Effects of Eugenics on African-Americans

The social Darwinism of the late 19th century, with all its metaphors for justifying fitness, competitiveness, and inequality, is where modern eugenics got its start. Eugenics was first proposed by Francis Galton, Charles Darwin's cousin and a distinguished scientist. Galton believed that the superior individuals might be multiplied while the lesser ones were wiped out in order to advance the human race. Following the rediscovery of Mendel's idea in 1900, eugenics grew in popularity. According to Mendel's hypothesis, an organism's biological make-up is influenced by a number of factors and later identified by its genes. The Mendelism application to human beings added to the impression that human beings are entirely defined by their germplasm (Paul, 2015).

Several eugenicists spearheaded the progressive wave of social reforms throughout Europe as well as North America for several decades. According to the eugenicists, there was a need for social enhancement or else perfection that might be accomplished through science deployment to right social ends. Finding back up from the social conservatives, they found a similar goal in phenomena attribution including poverty, as well as low achievement mainly to biology. Also, eugenicists believed that these discordances might be eliminated, through biology.

Race played a significant role in the North America’s eugenics. Eugenicists from the United States were predominantly disturbed by the inferior class including the African Americans. The black community was considered to be racially different as well as inferior since they are partly represented among criminals, the poor, as well as minimal achievers and so on. As a result, eugenicists worked on increasing the population’s socially good genes frequency, while reducing that of the bad genes through forced sterilization, limiting immigration, abortions, as well as death (Leonard, 2016). 

Introduction

Eugenics in the United States refers to the enforced laws on sterilization approved by more than 30 states, therefore leading to over 60,000 sterilizations of individuals that were disabled. The reasons for the sterilization include mental illness or else belonged to specific groups of society including the African-Americans. Forced sterilization is a shameful America’s history part. The primary objective of this action was to control populations that were deemed undesirable, including immigrants, individuals who are poor, the people of color, as well as mothers who are unmarried. The primary drive of the act was science notions as well as social control. The programs include immigration policies also segregation.

Eugenicists consider that Darwin’s theory principles concerning “the survival of the fittest” can support the weak as well as the people who are undesirable elimination from the society. To them, human beings also animals have no difference; therefore we ought to be reared like animals. In a herd, the deficient cows are not allowed to reproduce by a farmer. Similarly, they believe that certain society individuals ought to control the reproduction of human. In simple, eugenics is made up of rational approaches for putting evolution on the forefront to make individuals who are superior to reproduce and become superior beings. Moreover, it is a way of aiding families as well as groups of people that are inferior to die out quickly through ending their reproduction.

Eugenicists consider that natural attraction, as well as love between a man and a woman, ought not to be used as a basis of procreation. Relatively, scientists as well as the system of medicine ought to provide a scientific control over who should mate with who. Individuals that have the best qualities, in this case, the white society, ought to be encouraged to reproduce while the other people with characters that are defective, in this case, the African American, ought to be prohibited from producing children. Various methods were used in the process of prohibition including sterilization, isolation, and sometimes, death.

A society of eugenics was formed, to promote the eugenics idea. The organization stimulated the social movement that started in the United States with the aim of wiping the inferior individuals including the African-Americans. The move, secretly, played a significant role in the United States culture before its Second World War involvement. Advances in eugenics are more recognizable, in Institutions including the Planned Parenthood, against the black community. Individuals from the white society believed that African-Americans are not their equal in neither the brain or else the heart.

Among the beliefs are that the black people do not care about their liberty, therefore should be utilized to the advantage of the white society. Eugenics influenced several disciplines including the practices of labor intended for effectiveness, art as well as design meant for rationalization, literature intended for human betterment ideas, as well as culture. The movement of eugenics hard a dark side, contributing to social control, reproductive freedom loss, as well as the life loss of the African Americans.

Precipitating Factors

In the United States, eugenics powerfully arose as a science as well as an ideology, since it presented an apparent response that is effective concerning various conditions that are national, geopolitical, as well as demographics. Among the reasons for the rise of eugenics include rising imperial power together with extensive immigration. Traditionally, the eugenics movement goals were poverty, disabilities, elimination, as well as enduring illness elimination, aimed at providing the society with happiness. The motive sounded good to numerous people, on the surface, thus leading to several Americans who are prominent to support the agenda of eugenics. The objective of eugenics, in the United States, was to sterilize approximately fourteen million individuals. Eradication of the inferior society was to be practiced until only the superior white culture remained.

