Ideas about women, sexuality, and birth in this period were deeply intertwined with racial ideology, and not just on the fringe. American white supremacy had long depended upon the policing of white women’s bodies. In order to propagate a white race, white women had to bear white children. While white men’s sexual relationships with nonwhite women mattered less to white supremacists, especially if such activity was secretive, profitable, or part of systematic violence against communities of color, for a white woman to bear nonwhite children was tantamount to racial annihilation.
