Legal protection of whiteness was enforced through state-sanctioned sexual violence

Evidence

To reinforce the power and purity of people identified as white, it was necessary to regulate sex, which was often done through violence. Black men accused of even attempting to have sex with a white woman were subjected to barbaric punishments. And Black women, because they were considered human chattel, had no legal right to bodily autonomy. Courts did not recognize the rape of enslaved women and girls by any man as a crime. The very notion of rape didn’t apply to Black women and girls, because they were considered incapable of consenting or not consenting to sex. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 214

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The denial of consent/rape recognition for enslaved women parallels the class/identity-signaling dynamics in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — here bodily autonomy itself is stripped by legal category.