Buck Breaking | Know Your Meme
Content Warning: Portions of the following entry contain mentions and/or depictions of sexual violence or abuse. If you need support or you or a loved one are in an abusive situation, please contact the National Sexual Violence Resource Center or call 1-800-656-HOPE.
About
Buck Breaking refers to the act of sexually abusing Black slaves publically and in front of other slaves, in order to assert dominance, punish them and ultimately emasculate Black men. This is sometimes painted to be a closeted gay slave owner's way of acting out their repressed sexual urges, which were largely criminal at the time. There is debate as to whether or not Buck Breaking existed and how popular it was, with little historical evidence surrounding it. In 2021, a documentary by Tariq Nasheed featuring Judge Joe Brown titled Buck Breaking covering the history of the practice was released, claiming the practice still exists in some form today. The term became popular on 4chan's /tv/ and /pol/ boards following the film's release, particularly in mocking and ironic posts against Nasheed for spreading Buck Breaking as legitimate, and posts claiming Nasheed is interested in buck breaking as a fetish.
Origin
The history of sexual abuse towards slaves has been studied by numerous researchers. The term "buck breaking" comes from "Black Buck," a post-Reconstruction era (1861-1865) racist term used to refer to Black men who were seen as stereotypically violent or unruly and refused to work with the law and society. "Breaking a buck" refers to abusing the Black man to get him to follow orders. Specifically, it often pertains to sexual abuse.
Online Discussion
One of the earliest posts online about buck breaking is an October 17th, 2012 post to the now-defunct Wordpress blog Diary Of A Negress. In the uncited post she describes the act of buck breaking and suggests the act was used largely by homosexual slave owners, writing:
The master, drunk on blood lust, would explain to all strong, young black men that if they do not follow strict orders and comply with the whims of the Overseer and the Master, this too would be their fate. He removed his own clothing and proceeded to savagely sodomize the buck in front his wife, family, friends and children. He then invited his associates from other plantations to join in the Nigger Festivities.In order for his plan to take effect, he would require the buck’s male child to watch, front row center, so he too can witness his father’s sexual demise and humiliation. Buck Breaking was the slave master’s very effective tool to keep all young black slaves from ever being defiant and taking revenge. It also frightened the mother’s and wives from ever giving consent to an uprising.
Buck Breaking was so successful that it was made into a “Sex Farm” where white men could travel from plantation to plantation feeding their sadistic, homosexual needs.
In October 2016 an anonymous user of 4chan's /pol/ board posted a graphic showing a post to an unknown forum sharing the same information about buck breaking and sex farms, as well as a post from a Facebook user showing a drawing depicting buck breaking, with a white man undoing his belt over a black man (censored version shown below).
Buck Breaking Myth Debate
Many argue that, while sexual abuse towards slaves has been documented, the specific practice of Buck Breaking as a way of dominating and striking fear in slaves is a myth, with little-to-no substantial historical evidence to support it.
On July 31st, 2016, Redditor u/AristoPhilosor posted to /r/AskHistorians asking whether Buck Breaking was real. That day, u/sowser posted a long-form, cited comment denying Buck Breaking, noting that sodomy was a major crime at the time and not taken lightly, that it would never be used as a public punishment, and that the implication that slave owners were gay because of this is offensive among other arguments (shown below, click to expand). The poster acknowledges sexual abuse of slaves but says reports of Buck Breaking are exaggerated at best.
Believers in Buck Breaking often argue that there is little historical evidence of the practice because male-on-male sexual abuse is seen as taboo and embarrassing, especially back then, resulting in very little discourse about it.
On August 8th, 2016, YouTuber iAmBlackPlanet posted a video documentary on Buck Breaking, supporting its existence, garnering over 1 million views in five years (shown below). The documentary features narration detailing how Black men would be sodomized in front of their families to keep them from being defiant. The video does not offer sources.
On November 25th, 2018, director Tariq Nasheed, best known for his documentary Hidden Colors, posted to Twitter describing buck breaking, writing, "In slavery, there was a tactic called Buck Breaking where slave owners would sexually violate African males to break them down psychologically. The new Buck Breaking tactic is where white supremacists use their negro flunkies to shame Black men into having sex with transexuals" (shown below). Three years later he would release a documentary on the subject.
On November 26th, 2016, YouTuber VIRALBOOKMARK posted a clip where Tariq and other members of the Black community describe the act (shown below). The video's description uses the Diary Of A Negress article as a source.
Spread
Buck Breaking Documentary
On April 30th, 2021, Hidden Colors director Tariq Nasheed released a documentary titled Buck Breaking about the subject (trailer shown below).
The documentary's description on Amazon reads: "Buck Breaking is a documentary film about the historic sexual exploitation of Black people globally. The film shows the correlation between the historic exploitation of Black men during slavery and the Jim Crow era, to the Buck Breaking tactics used today."
The release of the film inspired a lot of discourse and trolling on 4chan and Twitter, many criticizing the director Nasheed for making a documentary about what they believe to be a myth and hypothesizing that he is a closeted homosexual who is into Buck Breaking as a fetish because of it (example shown below, left). Many also criticized Nasheed for hiring artists to create images depicting Buck Breaking (example shown below, right, art not confirmed to be from film).
Official Buck Breaking NFTs
On December 21st, 2021, Tariq Nasheed announced the sale of 10 official Buck Breaking NFTs on Twitter (shown below). The NFTs are available on OpenSea. Kiwi Farms user drateR shared the update on Nasheed's thread that day.
Each NFT is an original cartoon depicting a white man abusing a Black man in various ways, including holding a whip to a basketball player, holding a Black man in chains, and a white police officer escorting a Black man to prison (examples shown below). By December 22nd four of the NFTs sold for prices ranging from 0.1 Ethereum (estimated $403 US at the time of purchase) to 0.3 Ethereum (est. $1,200 US at the time of purchase).