Reflections on "Sister Citizen" by Melissa Harris-Perry

I really enjoyed reading Melissa Harris-Perry’s Sister Citizen. I have done a fair amount of previous reading about race and politics, and Sister Citizen was a great perspective to be exposed to. I was especially intrigued by Harris-Perry’s analysis of Hurricane Katrina and the power of language and how stereotypes create shame that inhibits women from participating in politics. I also found her critiques of the three stereotypes as well as the myth of the “strong black woman” to be greatly important in understanding the politics of recognition.

African American victims of Katrina were often labeled in mainstream media as “refugees,” a term usually reserved for citizens of developing countries fleeing catastrophes or unrest. White victims, however, were not assigned the term “refugee.” In this context, the word “refugee” feels alienating and intentional. By invoking language associated with the so-called “third world,” the media were able to frame black victims of Katrina as though they were in a distant land, rather than in New Orleans. The response to black victims, then, was terribly insignificant. According to Harris-Perry, the (lack of) response to Katrina victims “forced the question of whether black people were truly American citizens worthy of fair treatment, swift response, and unchallenged rescue.” (pg. 11) Language was used multiple times in the aftermath of Katrina to isolate specific groups; one of the most potent instant was summoned by Kanye West during a benefit concert (I watched the recording of West’s remarks on YouTube and was really interested that he said, “those are my people down there” which invoked the fictive kinship Harris-Perry discusses).

Kanye West was angry about the representation of black families in the media and compared the use of the word “looting” and the word “looking” to describe black and white survivors, respectively, search for food. This use of negative/positive language feeds into stereotypes that keep black people - specifically women - from being active participants in politics. Reading this part of the book made me think about Paul Ryan’s recent comments about black people in Wisconsin (my home state). Ryan used coded language such as “inner city” and “culture” to refer to the cause of poverty: “men in our ‘inner cities’” who are “not even thinking about working.” His use of these words were intentional and meant to create a divide between black and white people while framing black men as the cause of poverty. Coded language has long been a tool employed by politicians to make racially-charged remarks without using the real words they mean.

Black women have three main stereotypes imposed on them by society: Mammy, Sapphire, and Jezebel. These stereotypes were created by white institutions to justify racism and keep black women from attaining power. One part of Harris-Perry’s analysis of these myths I found especially interesting was her explanation of the promiscuity myth. She mentions that white people saw black women as shameless because shame could be seen on white women (through blushing), but not on black women. This allowed white supremacists to use sexual lasciviousness to “[excuse] both profit-driven and casual exploitation of black women.” (pg. 56) This section was also haunting for me because of the “science of race” that attempted to “prove” that black people were genetically and biologically different from white people - a tactic that was used in Nazi Germany during WWII to establish racial hierarchy and warrant the extermination of Jews (which I am learning about in great detail in Elizabeth Baer’s Women and the Holocaust class). The treatment of black women in America - forced sterilization, perpetuated myths about biological differences, etc - is so reminiscent of the “science” released during WWII that it caused me to take a step back and consider the danger this posed for black men and women.

These stereotypes all come together to form the crooked room that black women are constantly maneuvering. For black women, the room is tilted by the social constructions and expectations of the Mammy, Jezebel, and Sapphire stereotypes as well as the myth of the Strong Black woman. This myth was created to combat the negative images created by the Mammy, Jezebel, and Sapphire, and framed black women as strong, independent, loyal to their race, and able to overcome adversity. Despite these positive traits, the Strong Black Woman myth may be doing more harm to black women than good because it does not leave room for human error. “When black women are expected to be super-strong,” Harris-Perry argues, “they cannot be simply human.” (pg. 185) The myth is also harmful because it “requires tremendous personal fortitude from a group with few structural resources.” (pg. 185) We see this lack of structural resources in almost every dimension of a black woman’s life; white-dominated institutions are intentionally set up to fail black women.

It is this intentional disprivileging of black women that leads to the politics of (mis)recognition. Harris-Perry claims that recognition is needed in order to be an active participant in society and politics. Internal, emotional, and personal experiences of black women are inherently political because they are influenced by the systematic oppression that women are subjected to. I was fascinated by the interconnectedness of Harris-Perry’s arguments. Take shame, for example, which she defines as the “psychological and physical effect of repeated acts of misrecognition” (pg. 107) This shame, then, is imprinted on black women through society’s intentional misrecognition of their status and rights as citizens. A black woman is unable to be an active participant in a society that does not recognize her authentic self. The authentic self can only be realized through recognition. Therefore, it is nearly impossible for black women to be full citizens until they are recognized for all they truly are, not as stereotypes.

Lastly, I want to come back to the idea of fictive kinship that I brought up briefly when reflecting on Kanye West’s critique of the Katrina response. Melissa Harris-Perry defines fictive kinship as the connection felt between non-related people who share and identity or trait. She uses the words “my people!” to demonstrate this bond. The idea of fictive kinship also relates to the ideas of shame and stereotypes (Harris-Perry comes full circle again) because many black women identify themselves with the black women around them. If a woman in the group, then, does something deemed shameful (conforming to the Mammy, Jezebel, or Sapphire images), that shame is felt by black women all over. This emphasizes the marginalization of black women because this shame induced by fellow black women isn’t as likely to happen to white women, as white women are more of an “in group” than black women. This group-wide shame can only be felt in out-groups and marginalized communities because they have the most to lose from a society that punishes individuals for the conformist actions of their identity.

Compelling Quotes:

“The refugee label had the effect of rhetorically removing black victims from a national responsibility, as though the consequences of the levee failure were to be endured by foreigners rather than by Americans at the bottom of the same hierarchies of race ad wealth that had contributed to the disaster itself.” (pg. 12)

“African American women who exercise their citizenship must also try to manage the negative expectations born of this powerful mythology. Like all citizens, they use politics to lay claim to resources and express public preferences; but sister politics is also about challenging negative images, managing degradation, and resisting or accommodating humiliating public representations.” (pg. 45)

“Through dissemblence, these middle-class activist African American women sought to respond to and defend against the sexualized myths to frame themselves as “good women” and therefore gain access to the privileges of womanhood. But the privileges of white women were not based on an assumption of equality. They resulted instead from an ideology that saw white women as weak, pure, and needing male protection.” (pg. 64)

“Primed by centuries of assuming that black women are sexually lewd, this moral panic takes hold easily and directs the terms of public conversations about how to address inequality. Instead of changing structures, too many solutions in the public sphere involve enforced limitations on black women’s sexuality.” (pg. 67)

“Jezebel, Mammy, and Sapphire are the angles in the crooked room where women live. They do not reflect black women’s lived experience; instead, they limit African American women to prescribed roles that serve the interest of others.” (pg. 96)

“Shame is more diffuse: it extends beyond a single incident and becomes an evaluation of the self. Psychologists commonly refer to shame as a belief in the malignant self: the idea that your entire person is infected by something inherently bad ad potentially contagious.” (pg. 104)

“A state that shames its citizens violates the foundational social contract of liberal democracies: government’s commitment to respect individual dignity.” (pg. 108)

“Shaming is a profoundly modern exercise of power because only the inferior can feel ashamed.” (pg. 112)

“Stigmatizing shame such as that deployed against African Americans affects not only those who directly encounter the social rejection but the entire class of citizens who share and identity trait. There is no possibility of accurate, democratic recognition of citizens who are subjected to stigmatizing shame. Racism functions by stereotyping all members of a group based on a set of assumed negative characteristics.” (pg. 116)

“Terrorism targets its victims not for their actions but for their identity.” (pg. 118)