Probably one of the usual suspects: projection or virtue signaling.
> Probably one of the usual suspects: projection or virtue signaling.
Pretty sure the post you're referring to is wondering why the original caption referred to the "leisurely negro". The alleged virtue signaling you refer to seems to be an honest misunderstanding by the author of the Myth of Bananaland.
I dispute that and present this racist cartoon from the 1940s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrub_Me_Mama_with_a_Boogie_Be...
More like it can be found. Lazy black people was a common trope in minstrell shows and similar.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/how-a-worm-gave-the-so...
> Hookworm is endemic in tropical Africa and was brought to North America in the bowels of African slaves where it became a regional affliction below the Mason-Dixon Line. In the 19th century, probably as much as 40% of the region’s population harbored the parasite. So prevalent was hookworm infection and for so long was it a feature of Southern rural life that Americans mistook the physical appearance of hookworm sufferers to be the distinct genetic expression of an unfortunate economic and social class.
> This regional stereotype for the poor white rural population (the “Georgia Cracker”) exhibited, in varying degrees, a prematurely aged, emaciated appearance with striking lankness of frame and slackness of muscle, a misshapen boney scarecrow look with a peculiar “fish eyes” stare, and a sallow complexion. These lethargic and shambling (interpreted by the outsider as lazy and ignorant) poor white farm folk were a hallmark of the Deep South. One Northern visitor caught this when he described the physical appearance of the white inhabitants surrounding Andersonville “as listless and apathetic in look, lank and haggard in form.”
I’m not aware that such a heritable adaptation to endemic pathogens was possible in this case, but then again, I was surprised to learn about the link between sickle cell disease and malaria.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_resistance_to_ma...
Nitpick:
That wasn't a prevailing stereotype back then so dismissing it as simple racism reduces the historical insight that can be gleaned. The idle black man stereotype comes from the 1960s and later and originates in the US. Prior to that they would be stereotyped the latin Americans are typically stereotyped today, hard working but low class laborers, so the commentary from the period that was added to the photo actually raises the question why these dock workers were being considered leisurely.
Now I'm wondering why they wrote that...