White women’s fear of black women stems from servants witnessing their contradictions.

Evidence

We all remembered Lillian Heilman’s frank comments about her relationship with the black woman servant who was in her employ for many years. Heilman felt that this woman really exercised enormous power over her, admitting that it made her fear all black women. We talked about the fact that what many white women fear is being unmasked by black women. One white woman, from a working-class background, pointed out that black women servants witnessed the gap between white women’s words and their deeds, saw contradictions and inadequacies. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 203

Categorization

• XREF: Serves as vivid historical material for the complaints-about-immodesty/cross-cultural gaze literature and general writing on the servant-employer intimacy and its power inversions. — connects to: White mistresses feared black slave women despite holding power over them — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 188; White women fear black women’s power to expose their hypocrisy — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 203; White women feared black women’s perceived immorality threatened their own status — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 384 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• White women fear black women’s power to expose their hypocrisy #corroborates (0.97) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 203
• White women’s affection for black servants coexisted with status domination they denied #expands (0.78) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 191
• Black women’s domestic-service legacy sustains distrust and rivalry with white women #expands (0.76) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 195
• Negrophobic women’s fear arises from imagination, not real danger #complicates (0.73)
• White women feared black women’s perceived immorality threatened their own status #qualifies (0.72) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 384