Posted on 09/21/2011 12:09:08 PM PDT by stfassisi
North Carolina was the last state to end its eugenics program, which sterilized about 7,600 residents deemed unfit to have children, but it could be first state to compensate victims, an author said Thursday night.
"North Carolina will go into history as the last to quit, but the first to compensate," Edwin Black told more than 280 people during a lecture at Winston-Salem State University. "You can take a giant step in which every man will be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his chromosomes."
Black is the author of a best-selling book, "War Against the Weak: America's Campaign to Create a Master Race."
He delivered a 50-minute speech that looked at eugenics programs from North Carolina to Nazi Germany.
Before Black spoke, state Rep. Larry Womble told the audience that in 2012, legislators should pass a bill in that would compensate the people sterilized in the state's eugenics program, which lasted from 1929 until 1974. Under the bill, the state would give $20,000 to each victim.
Womble and state Rep. Earline Parmon, both Democrats from Forsyth County, are the bill's primary sponsors.
Details of the state program came to light in a series published in 2002 by the Winston-Salem Journal.
During his speech, Black discussed how eugenics was first developed as a scientific idea in the late 19th century in Great Britain and became popular in early 20th century America.
Black said that social reformers financed by American corporations, universities and medical societies pushed eugenics as way to reduce the population of Jews, immigrants from eastern and southern Europe, blacks, American Indians and rural whites, whom they deemed feeble-minded and unfit to marry and have children.
Supporters of eugenics wanted to limit the human race to white, blonde, blue-eyed people, he said.
"It was pseudo and junk science," Black said.
Twenty-seven states, including North Carolina, passed sterilization laws in the 1920s. The Rockefeller Foundation then financed scientific institutes in Germany that spread the eugenics concepts. Adolf Hitler studied those concepts and put them into widespread use as the ruler of Nazi Germany, Black said.
That led to the Holocaust during World War II. After the war, most states stopped the practice. But the program continued in North Carolina, he said.
Segregationists supported the state eugenics program, which sterilized many poor black women, Black said.
"I pay homage to the victims, and those who were never born," he said.
Chari Warren, a junior at WSSU, said Black's speech opened her eyes to the horrors of the program.
"It gave me knowledge about eugenics," she said. "I want to do research about it."
“pay homage to the victims, and those who were never born”
You could say the same about the victims of the birth control pill. Eugenics on a massive scale. Affects Europeans way more than any other group.
It's practiced freely, with government funding (aka; Taxpayers' Money), and is most extensive in Black Communities.
It’s not just abortion. The author mentions “those who were never born”.
God also knows those who have not been born. That’s why he says Levi pais tithes to Melchizedek through Abraham.
Many more are prevented from living through the birth control pill.
People somehow got the impression that the pill is condoned for protestants but that’s no way true. It’s totally playing God!
Per Wikipedia: “The modern field and term were first formulated by Sir Francis Galton in 1883,drawing on the recent work of his half-cousin Charles Darwin.” “At its peak of popularity eugenics was supported by a wide variety of prominent people, including Winston Churchill, Margaret Sanger, Marie Stopes, H. G. Wells, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, John Harvey Kellogg, Linus Pauling and Sidney Webb. Many members of the American Progressive Movement supported eugenics, seduced by it’s scientific trappings and it’s promise of a quick end to social ills.”
The Wikipedia article goes on to explain that much of the Eugenics “science” drew from “selective breeding”, a procedure long practiced in England to produce ever-faster/stronger race horses. I know from personal experience that many people of my grandparents era, the “1920’s” actually believed in pieces of eugenics, in one form or another and there was quite some attention to whether children of the era married “up” or “down” the social ladder, it being believed that somehow social rank had something to do with smarts and strength. Of course Hitler painted a badge of shame on the whole movement.
Oddly enough, the “science” (or lack thereof(?)) beghind the movement seems to have been never up to the task. I lay that off to the huge complexity of the human genome which apparently produces near random results up and down the social strata. Thus, and particularly in the U.S. which is a largely “classless” or “casteless” society, it’s not unusual to see highly intelligent/successful couples birth utter idiots. Oddly enough, some of the dumbest people I’ve met have been highly educated rich kids from “old” money families. By the same token, we’ve seen brilliance born into families of meager means. It’s truly quite strange the way this all works.
And then of course, there’s the problem of what’s “smart”. It’s been said Einstein could barely dress himself. On the other hand I’ve met people who never graduated high school who were quite brilliant business people. It seems to me there is a wide variety of inteligences. Some of the toughest, street-smart women I’ve ever met were Catholic nuns who had no more than a high school education. I’ve seen them personally take on and handily master and intimidate would be, grown men caught in the act of theft or pick-pocket. Eagle eyes, sharp toungues, sharp wits and absolutely no fear whatsoever!
The “Human” condition is powerfull strange. That’s probably why it’s best not to thwart the Creator’s guiding hand in all of this; it’s too big and variable for us to comprehend.
Great observations,dear friend,I have noticed the same thing!
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Yes, and the ones who pushed eugenics were famous evolutionists: Osborn, Newman, Kellog, Davenport, Huxley, Galton, Leonard Darwin, etc. etc. The AAAS was full of eugenists too. See here:
Eugenics had the support of pretty much all the most authoritative evolutionary biologists. So, if it was rubbish from the get go, what does that tell us about evolutionary biologists?
I would guess, the same thing. Good point. But then, no offense intended, I’ve remained somwhat skeptical of the science behind evolution; but.....that’s just me I suppose.
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