Caricaturing Black People

In the United States, all racial groups have been caricatured, but none as often or in as many ways as black Americans. Blacks have been portrayed in popular culture as pitiable exotics, cannibalistic savages, hypersexual deviants, childlike buffoons, obedient servants, self-loathing victims, and menaces to society.

These anti-black depictions routinely took form in material objects, such as ashtrays, drinking glasses, banks, games, fishing lures, detergent boxes, and other everyday items. This case holds objects that illustrate some of the major anti-black caricatures.

Pickaninnies
Golliwog
Tom
Coon
Jezebel
Tragic Mulatto
Sapphire