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IDKMYDE: Eugenics and Elaine Riddick · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On today's episode. If I didn't know, maybe you didn't either.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about something crazy you probably didn't hear enough
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: about in school, eugenics. Now, eugenics sounds like a fancy
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: science word, right, like, oh, that must be some tech
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: that Elon Musk is cooking up. But no, it was
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: a straight up evil plan to decide who was fit
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  Speaker 1: to have babies and who wasn't. Spoiler alert, if you
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: were black, poor, or disabled, they decided you weren't fit.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I didn't know. Maybe you didn't know. I didn't know.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I didn't know. So back in the day, from like
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty nine to nineteen seventy four, white folks was
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: out here playing god. They sterilized over sixty thousand people
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  Speaker 1: in the United States forcibly, like imagine going to the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: doctor and instead of fixing your cough, they're like, yeah,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: you're never having kids. You're welcome. Out of the sixty thousand,
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  Speaker 1: North Carolina alone sterilized over seventy six hundred people. And
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  Speaker 1: North Carolina was super nuts because they let social workers,
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  Speaker 1: not doctors, not judges, but social workers decide who should
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  Speaker 1: get sterilized. I mean they sitting there with their notepads,
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  Speaker 1: your poor check, your single check, you back talk to
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  Speaker 1: your teacher in third grade. Yeah, sterilized. And they loved
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: throwing around this term called feeble minded, Like what even
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  Speaker 1: is that? They called folks feeble minded for being poor
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: or for not finishing school. One of the most infamous
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  Speaker 1: cases was a black girl named Elaine Riddick. She was
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: fourteen years old, got pregnant after being raped, and instead
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: of helping her, the state sterilized her. They called her
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: feeble minded. It was a legit diagnosis. Cisors just trying
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: to survive being black and poor in North Carolina. Here's
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  Speaker 1: the kicker. They claimed they were helping society, like sterilizing
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: people would stop poverty or crime. Nah, fam it just
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: made them feel powerful while ruining people's lives. Families were destroyed,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the legacies were cut off, and survivors like Elaine Riddick
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: been fighting for justice ever since. And don't think this
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: is ancient history. Forced sterilizations are still happening prisons, immigrant
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: detention centers. Yeah, they didn't tried to find a wrap
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: around for it. Y'all ain't slick, So let's keep it real.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: If you don't know your history, they'll run the same
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: playbook on us again. And let's all take a moment
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: to remember Elaine Riddick and all the people who were
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: brave enough to speak out because one thing's for show
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  Speaker 1: and two things for certain Black folks might be resilient,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: but we shouldn't have to bounce back from this. And
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either. I didn't know.