W. Gill Race, class and sex The scandals encircling Strauss-Kahn and Schwarzenegger conjure major cultural taboos and unpleasant historical facts 366 . By Gregory Rodriguez tation of black servants by white em- racially mixed people there became the ployers continued. According to Calvin majority population. Historian Woodrow ex, power, class and race. For all College sociologist Barbara Omolade, Borah identified the one policy that con- their differences, the scandals en- "black women domestic servants in every tributed most to the mixture in Mexico as circling French politician Domi- region of the country... complained of the the Spanish crown's decision in 1630 to al- nique Strauss-Kahn, who is accused of sexual 'harassment that went along with low Indian laborers to contract individu- sexually assaulting an African-born maid domestic work, especially as a 'sleep-in-ally with their Spanish overlords. The in New York, and Arnold Schwarzeneg- maid." conquest set the stage; the economic rela- ger, who has confessed to having a child Historians see two constants in the his- tionship did the rest. out of wedlock with a Latina housekeeper, tory of miscegenation. One is the element Of course, in Rome, India, Mexico and both conjure major taboos. of labor: worker and boss, slave and mas- the Deep South, it's hard to say how: many The stories hold our attention not just ter. In societies that demanded separation liaisons were rape and how many were because they involve powerful men of races, economics worked against it. consensual. It'd be equally hard to say that brought down to size (always an Ameri- Whatever else the work relationship was, love was never present: In the case of colo can favorite) but because they remind us it was also just that, a relationship. The nial Mexico, subjugation, exploitation of the often-hidden history of interracial opposite of separation. and disease decimated the native popula- sex, and its roots in global migration, la- The second element was that relation- tion, leaving some Indian women to seek bor markets and social hierarchies. ship's inequality. Bosses always have pow- refuge in the arms of the conquerors. For much of U.S. history, miscegenation er over employees, and the more unequal Today, in America, the decision to date racial mixing was a bad word the relationship, the more likely it is to or marry across racial or ethnic lines.gen- deemed unacceptable in polite white soci-. result in illicit sex. erally happens in a social sphere where ety. Paradoxically, however, it was polite The Romans routinely made slaves there is basic equality. Janny Scott's new white society that was most responsible and sexual partners of those they con- biography of Stanley Ann Dunham shows for that mixing, most often with women quered. In his history of the Roman Em- this precisely, as Barack Obama's mother who worked in their households, as slaves pire, Paul Veyne writes that it created op- meets and marries, a fellow student at the and later as servants. portunity that led to temptation. "There University of Hawaii who happens to be In 1935, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote that the was a word for husbands who gave in to Kenyan. "white race which today resents race mix- that temptation: ancillariolus, maid- But Mr. Schwarzenegger's liaison with ture in theory has been chiefly responsi- chaser. Their wives despaired of them.” a housekeeper and Mr. Strauss-Kahn's al- ble for the systematic misuse and degra- Nearly two millennia latér, under the leged criminal behavior with a hotel maid dation of darker women." British Raj in India, English "gentlemen" - if true — suggest that not everything In the antebellum South, virtually ev- openly pursued interracial sexual liai- has changed. The stories are different in ery plantation produced mixed-race chil- sons with household help. An early 19th dozens of ways, not the least of which are dren. The 1860 census classified 588,532 century guidebook for men bound for the criminal charges in one and not the other. persons as mulattoes, largely the off- civil, military or naval service of the Hon. But the similarity is just as unavoidable: spring of illicit master/slave relations. orable East India Co. listed ways English- the echo of inequality. What has been ad- . Cornell University historian Edward E. men could find native women who would mitted to in Brentwood and alleged in Baptist has observed the widespread use be "bosom friends" as well as housekeep- New York City is nothing if not the dark of the term "fancy maid" in the U.S. slave ers. side of the global melting pot. ** trade, which referred to women consid- The North Americani colony that was Gregory Rodriguez is a columnist for the ered sex workers first and housekeepers the most profoundly affected by this type Los Angeles Times, where this article first second. of unequal relationship wasn't the Ameri- appeared. His email is' grodriguez Even after slavery ended, sexual exploi- can South but Mexico. Over the centuries, @latimescolumnists.com.
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