; Routledge; (2000) pages 76-106. Print Cofer, Judith O. The Reader 2nd Edition Essay “The Myth Of The Latino Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria”. University of Georgia ;( 2000) pages 39-42. Print
Rachel Holmes. African Queen: The Real Life of the Hottentot Venus. New York: Random House, (2007). Pages xiv-161. Print