Black Women May Be Compensated For ‘Operation: Stop Breeding’
Honestly, I think every Black person should receive reparations at retirement age simply because The System begins building a case against us the moment we slither out the womb. No?…..Well, here’s some news that is certainly causing Margaret Sanger to roll over in her grave, North Carolina may compensate Black women for forced sterilizations.
Nearly 35 years after ending the country’s most active post-war sterilization program, North Carolina is the only state trying to make amends to thousands of people who cannot have children because of eugenics-inspired theories about social improvement.
Next week, victims and their relatives will tell their stories to a state task force considering compensation to victims of sterilizations that continued into 1974. Roughly 85 percent of victims were women or girls, some as young as 10. North Carolina has more victims living than any other state because a majority was sterilized after World War II.
Eugenics programs gained popularity in the U.S. and other countries in the early 1900s, but most abandoned those efforts after World War II because of the association with Nazi Germany’s program aimed at racial purity. However, North Carolina’s expanded, with sterilizations peaking in the 1950s and early 1960s. About 70 percent of the state’s 7,600 sterilizations occurred after the war.
“Sterilization was always a cost-cutting measure,” said Paul Lombardo, a professor at Georgia State University’s College of Law. “The argument was, anybody who generates social costs shouldn’t be allowed to have children.” (read: Blacks).
According to research done by University of Vermont professor Lutz Kaelber, North Carolina averaged about 300 sterilizations per year between 1950 and 1963.
