How to write about eugenics without mentioning Progressives, Margaret Sanger or Planned Parenthood
The BBC is running an article on its news website on the legacy of the eugenics-inspired forced sterilisations carried out in North Carolina in the middle decades of the last century.
It’s a powerful piece, which begins with an account of how a 13-year-old African-American girl was deemed to be ‘feeble-minded’ and sterilised after she was raped and made pregnant by a neighbour. There’s a fair bit of background on the eugenics movement, and it’s interesting stuff as far as it goes.
There is, however, very little in the way of political context. The article might have mentioned, for example, that eugenics was a pet project of the American Progressive movement, the forebears of the modern liberal-left; or that one of the leading lights of eugenics was Margaret Sanger, who founded the organization that became Planned Parenthood and who remains a hero to liberals, and feminists in particular; or that North Carolina was run by Democrats during the period when forced sterilisation policies were in full swing, as were other southern states in which the practice was prevalent. If reporter Daniel Nasaw wanted to bring the story up to date he might even have written about how the racial aspect of eugenics and forced sterilization is perpetuated in the disproportionately high number of abortions of African-American babies.
There is, however, one political reference in the piece. Campaigners are calling for compensation to be paid to surviving victims of forced sterilisation, but, the report explains: ‘The conservative Republicans in control of the state legislature are already poised to slash transport, healthcare and education funds, so it seems unlikely lawmakers will authorise as much as $58m in reparations.’
So there you have it. The bad guys here are stony-hearted Republicans (and conservative Republicans to boot!) who might not wish, in the depths of a recession, to pay out millions of dollars of public funds to victims of an admittedly barbaric policy; never mind that said policy was based on racism and pseudo-science promoted by liberals, and implemented at the state level by Democrats. (And note how deftly Nasaw slips in the line about Republicans cutting funding for the liberal sacred cows of healthcare and education.)
Such is the grossly distorted lens through which millions of visitors to the British-taxpayer-funded BBC’s website, from all around the world, view American politics and history every day.
Excellent post, Michael!
And like slavery reparation discussions, how many victims are still alive to be paid? And how is compensation for the loss of the ability to reproduce calculated? Is it based on the value of an un-concieved child/children? Does it deduct that cost of money saved by the victim not having to raise a child?
I’m in NO WAY advocating this abhorrent practice. But being related to a victim that is now deceased is no basis for making the rest of us pay for something that we were in no way involved in the decision or implementation of this practice of.
Excellent article.
It is mighty curious how so many of the Left’s pet projects were implemented by the NAZIs. See Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism.
The BBC is my first source of information, meaning that I use PJM to get the sort of news that the BBC leaves out.
However when I saw the title of the quoted article, I knew it would be a waste of time reading it. Sweden, with a population less than 1/30th of the US population, had as many forced sterilizations as the US; so why did they not run an article on “Sterilisation: Sweden grapples with legacy”?
Snorri:
Can you point me to any (English language) sources about Sweden’s history of sterilization, please? I am curious about how it went about in a monoethnic nation.
Thanks
Matt: I can’t help you much here. You could start with wikipedia and references therein:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#Sweden
I think it was in 1997 or 1998 that the British media discovered, some 65 years too late, that this program had been going on in Sweden. They seem to have forgotten again.
Regarding Sweden, I encourage you to look at ELva Myrdal the wife of Gunnar Myrdal who met with Birth Control and Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. Myrdal was a pusher of eugenics in Sweden- watch Maafa21 and learn why…..
Walt, quite a few of them are still alive and fairly young since the program wasn’t ended until 1979.
It was always a leftwing program, famously defended by the liberal darling Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who wrote the majority opinion supporting the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck with the infamous words, “Three generations of imbeciles is enough.”
This was not only horrific on its own merits, it was based on lies, as Carrie was not an imbecile, nor was her daughter, who was on the honor roll at school. Nor was Carrie promiscuous, as charged, but rather, she’d been raped by the nephew of the family who adopted her, and the family institutionalized her as ‘incorrigible’ and immoral).
The Progressives of the early 20th century were indeed great enthusiasts for totalitarian policies designed to “improve and perfect” humankind. The must-read book on the history of the eugenics movement is Edwin Black’s “The War Against The Weak.” If you read it you’ll detect a strong similarity between the progressives from 100 years ago and their respect and enthusiasm for the “science” of eugenics, with the progressives of today and their unwavering belief in the “science” of AGW. “Science” aside. they’re both studies of the totalitarian impulses of the progressive mindset. The parallels are startling.
I’ve just ordered that book from Amazon. Thanks!
Regrettably, you are as selective as you accuse the BBC of being. Eugenics was once widely supported on all sides of the political spectrum. Francis Galton, who coined the term, was a British aristocrat; Winston Churchill, no leftist, was an advocate. Both left and right wing were guilty.
Pete: please do not take it personally if I say that this comment is a good illustration of why serious political thinkers hardly ever talk about “left” a “right”, leaving it to charlatans to do so.
That Galton was an aristocrat proves nothing: a disproportionate number of Russian aristocrats were Bolsheviks in 1917.
Winston Churchill, no “leftist”? whatever his other merits, he was a prominent member of the Liberal administration that put Britain on the slippery slope to socialist serfdom in the early xx century. But Churchill was not as much a “leftist” as the genocidal members of the “far-left” Fabian Society.
Have a look here, and note that the author, Freedland, is (or at least was) an Obama supporter:
http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/eugenics.html
You should mention that the group Life Dynamics interviewed victims of the North Carolina Eugenics Policies in their powerful documentary on Black Genocide: Maafa21. That documentary explains how Planned Parenthood’s founder Margaret Sanger was linked to forced sterilization and eugenics and the KLAN….I would highly recommend a review of Maafa21 available here http://www.maafa21.com
In addition, one of the Funders of the North Carolina Eugenics Society was a board members and financier of Margaret Sanger. his name was Clarence Gamble and his exchange to Sanger and Sanger’s to him revealed that they didn’;t want word to get out that they wanted to exterminate the “Negro” and to use the Black Ministers to avoid that fact from leaking out…watch Maafa21 and get the full and ugly truthful history: http://www.maafa21.com
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