No Longer Invisible: Understanding the Psychosocial Impact of Skin Color Stratification in the Lives of African American Women

White domination in America can make white ideology of beauty spread and influence the African-American society. Toni Morrison’s novels, The Bluest Eye and God Help the Child, depict the influence. This study attemps to uncover the intersecting oppression of race and gender in the novels and to explain how African-American women cope with the oppression. This study is descriptive qualitative research. The data sources are Morrison’s novels The Bluest Eyeand God Help the Child. The study has two findings. Firstly, African-American society experiences oppression as an impact of the white beauty hegemony. The most disadvantageous oppression is the internalization of white beauty values. Holding such values makes African-American women feel inferior and hate their own physical characteristics that are far from the white ideal of beauty. Meanwhile, African-American women who have darker skin colors experience the hardest oppression because they also become the victims of oppression committed by some circles of African-American society, which tend to consider them unequal. It reflects the complexity of oppression experienced by African-American women. Secondly,self-consciousness is the main factor of attempts to release them from the oppression. Without self-consciousness, African-American women can be trapped in values that deteriorate their self-pride of identity.Keywords: intersecting oppression, African-American women, skin color

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Representation of Black Feminism in Hidden Figures

Nyimak (Journal of Communication) ◽

10.31000/nyimak.v4i2.2358 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 169

Author(s):

Andre Ikhsano ◽

Jakarudi Jakarudi

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

African American Women ◽

Critical Discourse Analysis ◽

Skin Color ◽

Black Feminism ◽

American Women ◽

Safe Spaces ◽

Face Negotiation ◽

Space Race ◽

Patricia Hill Collins

Hidden Figures is a film based on the true story of three African American women who help NASA in the space race. The three African American women are Katherine G. Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan. With the setting of the 1960s era, these three women are fighting against a climate of segregation (separation based on race or skin color) in their work environment (NASA). This study aims to explore Patricia Hill Collins’ theory of black feminism and to integrate it with Stella Ting-Toomey’s theory of face-negotiation. This research is based on a critical paradigm and uses a qualitative approach. Using Sara Mills’s critical discourse analysis as a data analysis technique, this study found a representation of black feminism in the film Hidden Figures. The discrimination experienced by the characters is in the form of racism, sexism, and classism. However, the resistance carried out by the characters is through self definition, not in safe spaces as mentioned by Collins. The characters also do not avoid conflict, but use a negotiation approach with a compromising style to achieve a win-win solution.Keywords: Black feminism, face-negotiation, racism, sexism, classism ABSTRAKHidden Figures adalah film yang diangkat berdasarkan kisah nyata tiga perempuan Afro-Amerika yang membantu NASA dalam space race. Ketiga perempuan Afro-Amerika itu adalah Katherine G. Johnson, Mary Jackson, dan Dorothy Vaughan. Dengan setting waktu era 1960-an, ketiga perempuan ini berjuang melawan iklim segregasi (pemisahan berdasarkan pada ras atau warna kulit) di lingkungan kerja mereka (NASA). Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendalami teori black feminism Patricia Hill Collins dan hendak mengintegrasikannya dengan teori face-negotiation Stella Ting-Toomey. Penelitian ini didasarkan pada paradigma kritis dan menggunakan penekatan kualitatif. Menggunakan analisis wacana kritis Sara Mills sebagai teknik analisis data, penelitian ini menemukan representasi black feminism di dalam film Hidden Figures. Diskriminasi yang dialami para tokoh adalah berupa racism, sexism, dan classism. Akan tetapi, perlawanan yang dilakukan para tokoh adalah melalui self definition, tidak dilakukan dalam safe spaces sebagaimana disinggung oleh Collins. Para tokoh juga tidak menghindari konflik, namun menggunakan pendekatan negosiasi dengan gaya compromising style dalam mencapai win-win solution.Kata Kunci: Black feminism, face-negotiation, racism, sexism, classism

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Racism towards African American Women in “Hidden Figures”

Linguists: Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching ◽

10.29300/ling.v6i1.2857 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 66

Author(s):

Jeany Jean Febriani ◽

Tomi Arianto

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

African American Women ◽

Skin Color ◽

American Women ◽

Space Race ◽

The World ◽

Qualitative Descriptive ◽

Descriptive Method

Racism is issue that still going on in the world. Different race and skin color make some people believe that they have more privilege than others. The issue of racism can be seen from Hidden Figures movie that was addapted from the book with the same title. Hidden Figures by Theodore Melfi is a story about racism towards African American women who worked in NASA during the space race in 1960. In this research, the researcher takes three main characters named Katherine, Dorothy and Merry who get discrimination in their life because they have different race and skin color as a source. Qualitative descriptive method is the method that was used in this research. The tehcnique of collecting data is by watching the movie and reading the book then collect the utterances and dialogue that have racism issue. The aim of this research is to find out racism in what field that happened in America during 1960 espesially in NASA through Hidden Figures. The result of this analysis found that the racism reflected trough discrimination in education, facility, social, and work.

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