Abstract

The institution of slavery is a stain upon the history and the psyche of the United States and its people. At its core, it was inherently reliant upon an imbalance of power between the enslaved subject and the slave owner. The enslaved individual’s capacity to assert their own will was virtually nonexistent, allowing white male slave owners the opportunity to exploit this discrepancy in order to take advantage of the enslaved women and girls under their dominion. The history of slavery in the United States is burgeoning with stories of sexual exploitation and victimization at the hands of predatory white men without a thought or care for the well-being of the women and girls they violated and abused. It is from these roots of coercion and violence that myths and stereotypes proclaim- ing the sexual immorality of black women emerged, resulting in the discrediting and discounting of their word. For centuries, white men and society at large have ignored and repressed this history in an effort to avoid blame and deny culpability, leaving black women and girls vulnerable and targets of further victimization—an injustice that has veritably stripped them of their right to refuse consent.