Killing me softly with book club
I posted a comment on Pandagon for the Killing the Black Body edition of the Pandagon book club. Blog book clubs rock! Feminist blogs rock! eleven!
here's what i thought, and i encourage you to read why Amanda chose this book at this time, because in part, that's what i'm responding to.
What a good choice, and what a good time, the way it lines up with a campaign-time debate about universal healthcare. When i read the book, i was astounded, just dumbfounded, by the sheer scale of measures taken to sterilize Black women. this is a phenomenon on the scale of the genocidal practices taken to restrict Native American women’s reproductive freedom, and it’s heartbreaking to read about. one thing that putting those things together achieves, in my mind, is showing how a policy of “termination” to eliminate indigenous American cultures and policies to control both Black women and white women in terms of their right/obligation to work being constantly played against their right/obligation to have children, depending on what those in power want from them at any given time, go hand in hand. i knew these policies all extended far, far back into U.S. history. but to think about how they frustrate the emergence of dignified work and freedom from government interference in reproductive choices as objectives of the mid-20th century feminist movement really reminds me that these problems are still with us.
i saw my own mother and sisters go through a lot of pain trying to have children, at times, and trying to not carry pregnancies to term, when it was dangerous, and the level of callousness from men, doctors, and policies that they’ve confronted in their lives, not even as advocates for abortion but as Black women trying to live with the limited, costly choices they have, really makes me think every Black man, every white woman, and everyone in a position of power regardless of how they identify should read this book, just to know that the kinds of struggles Black women in their lives deal with have a history.
here's what i thought, and i encourage you to read why Amanda chose this book at this time, because in part, that's what i'm responding to.
What a good choice, and what a good time, the way it lines up with a campaign-time debate about universal healthcare. When i read the book, i was astounded, just dumbfounded, by the sheer scale of measures taken to sterilize Black women. this is a phenomenon on the scale of the genocidal practices taken to restrict Native American women’s reproductive freedom, and it’s heartbreaking to read about. one thing that putting those things together achieves, in my mind, is showing how a policy of “termination” to eliminate indigenous American cultures and policies to control both Black women and white women in terms of their right/obligation to work being constantly played against their right/obligation to have children, depending on what those in power want from them at any given time, go hand in hand. i knew these policies all extended far, far back into U.S. history. but to think about how they frustrate the emergence of dignified work and freedom from government interference in reproductive choices as objectives of the mid-20th century feminist movement really reminds me that these problems are still with us.
i saw my own mother and sisters go through a lot of pain trying to have children, at times, and trying to not carry pregnancies to term, when it was dangerous, and the level of callousness from men, doctors, and policies that they’ve confronted in their lives, not even as advocates for abortion but as Black women trying to live with the limited, costly choices they have, really makes me think every Black man, every white woman, and everyone in a position of power regardless of how they identify should read this book, just to know that the kinds of struggles Black women in their lives deal with have a history.