White women’s lady-status depended on keeping black women legally unmarriageable.

Evidence

So long as sexual unions with black women and white men took place in a nonlegalized context, within a framework of subjugation, coercion, and degradation, the split between white female’s status as “ladies” and black women’s representation as “whores” could be maintained. Thus to some extent, white women’s class and race privilege was rein forced by the maintenance of a system where black women were the objects of white male sexual subjugation and abuse. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 186

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely paradigm-shifting observation: the ‘lady’ ideal is not merely passively bestowed but actively constituted by the degradation and legal exclusion of another class of women. Rich enough to sit with.
• XREF: connects to: Racist marriage laws drove free women of color into concubinage — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 247; White women’s affection for black servants coexisted with status domination they denied — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 191; White male-black female marriage would threaten white patriarchal rule unlike the reverse — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 199 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Racist marriage laws drove free women of color into concubinage #exemplifies (0.85) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 247
• Racist marriage laws pushed free women of color into compensated partnerships. #exemplifies (0.80)
• White male-black female marriage would threaten white patriarchal rule unlike the reverse #expands (0.78) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 199
• Western women’s emancipated status depends on representing Muslim women as their devalued others. #expands (0.76) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 203
• White women’s freedom from domestic duties rests on Black women’s coerced labor #qualifies (0.75) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 194
• White women’s affection for black servants coexisted with status domination they denied #qualifies (0.72) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 191