aug 10, 1867 - Trial of Jonathan George &
the Devaluation of Black Women (1867)
Description:
"The trial of Jonathan George, a Black man, demonstrates the means by which gender acted in concert with race to normalize sexual violence against Black women. George, accused of raping a Black woman named Hannah Brown, was found guilty of the crime and sentenced to hang. Yet, white elites including the county clerk of the peace, mobilized to have George release in a rare moment of interracial solidarity. They circulated a petition demanding a reduced sentence that was signed by four hundred Windsor residents. These actions were not based on any claim to George's innocence, but rather on the relative triviality of the crime. For them, the rape of a Black woman was of little significance. The white elites continually raised the idea of Black women's inherent sexual depravity, the implication being that George's crime was less serious because of Hannah Brown's status as a Black woman, as well as what they suspected to be a history of sexual immorality and possible prostitution (Walker 2010: 93-97). Though Black women were no longer the property of white men, their lives were nonetheless accorded little value and even less protection by the state...
The purportedly 'natural' depravity of Black women did more than degrade their social status and value in the eyes of white society. It not only made them 'rapeable' in the eyes of the law, but it rendered them criminal as well. Black women's sexuality was represented as a threat, and those deemed to be exercising their sexuality outside of established social norms were deemed criminal. "
Source: Robyn Maynard. Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present (2017). Page 45.
*Month(s) & day(s) approximate
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BIPOC Oppression & Resistance in Canada & the US
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