Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Vintage (2000), 400 pages
Description
In 1997, this groundbreaking book made a powerful entrance into the national conversation on race. In a media landscape dominated by racially biased images of welfare queens and crack babies, Killing the Black Body exposed America's systemic abuse of Black women's bodies. From slave masters' economic stake in bonded women's fertility to government programs that coerced thousands of poor Black women into being sterilized as late as the 1970s, these abuses pointed to the degradation of Black motherhood--and the exclusion of Black women's reproductive needs in mainstream feminist and civil rights agendas. Now, some two decades later, Killing the Black Body has not only exerted profound influence, but also remains as crucial as ever--a rallying cry for education, awareness, and action on extending reproductive justice to all women.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member nbmars
Dorothy Roberts, a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, documents the historical usurpation of black women’s reproductive freedom by systematic, institutionalized decisions based on a confluence of race and gender discrimination. She reviews the process that started with slave
She charges that the dominant idea of reproductive liberty is primarily concerned with the interests of white, middle-class women and is focused on the right to abortion. She points out that reproductive freedom is not only a matter of an individual woman’s right to choose, but it also is woven into a larger social context, so that economic exigencies (including access to health care, jobs, child care, medical information, and medical technology) as well as systemic racism (e.g., residential segregation which restricts access to better jobs) play a deterministic role.
Roberts points to many policy proposals holding that “the key to solving America’s social problems is to curtail Black women’s birth rates.” American society, she maintains, is still affected by thought patterns that either consciously or unconsciously imbue whites with positive characteristics (“industrious, intelligent, responsible”), while Blacks are associated with the opposite, negative qualities (“lazy, ignorant, shiftless”). In fact, a study in 1990 found that “78 percent of white Americans thought that Blacks preferred to live on welfare.” Many whites seem unaware of, or unaffected by, the fact that whites make up the greater number of welfare recipients, although the percentage of black recipients is higher.) Since 1990 attitudes have not changed much. Most whites are even uncognizant of the passage in 1996 of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) which replaced AFDC. This Act mandates that single mothers who receive welfare find paid work; it encourages them to marry; and it limits their time on aid to a lifetime maximum of five years. Some states have even shorter time limits. PRWORA in effect treats the inability to work as a personal, moral failing and insists that women are better off with men. Thus poor black women must somehow cope with the distances they must travel from their segregated living areas to find work, the lack of child care (so that they must often pull older children out of school to help), and the bottom-of-the-barrel wages they will receive for unskilled work.
A concern for helping the Black community escape the spiral of poverty has never been a priority. On the contrary, according to Roberts, it is “the huge cost these children impose on taxpayers.” Indeed, the general adherence to a preference for “non-government intervention” by those against “the welfare state” (or as we might say nowadays, “socialism”) gainsays the fact that “negative” liberty only benefits those who already hold money and power. The so-called “neutral” principles adopted by the courts and the government that call for leaving things as they are and letting market forces take over is not neutral at all. It rewards those with the economic positions to take advantage of opportunities to better themselves even more. The fact is that many people, because of unequal social and economic positions, are not actually free to make decisions or take choices that the government claims to be protecting by “non-interference.”
Roberts does an excellent job of detailing the violations committed toward black women over the years. I would take issue with her on the omission of two issues. One is the role black men have played in this racially-tinged misogynist drama. Although attitudes of both white men and white women are discussed, those of black men toward black women are not included. A second issue is the role of men in general in the entire reproductive dialogue. Roberts fully documents the extent to which black women are blamed. But she does not discuss the historical and societal bias toward not blaming men at all for pregnancy. Robert seeks to take blame away from black women and situate it in a socioeconomic context. While this is not an illegitimate request, what about sharing some blame with the ones who make them pregnant in the first place? And more specifically, what about the pressures upon black teenagers of both genders to have sex and/or have babies? Surely some of it has to do with peer attitudes, pressure from other teens, and perhaps even the dearth of love and companionship in their lives. These questions aren’t addressed.
Overall, however, this book is a valuable contribution to the scholarship of race, and should definitely be included as a complement to the many books on feminism that overlook the black woman’s experience. The systemic, societal problems noted with the cyclical entrenchment of poverty must be tackled, rather than focusing all of the nation’s hostility on the black women who have borne so much. As Katz and Stern write in the Winter 2008 issue of Dissent, “Black poverty and inequality, in the last analysis, are problems of national imagination and will. Surmounting them requires understanding how they work today and finding the resolve to attack their sources. The task is difficult, but, then, the stakes are very high.” Roberts has done a lot of research to help. Now it is up to us.
