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FREEDOMWAYS
FIRST QUARTER 1972

are unable to obtain decent medical care, they have seen a consortium of governmental, foundation, and educational groups mount a campaign to curb the so-called evils of overpopulation. While their children are attacked by rats, they see the ecologists bemoaning the threatened extinction of the bald eagle or the wild horse. While they seek in vain to prevent their children from being exposed to lead poisoning, they observe funds being made available for family planning clinics. In utter disregard for the appalling conditions of black life, the population/ecology cabal seek to blame the ills of society on overpopulation. In his book, The Choice, Samuel F. Yette notes that, "The colonized blacks inside the United States were the subjects of numerous and extensive studies, special programs, White House conferences, and plain gawking curiosity." A recurrent theme at many of these studies, conferences, and programs is the subject of population dynamics and particularly the population dynamics of the "Blackpoor" (to use the term coined by Yette). Having demonstrated that the "population explosion" was at hand or had in fact already started, it was only a matter of finding the villain. The casting of Blackpoor to fill this role was a foregone conclusion.
  
It did not take long for blacks to perceive that the new onslaught for population control posed a clear and present danger to their survival. Welfare recipients being totally dependent, easily identified and virtually powerless, are the targets of every attempt to foist punitive fertility control legislation on the poor. The outright racists have openly advocated the forced sterilization of welfare mothers. Certain scientists have advocated immunization against conception among groups who cannot be relied upon to cooperate in family planning programs. Even the most well-intentioned white proponents of family planning fail to take into account or are simply uninterested in black priorities or opinions in regard to family planning. This lack of appreciation or unconcern for Black opinions was voiced recently by Naomi Gray, a Black specialist in minority family planning. In her eloquent testimony before the Commission on Population and The American Future, Mrs. Gray declared, "If then, minorities are offered birth control as if their interests and cultural/political dynamics were the same as whites (when in fact they are very different), then the way has been paved for it to be viewed askance."*
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*The complete text of Mrs. Gray's testimony as well as the statement of the Black Caucus of the First National Congress on Optimum Population and Environment and the interim report of the U.S. Commission on Population Growth and the American Future are invaluable reading for those seeking further information on the population question as it relates to blacks.
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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-16 15:37:49