Eugenics Proponents

The most enthusiastic American Eugenics Movement participants include the telephone inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, a Nobel laureate George Bernard Shaw, among many others. Professors of colleges were prominent among the officers as well as the members of several societies of eugenics that came up, in the early 20th century, in the United States as well as Europe. In nearly all colleges as well as universities, the new eugenics creed inspired professors, also eugenics courses were credited in most of the major colleges. The content of these classes was primarily acknowledged as a part of proven science.

The eugenicists had a common belief that the humankind’s behavioral nature primary determinant was genetic, as well as several reforms of the environment designed to improve the conditions of living, for instance, were useless. Besides, the movement of the eugenics believed that the individuals at the bottom of the society’s social ladder, including the black community, were in this situation because of inferiority result and not because of social injustice or else discrimination (Stern, 2015). 

Eugenics under Fire

In the years of interwar, the doctrines of eugenics were highly disapproved on the grounds on the grounds of science as well as racial bias. Several mental incapacities were not directly related to the genes. Moreover, individuals are disabled not because of the makeup of the genes but environmental factors. Apart from science, eugenics gained much influence from the regime of Hitler, especially after World War 2, when the Nazi death camp’s complicity was revealed. Eugenics significantly affected the black community.

Forced Sterilization

In Virginia, sterilization occurred under the law of the state in between 1924 as well as 1979. Therefore, there seem to have been a continued longer practice of sterilizations compared to other states. Although, instances of known eugenic sterilization have been discovered even before 1924. In 1924, the Virginia state adopted the law of sterilization, although the procedure was widely practiced after the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1927, ruled against Carrie Buck. The rule made the process legal throughout the nation.

The highest rates of Virginia’s sterilization occurred in during the 1930’s after the ruling of the Supreme Court and was performed on the families that were impoverished, especially the black community’s families. Prior, throughout, as well as after the Second World War, sterilization decreased. The rates reduced intensely up until the practice diminished. In 1974, the act of 1924 was repealed enhancing the forcing out of practice. Today, the method is being practiced, but for the individuals who are unable to give a consent that is informed, people in contraception need, as well as individuals who cannot raise a child permanently.

In 2013, it became evident that forced sterilization continues today. The Center for Investigative Reporting asserts some California inmates have been sterilized without their knowledge. Sterilization abuse takes account of circumstances in which a woman is sterilized without her knowledge as well as coerced to agree to the procedure. Woman are misinformed, for instance told that the status of the immigration, housing, as well as parenting and so on would be impacted negatively if the procedure does not consent. Moreover, it is stated to them that the process is temporary or else reversible (Nourse, 2016).

The eugenics board program has attained support from the government funds of the United States as well as private individual’s contributions, and its main aim is to catalyze the growth of the economy, as well as respond to the unemployment era of depression. African-American women have been a target of the control of population and have been affected disproportionately by the abuse of sterilization. In the state of North Carolina, practices of discriminatory sterilization took place in the 20th century. 65% of the procedures of sterilization was carried out on the African-American women even if only 25% of the female population in the state is black (McGuirk, 2015).

African-American Stagnant Birth Rate

The population of the African-Americans in the United States was projected to rise from 12.9% to 13%, from 2010 until 2050 according to the United States Census. The prediction indicates a stagnant population growth. African-Americans slow birth rate growth is possibly spawned by the increased rates of abortion conducted on the African-American women. 35% of the abortions are performed on black women, even though the black society comprises of only 13% of the America’s population. The overall rate of birth of the African-Americans has declined since 1990. Statistics are alarming but have neither raised eyebrows nor has it been debated nationally.

Planned Parenthood has the most significant number of clinics for abortion around the country, and its marketing is mostly done towards the minority communities. In New York, research states that 70% of the conducted abortions in the city were performed on Blacks as well as Hispanics. In contrast, the United States Census Bureau predicted a rise in the Hispanic population from 16% to 30%. Abortion is the most likely cause of the stagnating African- American community, although some other variables may play a role. The estimated aborted black babies stand at 13 million, since the abortion legitimization in 1973.