Show More
masters’ use of black women’s bodies to increase their slave holdings, to racist eugenics policies that resulted in the surreptitious sterilization of thousands of black women, to attempts to restrict the fertility of black women on the grounds that they are inflating the welfare roles. She charges that the dominant idea of reproductive liberty is primarily concerned with the interests of white, middle-class women and is focused on the right to abortion. She points out that reproductive freedom is not only a matter of an individual woman’s right to choose, but it also is woven into a larger social context, so that economic exigencies (including access to health care, jobs, child care, medical information, and medical technology) as well as systemic racism (e.g., residential segregation which restricts access to better jobs) play a deterministic role.
Roberts points to many policy proposals holding that “the key to solving America’s social problems is to curtail Black women’s birth rates.” American society, she maintains, is still affected by thought patterns that either consciously or unconsciously imbue whites with positive characteristics (“industrious, intelligent, responsible”), while Blacks are associated with the opposite, negative qualities (“lazy, ignorant, shiftless”). In fact, a study in 1990 found that “78 percent of white Americans thought that Blacks preferred to live on welfare.” Many whites seem unaware of, or unaffected by, the fact that whites make up the greater number of welfare recipients, although the percentage of black recipients is higher.) Since 1990 attitudes have not changed much. Most whites are even uncognizant of the passage in 1996 of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) which replaced AFDC. This Act mandates that single mothers who receive welfare find paid work; it encourages them to marry; and it limits their time on aid to a lifetime maximum of five years. Some states have even shorter time limits. PRWORA in effect treats the inability to work as a personal, moral failing and insists that women are better off with men. Thus poor black women must somehow cope with the distances they must travel from their segregated living areas to find work, the lack of child care (so that they must often pull older children out of school to help), and the bottom-of-the-barrel wages they will receive for unskilled work.
A concern for helping the Black community escape the spiral of poverty has never been a priority. On the contrary, according to Roberts, it is “the huge cost these children impose on taxpayers.” Indeed, the general adherence to a preference for “non-government intervention” by those against “the welfare state” (or as we might say nowadays, “socialism”) gainsays the fact that “negative” liberty only benefits those who already hold money and power. The so-called “neutral” principles adopted by the courts and the government that call for leaving things as they are and letting market forces take over is not neutral at all. It rewards those with the economic positions to take advantage of opportunities to better themselves even more. The fact is that many people, because of unequal social and economic positions, are not actually free to make decisions or take choices that the government claims to be protecting by “non-interference.”
Roberts does an excellent job of detailing the violations committed toward black women over the years. I would take issue with her on the omission of two issues. One is the role black men have played in this racially-tinged misogynist drama. Although attitudes of both white men and white women are discussed, those of black men toward black women are not included. A second issue is the role of men in general in the entire reproductive dialogue. Roberts fully documents the extent to which black women are blamed. But she does not discuss the historical and societal bias toward not blaming men at all for pregnancy. Robert seeks to take blame away from black women and situate it in a socioeconomic context. While this is not an illegitimate request, what about sharing some blame with the ones who make them pregnant in the first place? And more specifically, what about the pressures upon black teenagers of both genders to have sex and/or have babies? Surely some of it has to do with peer attitudes, pressure from other teens, and perhaps even the dearth of love and companionship in their lives. These questions aren’t addressed.
Overall, however, this book is a valuable contribution to the scholarship of race, and should definitely be included as a complement to the many books on feminism that overlook the black woman’s experience. The systemic, societal problems noted with the cyclical entrenchment of poverty must be tackled, rather than focusing all of the nation’s hostility on the black women who have borne so much. As Katz and Stern write in the Winter 2008 issue of Dissent, “Black poverty and inequality, in the last analysis, are problems of national imagination and will. Surmounting them requires understanding how they work today and finding the resolve to attack their sources. The task is difficult, but, then, the stakes are very high.” Roberts has done a lot of research to help. Now it is up to us.
Show Less
LibraryThing member araridan
This book is a comprehensive argument at how historically and currently black women have been denied autonomy over their procreative decisions. Starting with slavery where black female slaves were either impregnated by their white masters or other male black slaves, usually not of their choosing,
Show More
in order to create a larger labor force and increased wealth for white plantation owners. We also see how the eugenics movement, the feminist movement, the antiabortion movement, and even political liberals have all served to deny black women control over their own bodies. The dominant position now is to limit the number of children born to poor and/or black mothers through forced birth control or denying social services. Basically a really smart informative book spelling out yet another way the black community continues to be oppressed. Show Less
LibraryThing member booksofcolor
Although it's not quite as brilliant as Yxta Maya Murray's Conquest in the scope of synthesis, it's still a very good and indicting piece of work on reproductive freedom and black women, with references to the same pushes for sterilization via uninformed drug trials and etc.
