Archie Chen

“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

“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