and white. And further, inevitably, he has bought the advertisements about himself. In pornography the black man is portrayed as being capable of *censored*ing anything ... even a piece of *censored*. He is defined solely by the size, readiness and unselectivity of his cock. (Walker 1981, 52)Walker conceptualizes pornography as a race/gender system that entraps everyone. But by exploring an African-American man's struggle for a self-defined standpoint on pornography, Walker suggests that a changed consciousness is essential to social change. If a Black man can understand how pornography -affects him, then other groups emeshed in the same system are equally capable of similar shifts in consciousness and action. Prostitution and the Commodification of Sexuality In To Be Young, Gifted and Black, Lorraine Hansberry creates three characters: a young domestic worker, a chic professional, middle-aged woman, and a mother in her thirties. Each speaks a variant of the following: In these streets out there, any little white boy from Long Island or Westchester sees me and leans out of his car and yells--"Hey there, hot chocolate! Say there, Jezebel! Hey you-'Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding"! YOU! Bet you know where there's a good time tonight . . . " Follow me sometimes and see if I lie. I can be coming from eight hours on an assembly line or fourteen hours in Mrs. Halsey's kitchen. I can be all filled up that day with three hundred years of rage so that my eyes are flashing and my flesh is trembling-and the white boys in the streets, they look at me and think of sex. They look at me and that's all they think.... Baby, you could be Jesus in drag-but if you're brown they're sure you're selling! (Hansberry 1969, 98)Like the characters in Hansberry's fiction, all Black women are affected by the widespread controlling image that African-American women are sexually promiscuous, potential prostitutes. The pervasiveness of this image is vividly recounted...
