Cross-racial intimacy between black and white women was structurally impossible under segregation

Evidence

As a teenager in the late sixties, living in a racially segregated Southern town, I knew that black men who desired intimacy with white women, and vice versa, forged bonds. I knew of no intimacy, no deep closeness, no friendship between black and white women. Though never discussed, it was evident in daily life that definite barriers separated the two groups, making close friendship impossible. The point of contact between black women and white women was one of servant-served, a hierarchal, power-based relationship unmediated by sexual desire. Black women were the servants, and white women were the served. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 184

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: the servant-served relation as the only sanctioned intimacy across a racial line — a framework for reading domestic labor and race.
• XREF: connects to: Racial alliances superseded feminist solidarity between black and white women — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 507; Early colonial segregation barriers failed immediately against intimate contact — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1317; White women’s affection for black servants coexisted with status domination they denied — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 191 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Segregation confined black-white female contact to the servant-served relation #qualifies (0.90)
• White women’s affection for black servants coexisted with status domination they denied #complicates (0.85) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 191
• Positive cross-race feminist encounters occur mainly where white women lack power over black women #qualifies (0.85) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 201
• Racial alliances superseded feminist solidarity between black and white women #qualifies (0.80) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 507
• Segregation functioned as ongoing racial control rather than total separation #qualifies (0.80)
• Shared slave labor forged a gender solidarity black women could invoke over white women #complicates (0.80) — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 662
• Early colonial segregation barriers failed immediately against intimate contact #complicates (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1317