Short Essay #3

Introduction

There are many things that changed over the two hundred year period of 1800 to 2000. Many things socially benefited Africans but sometimes not in the best of ways. There were many Europeans that started the social change of Africans and Africans followed after them. Then again there were some instances that Africans started the fight for this change and Europeans either followed with the whole support and others just gave in. One of the things that intrigued me the most about all the things that happened during this time period was the transition of European women not wanting anything to do with Africans to wanting to marry them and start a family with them. This change was the most interesting to me because there were still many people in Europe that were against it and would have socially segregated the whole family because of this true love between different races.

Europeans View of Africans at First

The view of Africans when they first started to mix with Europeans was this view of them being a lesser race. They were sometimes compared to being like apes. This view came out from them being slaves and with all the stories that came out of Africa. They even tried to play things off as though if you marry a African then you were going to die tragically instead of living your life to the fullest and dying peacefully of old age. Because they were black they were savage and couldn’t take care of you like a white European could. “From Othello through works by Balzac such as Le Negre and Le Vicaire des Ardemers, and indeed, right up to recent films like Jungle Fever by Spike Lee, convention dictates that sex across the racial divide invariably comes to no good, and very often ends in the violent death of one or both of the protagonists.”[1] Most mixed racial relationships didn’t actually end like this but they wouldn’t have known that unless they married them and tried to live their lives with them. If they had that mindset then they wouldn’t even try and have a relationship with them. Also Europeans usually wouldn’t even look at them as being human or even contact with them. They were not worth it in their minds. Throughout time though there were some that were different. In the essay Into the heard of empire – Black Britain written by Barbara Bush, she mentions, “But individual blacks were only deemed ‘equals’ because they were ‘cultured’ and educated and has passed the ‘civilization test.”[2] This didn’t happen everywhere in Europe and was very un-common when you think at Europe as a whole.

How the vision of Africans Changed

This very discriminating view point of Africans changed drastically many years later. Many white European males still thought of Africans as being a lower race and wouldn’t even talk to them. For white European women it was a different story. There were more and more European women that would either like to take Africans hand in marriage or already have. The only thing that they had a problem with was how they could look to others if they did. They thought that Africans were not clean and this was even shown in everyday commercials. “This seems to betray primarily a middle class obsession with cleanliness, but the girl’s impression of black people could have been reinforced by any number of soap advertisements from the time showing blacks scrubbing their skins in an effort to turn themselves white.”[3] Even though there was this problem women still went past that, found out who their African lover was really as a person, and turned the relationship to not being completely sexual but an honest relationship of love. There was even one women that had a child with an African male and even though she knew she might get discriminated she kept the child and loved him like an all-white family would love their children. “She confessed that she had been worried at first about having a coloured baby, but now that her son was four she felt able to say ‘I love him despite all the worries he has caused me. Je ne regretted rein.’”[4] Considering the time period with everything going on around these families and with all the racists views even with mixed race children mothers had a right to be worried and not want to keep their children. For this mother to keep her child and love him unconditionally was a very interesting situation.

How Africans Reacted to This Change

Africans reaction to this was mixed. With Africans getting married to white European women meant that their status overall was risen. “For some, to marry a black man and attempt to improve him would be an act of charity, a personal mission of civilize.”[5] It was not very much but just enough to not be at the complete bottom any more. Even after World War One their status changed a little just because of the hate that Europeans had for Germans. “Besides, he added, it was better for a French woman to marry a black man than a boche (German).”[6] Many other things happened because of the Great War. One of the things is that many white men died in the war so many white women said that they would marry an African because there was no one else to marry and try and start a family with. The other thing was that Africans were sometimes even better suitors than less respectable white Europeans. “Others stated that their physical repugnance at black people would soon wear off once they became used to them, and anyway, what was described as the ‘special odour’ of blacks was less disgusting than the breath of an alcoholic.”[7] Knowing that white European women would rather put up with an Africans then a drunk could be seen as bad but then again it is also showing how they are slowly moving up in class.

Conclusion

This phenomena of white European women wanting to take Africans in marriage is very interesting considering what all had happened in the past and the view of Africans from 1600 tell then. Seeing women being the one that would take that step forward to raise the status is interesting in itself because they were women. With the way that social status worked during this time period most women were not to make those kinds of decisions and would have been looked down on for a very long time because of it. Africans status was slowly changing even though it started mainly with women the thing is that it didn’t change very much and they were still considered very low on the social ladder.

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[1] Owen White, “Miscegenation and the Popular Imagination,” in Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France (Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 06/2001) 133 – 134.

[2] Barbara Bush, “Imperialism, Race and Resistance,” (London: Routledge, 1999), 214

[3] Owen White, “Miscegenation and the Popular Imagination,” in Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France (Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 06/2001) 137

[4] Owen White, “Miscegenation and the Popular Imagination,” in Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France (Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 06/2001) 138

[5] Owen White, “Miscegenation and the Popular Imagination,” in Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France (Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 06/2001) 137

[6] Owen White, “Miscegenation and the Popular Imagination,” in Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France (Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 06/2001) 134 – 135

[7] Owen White, “Miscegenation and the Popular Imagination,” in Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France (Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 06/2001) 137