... no more than recycle harmful stereotypes about, and incite our contemporary society's fears of, black men. To explain the connection between the myth of the black male rapist and the observation of its deployment in Candyman, I first want to provide some background about it. In Women, Race & Class, Angela Davis chronicles the relationship between lynching and this myth. In a chapter titled "Rape, Racism, and the Myth of the Black Rapist," she explains that the practice of lynching blacks was a means of intimidation and political domination. The lynching of blacks became quite popular after the Civil War and emancipation. "Lynching," she states, "was undisguised counterinsurgency, a guarantee that black people would not be able to achieve their goals of citizenship and economic equality."7 Over time whites came up with more propaganda designed to justify the lynching of blacks to those white persons who, for whatever reason, still ...

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