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NEWS & LETTERS, March-April 2005Eugenics today incarcerates 'less desirable'
by C.C. Simmons The DALLAS MORNING NEWS published an editorial
denouncing eugenics--genetic manipulation and selective breeding of the human
race--and those who would practice it. Most often, eugenics appears as a
government-sanctioned program that encourages procreation among only those who
are deemed more socially acceptable, while discouraging or preventing breeding
by the less desirable members of society. The last large-scale, government-sanctioned experiment
in eugenics began 70 years ago in Europe under the auspices of the Third Reich.
Aryan women who bore Aryan sons were rewarded by the government with extra food
and clothing. The non-Aryan members of the population were treated less well;
many were surgically sterilized while others were consigned to the notorious
work camps where it was unlikely they would reproduce and even less likely they
would escape--ever. GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED EUGENICS Government-sponsored eugenics did not end with the fall
of the Third Reich, however; it only became less obvious. Cleverly packaged with
the popular tough-on-crime crusade, eugenics is now practiced by imprisoning
those deemed less desirable. By using the criminal justice system to legitimize
the selection and removal of undesirables, we have progressed from
eugenics-in-theory to eugenics-in-practice. More than two million adult men and women are currently
imprisoned nationally. The ethnic mix of the nation's current prison population
seems to reflect the private agenda and biases of eugenicists who seek to rid
our population of undesirable members. If the present rate of incarceration
remains unchanged, 6.6% of all U.S. residents born in 2001 will eventually go to
prison--5.9% of whites, 17.2% of Hispanics and 32.2% of African-Americans. To achieve this removal by socially and politically
correct methods, eugenicists manipulate the criminal justice system in
subtle--and not so subtle--ways. In Chicago, Prof. Larry Marshall, director of
the Center on Wrongful Convictions, reported that Cook County prosecutors had a
contest every week where they would look at who got convictions of African
Americans and who had the biggest, heaviest African Americans. Whoever did would
get free beer that Friday night when they went out to the bar. In Tulia, Texas, undercover narcotics cop, Thomas Ronald
Coleman, cruised poor Black neighborhoods in 1998 seeking to purchase drugs. In
all, 38 people--35 of them Black--were convicted of selling small amounts of
cocaine and sentenced to prison for up to 90 years. Every conviction relied
solely on Coleman's testimony. Problem was, Coleman lied. In the investigation
that followed, some defendants proved they were elsewhere when Coleman said he
bought drugs from them. When the purity of the evidence was finally questioned,
investigators speculated that Coleman had obtained a tiny amount of cocaine,
then diluted it with a white substance to manufacture multiple bags of evidence. State District Judge Ron Chapman found Coleman's
testimony to be so unreliable that he recommended all 38 cases be overturned. In
2003, the 18-member Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted to recommend
pardons for 35 of those convicted. STERILIZATION OF PRISONERS Selective imprisonment and manipulation of the criminal justice system are only two of the methods to curtail breeding by undesirables. Texas, for example, has borrowed a technique from the Third Reich and legitimized the surgical sterilization of criminals. As the DALLAS MORNING NEWS editorial correctly pointed out, the NAACP was right to sound the alarm about the use of genetics to control and improve society. Eugenics leads not to Utopia, said the editorial, but to Auschwitz. |
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