The former slave, Harriet Jacobs, wrote for posterity in 1861 about the very foundation of the idea of the “whorish black woman” in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. What proceeds from this whitewashing is collective amnesia over how young black women and girls have become constant sexualized images in the minds of those who hold power and influence.
Part of our society feels the incessant need to whitewash the ugliness of white slaveowners having sexual relations with enslaved black women. What may have been an attempt at pointing at the silver linen in slavery, – as if there were any – results in these silver linen seekers overlooking the social essence of “property”. This is in spite of the glaring fact that Hemings was Jefferson’s literal property. There are those who have sought to portray Hemings’ relationship with the patriarch Thomas Jefferson as a loving relationship. Consider sexual relationships between enslaved Africans and free white people.
