Archie Chen > Archie's Quotes

“Second, the control of Black women’s reproduction has shaped the meaning of reproductive liberty in America.”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

“deny Black women control over critical decisions about their bodies.”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

“we need to reconsider the meaning of reproductive liberty to take into account its relationship to racial oppression.”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

“Although these attitudes are not universally held, they influence the way many Americans think about reproduction. Myths are more than made-up stories. They are also firmly held beliefs that represent and attempt to explain what we perceive to be the truth. They can become more credible than reality, holding fast even in the face of airtight statistics and rational argument to the contrary.”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

“Blaming Black mothers, then, is a way of subjugating the Black race as a whole. At the same time, devaluing motherhood is particularly damaging to Black women.”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

“This construct of the licentious temptress served to justify white men’s sexual abuse of Black women. The stereotype of Black women as sexually promiscuous also defined them as bad mothers. The”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

“Mammy was both the perfect mother and the perfect slave: whites saw her as a “passive nurturer, a mother figure who gave all without expectation of return, who not only acknowledged her inferiority to whites but who loved them.”23 It is important to recognize, however, that Mammy did not reflect any virtue in Black motherhood.”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

“Even after Emancipation, political and economic conditions forced many Black mothers to earn a living outside the home.31 At the turn of the century nearly all Black women worked long days as sharecroppers, laundresses, or domestic servants in white people’s homes.”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

“Along with these disparaging images of Black mothers, the media increasingly portray Black children as incapable of contributing anything positive to society.”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

“The powerful Western image of childhood innocence does not seem to benefit Black children. Black children are born guilty.”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

“The story of control of Black reproduction begins with the experiences of slave women like Rose Williams. Black procreation helped to sustain slavery, giving slave masters an economic incentive to govern Black women’s reproductive lives.”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

“charts in vivid detail precisely how the shape of her life and the choices she makes are defined by her reduction to a sexual object, an object to be raped, bred, or abused.”2”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

“The law made slave women’s children the property of the slaveowner. White masters therefore could increase their wealth by”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

“As we will see below, when a female slave’s role as worker conflicted with that of childbearer, concern for high productivity often outweighed concern for high fertility.”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

“Slaveholders were willing to overwork pregnant slaves at the expense of the health of both mother and child.”
― Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty