Eugenics

Charlottesville

March 6, 2024

With all the news about the renaming of Alderman Library at UVa, it was a coincidence that YouTube recommended this video on my feed. Then again, maybe the YouTube algorithim is scarier than I realize ☹️

I was a bit surprised by my reaction to the first part of the video. I found myself thinking about why good looking couples have good looking kids many times. Why athletic parents have athletic kids (again many times). How it wasn't unreasonable to think that you could "bred" a certain kind of human.

I did not realize that the eugenics movement covered several decades and was supported financially by well-known people.

The video reminded me that I tend to think our social issues of today are unique to today but that history truly does keep repeating itself -- even more quickly than I appreciate. It must be deep in our being to hate those who are not like us. How politicians use that hate to stir up our emotions in support of them (the politicians). How what seems like science is misused -- and what is science is not accepted.

When I was a kid, a doctor in town determined a poor Black woman without her consent because he believed she was having too many kids. I was too immature to be outraged but I remember tgat 50 years later for a reason.

These days I am trying to focus only on those things I have some control over. I've spent a lot of energy thinking about issues that I may have strong emotions about but which are way outside my very small sphere of influence, much less control. Hopefully I can be successful in this new outlook.