LibraryThing member Rosa.Mill
This was the first book picked for the Reproductive Justice Book Club a friend of mine started. This is very different then anything I would normally read but I want to give the author lots of credit because it's very readable. There was the potential for it to become a list of statistics but the
I admit to having a little bit of trouble with the section on the myth of the welfare queen, mainly because I grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of girls that would get pregnant so they could quit their job and go on welfare, they were not however Black which is why I never drew the correlation to race that the author illustrated.
All in all glad this book club is making my try something different. It's nice to read a grown up nonfiction book that's not a biography or cook book and learn something new.
Show More
author was just so passionate about her subject that it was hard not be drawn in. Many of the reproductive issues the author addresses were on the edge of my radar but somehow I never put together how disproportionately they affect women of color. I admit to having a little bit of trouble with the section on the myth of the welfare queen, mainly because I grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of girls that would get pregnant so they could quit their job and go on welfare, they were not however Black which is why I never drew the correlation to race that the author illustrated.
All in all glad this book club is making my try something different. It's nice to read a grown up nonfiction book that's not a biography or cook book and learn something new.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Rosa.Mill
This was the first book picked for the Reproductive Justice Book Club a friend of mine started. This is very different then anything I would normally read but I want to give the author lots of credit because it's very readable. There was the potential for it to become a list of statistics but the
I admit to having a little bit of trouble with the section on the myth of the welfare queen, mainly because I grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of girls that would get pregnant so they could quit their job and go on welfare, they were not however Black which is why I never drew the correlation to race that the author illustrated.
All in all glad this book club is making my try something different. It's nice to read a grown up nonfiction book that's not a biography or cook book and learn something new.
Show More
author was just so passionate about her subject that it was hard not be drawn in. Many of the reproductive issues the author addresses were on the edge of my radar but somehow I never put together how disproportionately they affect women of color. I admit to having a little bit of trouble with the section on the myth of the welfare queen, mainly because I grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of girls that would get pregnant so they could quit their job and go on welfare, they were not however Black which is why I never drew the correlation to race that the author illustrated.
All in all glad this book club is making my try something different. It's nice to read a grown up nonfiction book that's not a biography or cook book and learn something new.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Rosa.Mill
This was the first book picked for the Reproductive Justice Book Club a friend of mine started. This is very different then anything I would normally read but I want to give the author lots of credit because it's very readable. There was the potential for it to become a list of statistics but the
I admit to having a little bit of trouble with the section on the myth of the welfare queen, mainly because I grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of girls that would get pregnant so they could quit their job and go on welfare, they were not however Black which is why I never drew the correlation to race that the author illustrated.
All in all glad this book club is making my try something different. It's nice to read a grown up nonfiction book that's not a biography or cook book and learn something new.
Show More
author was just so passionate about her subject that it was hard not be drawn in. Many of the reproductive issues the author addresses were on the edge of my radar but somehow I never put together how disproportionately they affect women of color. I admit to having a little bit of trouble with the section on the myth of the welfare queen, mainly because I grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of girls that would get pregnant so they could quit their job and go on welfare, they were not however Black which is why I never drew the correlation to race that the author illustrated.
All in all glad this book club is making my try something different. It's nice to read a grown up nonfiction book that's not a biography or cook book and learn something new.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Rosa.Mill
This was the first book picked for the Reproductive Justice Book Club a friend of mine started. This is very different then anything I would normally read but I want to give the author lots of credit because it's very readable. There was the potential for it to become a list of statistics but the
I admit to having a little bit of trouble with the section on the myth of the welfare queen, mainly because I grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of girls that would get pregnant so they could quit their job and go on welfare, they were not however Black which is why I never drew the correlation to race that the author illustrated.
All in all glad this book club is making my try something different. It's nice to read a grown up nonfiction book that's not a biography or cook book and learn something new.
Show More
author was just so passionate about her subject that it was hard not be drawn in. Many of the reproductive issues the author addresses were on the edge of my radar but somehow I never put together how disproportionately they affect women of color. I admit to having a little bit of trouble with the section on the myth of the welfare queen, mainly because I grew up in a neighborhood where there were a lot of girls that would get pregnant so they could quit their job and go on welfare, they were not however Black which is why I never drew the correlation to race that the author illustrated.
All in all glad this book club is making my try something different. It's nice to read a grown up nonfiction book that's not a biography or cook book and learn something new.
Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
7.93 inches
ISBN
0679758690 / 9780679758693
Similar in this library
Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (Routledge Classics) by Patricia Hill Collins