The tendency of Planned Parenthood to cater to the black community cannot be a coincidence, but part of a scheme to control their population. Activists argue that the mission of Planned Parenthood is to fulfill the founder’s vision, Margaret Sanger. Margaret Sanger was a member of the American Society of Eugenics, an organization meant to purge the United States of its population of the African American to form a society of purebred through getting rid of the blacks.

The idea that the state ought to have the legal right to African American life termination in certain situations for the benefit of the society’s greater good is not new. The idea started in 1859, being part of a long history of the first movement of the eugenics. An example of eugenics is the termination program for humans that was executed by Adolf Hitler before and in the course of the Second World War. African Americans being terminated is a reemergence of old-style eugenics (Soloway, 2014). 

Death, as well as birth control, crush the rights of African Americans while elevating the rights of the white community. The mother’s, as well as the future child's rights, were kept in balance, before Roe vs. Wade. In the world today, mothers have more rights compared to the child in a womb. The unborn child’s life was regarded to belong to God and not to be tempered with the intervention of humans, before Roe vs. Wade. Today, this has changed, and abortion is a mother’s decision. The reasons that compel women to eliminate children that are unborn include deformities that are life-threatening, as well as Down syndrome. The figures are increasing because of a trend of eugenics. In the same way, the death of a person who is terminally ill lies in the hands of physicians. In the past, physicians were legally as well as morally bound not to cause any harm to a patient, as this was reflected to be a harm. The individuals who take life are considered to be from the superior class while the underclass is the individuals whose life is taken.

Desensitization of African Americans to the Value of Human Life

Eugenic agendas are promoted as free programs meant to make the black society happy. Eugenicists convince the African Americans to believe the state’s right to control their reproduction’s aspect for their benefit. Gradually, the belief is prolonged to display the government’s right to control the reproduction of African Americans for the sake of content as well as prosperous society creation. The programs progress from being voluntary to being involuntary, from collaboration to mandatory compliance.

All efforts were directed towards the goal of stopping the African Americans reproduction. Implementing each step of a program of eugenics desensitizes African Americans to the human’s life value. The program makes the black society think that they are inferior to others, because of the makeup of their genes. Individuals get the impression that certain people ought to be honored as well as submit to a particular society considered to be a superior race. African Americans are expected to support the majority’s goal through the acceptance of sterilization as well as the minority killing. For instance, the execution of less than five-year-old children is a eugenic thinking outgrowth, since this implies that African American children have no hope in the way they are eliminated even before starting to use the resources of the country.

Information has been distributed, in a steady stream, in every society’s corner explaining how bad genes contribute to child development problems, illness, low achievement, as well as poverty and so on. Eugenicists condition African Americans to believe that for individuals to live a life that is healthy as well as a prosperous, good genes must be present. Moreover, eugenicists assert that code of genes is the master blueprint that decides an individual’s state of life including the intellectual gifts. The disease’s real cure will come from the repairs of the genes that are just beyond the modern science’s horizon. As a consequence, African Americans are destined to a life of illness, as well as suffering until other options are considered.

Eugenics proponents believe that physical appearance is vital. Individuals need to have a particular color of the skin, the color of the hair, the color of the eye, as well as meet high mental acuity standards as well as emotional stability. For African Americans to have the reproduction rights, they must possess a physical strength that is ideal as well as physical form. African Americans that experienced poverty, disability, as well as low intellectual achievement in the history of their families were not allowed to reproduce.

Web of Deceit

Eugenics was related to the possibility as well as progress. Scientists saw it as the science of human race improvement through better breading. Eugenics thought, through the hereditary application understanding, they could fix a whole host of problems. The human improvement strategies practiced affected the downgraded African-Americans negatively. The notion of improving the black race through eugenics led to a division in views amongst different African-American scholars. In the 20th century, some different socio-economic classes of African-Americans embraced the eugenics possibilities for improvement of the race. While their involvement was not unanimous, their eugenics investment challenges how individuals perceived it as well as mobilized it.

Some part of the black community crafted their eugenics theory as well as practice as part of broader racial justice struggle. Physicians, as well as social scientists and so on from the black society, used the eugenics as well as reproductive control language to frame their scholarship on the improvement of the race. In his essay of 1991, W.E.B Du Bois asserted that “the race of the Negro, will be saved by exceptional men, like all other races.”

