The gaze has become known as a way of understanding how the gaze of the other affects the individual and how this gaze or response influences the receiver. I wonder why black women who express their feelings and challenge the status quo are often seen as aggressive instead of progressive. This response could be seen as a negative black stare.
From this type of stereotype arises the notion of the strong black woman. The concept of a strong black woman is based on what I have called the black Western archetype stemming from slavery. During slavery it was seen that the African woman had no emotions or needs. She was torn from her family to serve the needs of the white master. She washed, cooked and cleaned for the teacher and his family. She took care of the master’s children, she was subject to the master’s wife’s beck and call, and was the master’s maternal and sexual object. Her teacher and her family depended on her for these elements of her daily life and she could hardly rest. He woke up at dawn and was forced to stay awake until the lady of the house gave him permission.
Slaves were prohibited from having formal marriages and African men were denied the right to family life. The slave had to work in the fields and in the house. Her sexuality was a product and her body a production line for the next generation of slaves. The protest against sexual abuse and exploitation of the master was prohibited. The African slave was subjected to the misogynistic gaze of the white male and the envious voyeuristic gaze of the white female as they watched and colluded with the master’s exploitation of black bodies.
The black woman internalized a negative look from the slave family. As a result of her negative look, she performed her duties at her request without question at the beck and call of the teacher and his family. She cleaned, washed, cooked, and took care of the children without protest. She gave the appearance of being strong and able to withstand the endless tasks that were given to her and the beatings and atrocious treatment that the people received from her. In short, they treated her like a workhorse and beat her into shape. The negative gaze of her master and her mistress, the stark expectations to relentlessly act without question and hide her emotions created a template for what I called the black western archetype of step and seek it out.
The Black Western Archetype is a concept I have devised to address how racism and the impact of slavery permeate the psychology of Black peoples in contemporary Western society. The idea arises from combining traditional psychoanalytic theory and ideas about black problems. At the risk of homogenizing, I would suggest that this intergenerational phenomenon has influenced the behavior of many black women in our modern society.
Black women of African descent sometimes display traits of this negative stereotype. The black woman was silenced by her history of abuse. From this came the harshness of the accumulation of unrelenting and unreasonable work experience. She is often compulsively independent and reluctant to ask for her needs to be met. She is prone to overwork and is often expected to overwork herself. She forgoes her own care for the care of others, including the extended family, so her health suffers and she is prone to mental health problems. This stems from the large number of Black women who burn themselves out or enter the mental health system as a result of oppression in the workplace.
