Paula Giddings Defending Her Name

Paula Giddings, in “Defending Her Name,” notably discusses the impact of the construction of black female hypersexuality and how this relates to the “Cult of True Womanhood”; a discussion that can be applicable to Professor Lipsitz’s insight on the “phobic fantasies of monstrous Blackness.” Giddings says that because black women were constructed in this way, they were seen as outside this “Cult of True Womanhood.” This means that they were seen as untrue women, a devastating myth that was used as justification for the rape of black women by white males. These myths of black men and women as monstrous, hypersexual, and deviant, are part of the legacy of slavery (Professor Lipsitz calls it the “afterlife of slavery”) and are responsible for one crisis after another; from the lynchings that Ida B. Wells studied to the shooting of Michael Brown. …show more content…
However, Professor Lipsitz said that a refusal to accept this destiny is apparent in the wake of every crisis. This is applicable to our class readings by Frederick Douglass and Nat Turner, as well as the reading on Margaret Garner. In the face of the crisis of slavery that forebode the unlivable destiny of permanent enslavement for black people, Douglass, Turner, and Garner all exemplified a refusal to accept this. Douglass fought back against the beatings of his slave-owner, Turner orchestrated a slave rebellion, and Garner, with her family, escaped to the northern states. The actions of Douglass, Turner, and Garner are only three examples of this continued refusal to accept an unlivable destiny; people throughout history have banded together to do the