Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

ISBN: 0679758690

Author: Roberts, Dorothy

Condition: Used

Killing the Black Body remains a rallying cry for education, awareness, and action on extending reproductive justice to all women. It is as crucial as ever, even two decades after its original publication."A must-read for all those who claim to care about racial and gender justice in America." -Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim CrowIn 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 Americas systemic abuse of Black womens bodies. From slave masters economic stake in bonded womens 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 womens reproductive needs in mainstream feminist and civil rights agendas.Compelling. . . . Deftly shows how distorted and racist constructions of black motherhood have affected politics, law, and policy in the United States. -Ms.