Re: population vs. technology/consumption

Judi Kessler,

I have not suggested we deny women access to contraception, abortion, or
sterilization. I explicitly stated that this should be a right and that it
should be secured. Did you not read my post??

How can you presume to speak for African American women, but I cannot? Are
you not concerned that black women are sterilized at a rate dramatically
higher than white women? Does it not bother you that conservatives
celebrate the dramatic drop in black fertility? Or are you with Margaret
Sanger that a reduction in the number of the inferior races is a good
thing?

Your image of the black woman "pregnant and lactating most of her life" is
a disgusting racist remark. I don't think there are very many African
Americans who would consider that you have spoken for them, especially
black women.

African American women in my class come up to me after my lecture on the
racial disparity in sterilization and either thank me for talking about
issues that other white people don't (many black women are after all
conscious of these things - and it is not because they "heard it on the
grapevine") or thank me for telling them something that had not crossed
their mind.

I have an email (which I will not disclose here because I respect the
student's privacy) from a black woman who was involuntarily sterilized via
the same way method black women throughout the United States are. She was
mightily upset when I read aloud the testimony of a resident surgeon who
explained how he gets black women to undergo hysterectomies. The resident
use the exact same line that the surgeon gave her.

Evidently you are ignorant of history and present reality of eugenics in
the United States. You might want to study the problem before you attack
me for opposing racist sterilization.

Finally, your remark was deeply offensive for both its essentialism and
its racial stereotyping. You might consider an apology to the list.

Andrew Austin
Knoxville, TN