Now I do not attribute greater black rates of sterilization vis a vis white women simply to choice (according to Dorothy Roberts' data, 41% of black women are sterilised and 27% of white women). But recently a white defender of black nationalism was claiming that the surgical removal of fibroids was a pretence to sterilise minority women in order to prevent them from having a desired number of children; fibroid removal from the uterus need not and often does not require the removal of uterus. I asked him for proof of this because fibroid removal usually happens late in child bearing years presumably after a desired number of children had been birthed. It was necessary that I knew if he had any evidence for this. I feared that the circulation of such rumours may discourage women from consenting to operations to remove fibroids and to use a costly, dangerous and ineffective drug regiment instead. The white black nationalist kept on arguing that fibroid removal was the trick by which the state entered the womb of minority women to carry out what he called "the prime directive" of reducing black births. I thought this statement was quite dangerous to circulate as it could really have the effect of discouraging minority women from having fibroids removed surgically--which in most cases does not require the removal of the uterus and which can relieve quite a bit of pain and--far from rendering impossible pregnancy--may actually allow a woman carry to term.
After such loose talk, I decided to press him on everything.
With this white black nationalist, I raised the question of whether black women were really having sterilisations before they birthed the number of babies they desired to have--black birthrates are of course higher than white birthrates which does not in itself prove that their has been coerced reduction of births among blacks. But it is important to keep in mind.
I argued that if abortion were freely available, black women who are also of course disproportionately poor may then not agree to have sterilisations to which some may consent presently out of fear of not being able to afford the termination of future unwanted pregnancies. I raised this as a question to which I did not know then and do not know now the answer--though I think Rosalid Petechsky mentions this in her book. Sterilisation may also be chosen if women do not think they can afford the continuous costs of oral or other contraception. I argued that the coercion that may be working on black women here may not simply be racism but racism confounded with class opression--while I argued that the white black nationalist had not presented proof that black women in particular were agreeing to sterilisation before they had a desired number of babies. That is, are women being coerced to have fewer children than they want? Or are they being coerced to use sterilisation instead of other forms of perhaps safer, albeit costlier, birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies? Moreover, I expressed great thanks to this white black nationalist for presenting me with evidence of the harmful after effects of sterilisation and suggested that this was further evidence for the necessity of making abortion and oral contraception/sponges easily and freely accessible; I had thought that the pill and deprovero may have much worse effects on women in their late child bearing years than sterilisation. This person said that it was not true. I still don't really know. I noted that it was a scandal that only depo provera and sterilisation were subsidized by the state for "dependent" women.
I did raise the concern of how masculinist black nationalists may fight universal access to birth control on the grounds that it was a form of black genocide. Even in the recent book the Killing of the Black Body--which discusses the discourse of black genocide in our culture--the law professor Dorothy Roberts raises this same concern for the negative implications towards minority's women autonomy and reproductive freedom. I feared that whenthe white black nationalist argued that "the prime directive" of the State was to prevent the reproduction of black children, it could easily play into a christian or religious fundamentalist assault on reproductive rights. I urged him not to use such language as prime directive. Since in the high school I taught, at least one fourth of my women students were already raising kids I am for access to the safest and best forms of birth control. I believe women should not have to pay a cent for it.
For all this, I was associated with Ben Wattenberg whom I detest. But then perhaps several stupid people can't tell the difference between Dinesh D'Souza and Rakesh Bhandari or the other half billion people South Asian surnamed men in the world. The former would kiss the ass of Ben; I am however a left communist. Moreover, I am not for family caps, the criminalisation of drug use. I support affirmative action, a high minimum wage. I support John Marks', Cavalli Sforza's, Lewontin's, and John Van Der Meer's destructive critique of the ideology of deep racial difference.
I did note to the white black nationalist that women's organizations had to struggle to get hospitals to allow women who had already birthed a desired number of children to undergo sterilisation. If hospitals have been unwilling to perform sterilisations on white/middle class women, that may account for some of the racial gap, which is not as big as the white black nationalist claimed if the data in the Roberts' book is accurate. I also tracked down relevant stats from the NIH which I forwarded to frances bolton in our july exchange. Again, I emphasize that a very important way to prevent unwanted sterilisations, while allowing wanted sterilisations, is to ensure universal access to all forms of birth control. But in this struggle masculinist black nationalists and their white christian brethren may prove a dangerous impediment.
If such criticism of masculinist black nationalism and religious fundamentalism have already been raised, I am sorry for the repetition.
Yours, Rakesh