Extra Credit: The Myth of the Black Rapist

 

  We have seen what Angela Davis has said about the myth of the Black rapist as something "methodically conjured up whenever recurrent waves of violence and terror against the Black community have required convincing justification" (Davis, p.177 of Reader). In relation to the film above, we have seen this correlation between its release in 1998 to the excessive violence of it's time, specifically through the Watts Riots in Los Angeles.

Blade is generally, at the surface level, about a black vampire who happens to hunt other vampires, to rid them all from the human world, alongside trying to suppress his own vampire urges through some kind of chemical injection. It gets increasingly difficult for him because vampires must live off the blood of humans. 

He is told my a Vampire enemy that "you needs to cut the Uncle tom Crap. You cannot deny what you are!" This explicitly points to a history of Racial subordination which placed the black man obediently subservient to the white man. This correlates the human world with whiteness and vampirism/monstrosity with that of the black rapist or monstrous black community.

There is even a more shocking scene where he finally succumbs to his "monstrous" urge to feed. He is tied up, nearly naked and is being drained of his blood until death. His human friend who helps slay vampires comes to the rescue and sees that he is dying. So, she sees no other way to revive him, than to let him drink her blood until he is well. He begins to drink and jumps on her, while shirtless, unable to stop. She screams no and stop many times but he continues to drink like the Black rapist who is unable to stop, until she finally plops to floor while he screams and moans in pleasure.

This is the resurfacing of the Black rapist Angela Davis is speaking of; during the time of the Watts riots, many needed a black hero but not one which re-appropriated the myth of the Black rapist, furthering a justification of the violence over the Black communities across the United States.

Nick Noriega