Other black scholars including William Montague Cobb argued against black inferiority assumption. Moreover, the prejudice on the race of African-American was non-biological. The biological inferiority stereotype cannot be backed by science. Taylor, as well as T.E.B, viewed that idea as improving the race biologically, although numerous individuals believe forced sterilization to be cruel also inhumane. The engagement of the African-American scholars complicates the way individuals view its legacy, not forgetting the way the legislation of eugenics targeted African-Americans disproportionately in ways that are violent. For instance, the commission of eugenics for North Carolina sterilized nearly 8,000 individuals in between 1930 and 1940, 65% of the people being from the black community.

Because of Gamble anticipated resistance from the black leaders concerning birth control, he suggested they be selected in high leadership positions to make them feel they were in charge. Moreover, Sanger understood the love for a religion of the African Americans, therefore training them through the federation helped the progress of the project. The church ministers helped in straightening the rebellious members also convinced the black society that the eugenics project was not meant to exterminate the population of the African Americans.

Inequality

In the United States, medical care is not available to most African Americans. Moreover, enhancing the genes will be costly to the underclass. Individuals ought to cautiously weigh the eugenicists’ ambitions to change humanity or else the outcome may bring harm to the world. Enhancement buying will not be viewed as unethical, although it would increase the gap that is existing of health as well as social inequalities. The eugenic practice could erode the United States racial as well as ethnic diversity. If one group genetically replicates as well as improves itself to produce upcoming generations, homogeneity would result. In a state, eugenicists suppress the rights, diversity, as well as opportunities for African Americans.

African American Broken Families

African American family structures have been broken by eugenicists to achieve their ambitions. The family’s value as well as function comprising of parents, as well as numerous children, will be attacked from all angles. The emotional bonds tying the members of the family together are broken and, instead, replaced by the state’s zealous allegiance. Individuals are conditioned to commit to the state than the members of the family’s love as well as commitment; therefore the family defectives can be sterilized or else easily removed.

Unreligious Eugenics

The eugenics belief breaks affection as well as a commitment to God. True religion is incompatible with eugenics. Eugenicists believe in the Darwinian Evolution religion. Conservative biblical moral absolutes oppose the evolution theory of Darwin. Moreover, religion opposes eugenic techniques implementation. The religion shades light that God gives life, therefore ought to be cherished as well as preserved. The belief is incompatible with the eugenics outworking, which puts life under a particular class of people as well as the state’s authority.

Francis Galton asserts that the Darwinism’s effect was to destroy a dogmatic barriers multitude through a single stroke, as well as to stimulate a rebellion spirit against all ancient authorities whose positive as well as statements that are unauthenticated were disputed by modern science. An antinomian spirit that is radical was unleashed and even affirmed that there was a need for eugenics to be introduced in the conscience of the nation, like a new religion. Moreover, eugenics is capable of becoming the future’s religious tenet.

Conclusion

Individuals that are less fortunate including the black society are continuously being denied the freedoms of reproduction available to other women. If individuals in the United States continue to have an increased tolerance for the termination of life, then there would be followed expanded chances to taking life. Individuals ought to question themselves about the next group of defectives to be targeted for extermination or else repair.

Individuals do not prefer to be referred to eugenicists, although the aspiration to perfect the human being as well as create a people who are superior, remains to be strong in the scientists, politicians, as well as corporation’s hearts and minds. As for now, there are several unanswered questions, for instance, will modern genetics be the tool used by politicians to fix the society’s issues, and will the advances of modern genetics be a stimulus that justifies the termination of the inferior races. Moreover, what is dark genetics side, as well as how, are corporations using it to make a new people’s class in the United States.



References

Leonard, T. C. (2016). Illiberal reformers: race, eugenics, and American economics in the Progressive Era. Princeton University Press.

McGuirk, M. M. (2015). From Public Good to Public Disgrace: Eugenics in North Carolina.

Nourse, V. (2016). History of science: When eugenics became law. Nature, 530(7591), 418-418.

Paul, D. (2015). Eugenics, History of.

Soloway, R. A. (2014). Demography and degeneration: eugenics and the declining birthrate in twentieth-century Britain. UNC Press Books.

Stern, A. M. (2015). Eugenic nation: Faults and frontiers of better breeding in modern America. Univ of California Press.