“People in Stamps used to say that the whites in our town were so prejudiced that a Negro couldn’t buy vanilla ice cream. Except on July Fourth. Other days he had to be satisfied with chocolate.” – Maya Angelou, I know why the caged bird sings (Special Collections copy is inscribed by author to Charles Blockson)
In this episode of Lovecraft Country, the character Ruby Baptiste lands her dream job at Marshall Field’s by using a magic potion that turns her into a white woman.1 But while she’s more than qualified for the role, what she discovers about her white coworkers and her own behavior in a white body leads her to commit a violent act. The episode also introduces viewers to Chicago’s underground Ball Scene.
White Women and White Supremacy
Whether as enslavers, members of Women of the Ku Klux Klan, leaders of anti-integration movements, or through acts of everyday racism as exemplified in the episode, white women have too often upheld and furthered white supremacy. Mildred Lewis Rutherford’s pamphlet A measuring rod to test text books, and reference books in schools, colleges and libraries shaped textbooks and education on the South and the Civil War with repercussions that persist today.2
Southern white women also formed the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, which recognized and named that the protection of white women was often given as a reason for lynching and that many white women were complicit in attending lynchings. The association held conferences, passed resolutions, publicized lynchings that might otherwise have been swept under the rug, and promoted national- and state-level anti-lynching legislation. Their pamphlet “Southern Women and Lynching” argued that white women needed to actively oppose these acts committed on their behalf.
Health, Beauty, and Whiteness
“I enjoyed my entire day, using the only currency I needed: whiteness.” – Ruby Baptiste, “Strange Case”
Colorism, prejudice or bias based on skin tone and complexion, intensifies and compounds the effects of racism on the lives of dark-skinned women like Ruby. During this episode, Ruby experiences completely different reactions from the people around her, Black and white, when she appears as a white woman. A voiceover recites lines from Ntozake Shange’s play (choreopoem) on Black women’s trauma and healing, For colored girls who have considered suicide… when the rainbow is enuf.
The episode also shows advertisements for beauty products which lighten skin. Right alongside “Amazing Facts About Prominent Colored Persons,” the Black woman owned The Walker 1949 almanac : a personal guide to health, wealth and romance published advertisements for “skin brightener,” a code word for skin-lightening cream.3
Also of note is the advertisement for asthma cures. Black Americans suffer significantly higher rates of asthma than white Americans. Causes range from the known—segregation forcing Black people to live in regions with higher pollution levels—to the hypothesized—that higher levels of stress compounds other factors.
Ball Culture
The episode’s secondary focus is the revelation that the character of Montrose Freeman is a closeted gay man. During the episode, his romantic partner, Sammy, and friends prepare for an underground “ball.” The ball scene takes on a musical theater quality as a place of respite for someone who’s struggled with discrimination and self-hatred. Like New York, Chicago has a Black gay/queer/drag ball scene, which is nearing its 100th anniversary. Even today, ball culture creates a space for community, dance, activism, and competition.
Dean Atta’s 2020 young adult novel about a mixed-race gay teen who discovers London drag society, The Black flamingo, won the Stonewall Book Award in the Children’s & Young Adult category.
Our earliest material that relates to trans people’s experiences may be found in our Early Male Tightlacing, Corsetting, and Cross-Dressing Scrapbook Collection. Some scrapbooks contained in the collection appear to have been kept by someone who was actively involved in corset-wearing and tightlacing communities.
Penn State Libraries also provide a Guide to Resources for Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
Continue reading about Episode 6 : Meet me in Daegu
Footnotes
1. You can read about Marshall Field’s notorious past as it relates to Lovecraft Country in the 2021 article, “The racist history of department stores and Black America.”
For more information on Black labor organizing, see Colored Domestic Servants Security Organization constitution and by-laws, 1942.
2. The Special Collections Library recently acquired a copy of the textbook America: red, white, black, yellow / by Arthur Huff Fauset [and] Nellie Rathbone Bright ; illus. by Shirley P. Whitman. This book emphasizes the contributions of minority groups in the history of the discovery, settling, and growth of the United States. It also offers particular opportunities for scholarly inquiry when interpreted against the backdrop of school integration.
For related contemporary scholarship, read books from the ReVisioning History series: A Black women’s history of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross; A queer history of the United States by Michael Bronski; An indigenous peoples’ history of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz; A disability history of the United States by Kim E. Nielsen; and An African American and Latinx history of the United States by Paul Ortiz.back
3. According to research presented in Our N*g, or, Sketches from the life of a free Black / Harriet E. Wilson ; edited by P. Gabrielle Foreman and Reginald H. Pitts ; introduction by P. Gabrielle Foreman : “Wilson was not only a pioneering African American literary figure but also an entrepreneur in the Black women’s hair care market fifty years before Madame C. J. Walker’s hair care empire made her the country’s first millionaire.”
Special Collections recently acquired an original 1859 copy of Our N*g, or, Sketches from the life of a free Black : in a two-story white house, North, showing that slavery’s shadows fall even thereback