Black Buck
Black Buck is a stereotype of an African American male: large, violent, and voraciously attracted to white women. It is closely related to the African American stereotype of the black brute.
According to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the stereotype originated as White Americans feared freed African American males would attempt to exact revenge for slavery against white men by having sex with their daughters, while Riché Richardson says it was created at the end of the 19th century to justify lynching African Americans.
The stereotype has been depicted in films to reflect negatively on African Americans such as The Birth of a Nation (1915) and to reflect positively such as Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971), although it has been challenged by some in the African American community as to whether these depictions are good.
Characteristics
[edit]An African American male stereotyped as a black buck is large, violent, and attracted to white women in a hypersexual manner;[1][2] historian Donald Bogle describes these as "big, baadddd niggers".[3]: 13
In depicting an African American male sexually attracted to white women, Bogle writes that these women are given symbolic value, of "white pride, power, and beauty".[3]: 14 In the stereotype, the buck's strength makes him to a white audience at once "superhuman" and inhuman.[3]: 244
Vanessa Corredera writes that the stereotype persists in contemporary understandings of African American men as hypersexual, as written about by bell hooks in We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity.[2]
Relationship to the Black Brute
[edit]Bogle identifies the black buck as a subdivision the Brutish Black Buck character type. The Brutish Black Buck, according to Bogle, is one of several classic African American character types in media, alongside others including the tragic mulatto and mammy.[3]: 4 Alongside the black buck, Brutish Black Buck is divided into black brutes, with the two subgroups closely related. For Bogle, the black brutes are anonymous, animalistic and criminal African American figures who exercise black rage, unleashing destruction.[2][3]: 13–14 His violence was understood to derive from "sexual repression." Black Bucks, by contrast, are distinguished by their sexual assertiveness and as being more individualized, including in the danger they pose.[3]: 13–14 Corredera describes the black buck as a term used to emphasize the lustful character of the Black Brute, although she also characterizes them as distinct.[2]
Origin
[edit]In an article published by the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the black buck stereotype is said to have arose from the earlier Mandingo stereotype. This was a concept promoted by actors in the slave trade, who invoked images of strong, young black men who could be forced to submit to their owners to undertake labor. As African Americans were emancipated, fears were borne among the white population that these African American males would exact revenge against white men by having sex with their daughters.[4] According to Riché Richardson, the stereotype originated in the late 19th century as a justification for lynching, to supplant the dominant understanding of African American males as docile figures, seen in the stereotype of Uncle Tom.[2]
In the beginning of the 20th century, newspapers featured many stories of African males described as fitting the description of a black buck arrested, murdered, and attempted to be lynched. Boxer Jack Johnson was a figure seen to epitomize the stereotype, particularly through his relationships with white women which were subject to significant media attention. When he won a 1910 fight against James J. Jeffries, who had been billed as the "Great White Hope", race riots ensued across America.[4]
In film
[edit]D.W. Griffith's 1915 motion picture The Birth of a Nation is perhaps one of the best known examples of the use of the black buck stereotype in the media,[3]: 10 seen in the characters of Silas Lynch and Gus. In the film, these characters pursue white women, with an apparent intent to rape and kidnap,[1] driven by what is depicted as an apparent "animalistic" lust.[3]: 14 Through the stereotype's depiction in The Birth of a Nation, perceptions of African American males as preying on white women increased in popularity.[1]
In 1971, Melvin Van Peebles' blaxploitation thriller Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was released. This was the first depiction on film of African American men confidently expressing their sexuality since the early 20th century,[3]: 17 even as precursors such as the late 1960s films of Jim Brown existed.[3]: 223 Bogle writes that the film's provocative depiction of an African American masculinity may be read to have "fed white hysteria and paranoia," albeit unapologetically[3]: 236 and sociologist David Pilgrim writes that the film's depiction of black masculinity is better understood as showcasing the black brute stereotype.[5] Following Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song throughout the early 1970s, a string of films featuring positive depictions of the buck were released. These films updated the stereotype for a new time, making the figure cool and somewhat political[3]: 17, 232 and received strong support within the African American community, although some opposition to the use of the buck trope was voiced. Bogle credits the films with influencing major pictures such as Taxi Driver and Rocky.[3]: 241–242
Later characters in films, such as Nino, the lead of New Jack City (1991) and Jules in Pulp Fiction (1994) continued to feature elements of the black buck stereotype, although this was balanced or sidestepped by giving the character a keen intelligence in the case of Nino or moral complexity and witty dialogue in the case of Jules.[3]: 408, 419 During the 1990s, the stereotype was again updated as it was seen in "pro-gangster" movies, sometimes portrayed by rappers. Characters in the 2000s continued to be identified as containing elements of the black buck, such as Denzel Washington's character in Training Day (2001) and in characters in American Gangster (2007).[6]
See also
[edit]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Dupree-Wilson, Teisha (2020). "Killing "Dixie": The NAACP, the Black Press, and the Crusade to End Black Caricature Culture in Hollywood, 1950–1969". Journal of African American Studies. 24: 599. doi:10.1007/s12111-020-09502-6.
- ^ a b c d e Corredera, Vanessa (Summer 2017). "Far More Black than Black: Stereotypes, Black Masculinity, and Americanization in Tim Blake Nelson's O". Literature/Film Quarterly. 45 (3).
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Bogle, Donald (2003). Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films (4th ed.). New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8264-1267-X.
- ^ a b "Popular and Pervasive Stereotypes of African Americans". National Museum of African American History and Culture. Archived from the original on March 5, 2025. Retrieved March 9, 2025.
- ^ Pilgrim, David (2023). "The Black Brute". Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. Archived from the original on February 22, 2025. Retrieved March 9, 2025.
- ^ Jeffries, Devair; Jeffries, Rhonda (Spring 2017). "Marxist Materialism and Critical Race Theory: A Comparative Analysis of Media and Cultural Influence on the Formation of Stereotypes and Proliferation of Police Brutality against Black Men". Spectrum: A Journal on Black Men. 5 (2): 10. doi:10.2979/spectrum.5.2.01.