Black racial idealization repurposed essentialist traits to negate white superiority

Evidence

For blacks, the idealization of race served to negate notions of white superiority and, in turn, the legitimacy of white male power and racist institutions. Like the feminine ideal, the racial ideal valorized a more equitable, inclusive Perceiving themselves to be joined in a struggle for the economic, educational, and moral advancement of their people, black Baptist men. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 669

Categorization

• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
• XREF: connects to: Black Baptist feminists shared the age’s essentialist gender ideology. — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 628; American racial ideology gendered all whites masculine and all blacks feminine — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 667; Black Baptist women fused a rhetoric of war with one of domesticity — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 670 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Racial essences work through flexible strategic attribute-selection, not fixed traits #expands (0.82) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 987