The Completely True Story of the Fraudulent Ethiopian Princess: Racial Stereotypes and Journalistic Conventions in the Framing of a Media Hoax
Department
History and Philosophy
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2022
Abstract
Princess Rassari Heshla Tamanya of Ethiopia predicted race war when she met with white reporters in New York in 1935, as Italy prepared to invade her homeland. The princess, though, was a fraud. She was a Harlem singer. This article examines the creation and coverage of a short-lived media hoax to illustrate how the widespread acceptance of racial stereotypes in the mid-twentieth-century United States informed reporters’ understanding of the professional practices of objectivity and sensationalism, which mirrored the racist assumptions that saturated popular culture, especially in mediums influenced by blackface minstrelsy and human zoos. The hoax succeeded because the princess satisfied the expectations of readers and reporters, regardless of race. The article also examines the unmasking and remembrance of the fraud. A Pan-Africanist scholar exposed it because it jeopardized his understanding of the world. It became a historical footnote only after it was stripped of its political and social implications.
Journal Title
American Journalism
Journal ISSN
08821127
Volume
39
Issue
1
First Page
51
Last Page
71
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1080/08821127.2022.2026194