修车大队

Last year, White people constituted聽60% of the U.S. population,聽down from about 90% in 1950. It鈥檚 projected that by 2050, they will be the new minority and people of color will be the majority鈥攁 nightmarish prediction聽to some White people.

Sen. Lindsey Graham voiced his concern of a at the when he said, 鈥淭he demographics race we鈥檙e losing badly 鈥� [Republicans are] not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.鈥�

Graham鈥檚 comments relay what social scientists and antiracism activists call 鈥淲hite Extinction Anxiety,鈥� or 鈥淔ear of White Genetic Annihilation.鈥�

The idea that White people could 鈥溾�� has been dismissed by some as , but the convergent effects of new laws banning abortion聽together with old laws promoting mass incarceration of Black and Brown people聽suggest that this White fear is not just an idea, but the catalyst for public policy.

There indeed appears to be a strong correlation between demographic projections, the fear of White genetic annihilation, and the recent wave of abortion bills.

Antiracism activist and diversity trainer that White people, including political leaders, 鈥渨ill do anything to see that doesn鈥檛 happen.鈥�

Hyper-punitive abortion bans聽the procedure outright except in cases of risk to a woman鈥檚 health, and in Georgia聽a woman who obtains an abortion . Of 212 lawmakers in Alabama and Georgia whose votes ushered in the most restrictive abortion laws we鈥檝e seen yet, .

What drives all of this is nothing as philosophical as religion. It鈥檚 not faith. It鈥檚 not principle. It鈥檚 the fear of genetic dominance of Black and Brown people.

The late Frances Cress Welsing, psychiatrist and author of聽The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors听补苍诲 The Cress Theory of Color Confrontation and Racism, is well-known for her theory of Black and Brown genetic dominance over the White recessive gene.

鈥淧eople of color have the capacity to genetically annihilate White people,鈥� she explained, 鈥渁nd unless White people control the reproduction of people of color, we can postulate that perhaps one day there won鈥檛 be any White people.鈥�

But Welsing was not the only one who held this belief.

Her contemporary, demographer Ben Wattenberg, wrote in his book The Birth Dearth that the main problem in the United States is the low number of White births. Wattenberg believed that White people, without a change of course, would lose the numerical majority in the U.S., and it would no longer be a White man鈥檚 land.

He proposed three ways to address this: Pay women to have babies, increase the number of immigrants, and prevent abortions. The first two, he wrote, aren鈥檛 the answer because they would also increase the numbers of Black and Brown babies.聽But the third, he posited, would solve the 鈥渂irth dearth鈥� problem because 60% of abortions are performed for White women.

The long-standing framework that once defined a woman鈥檚 reproductive rights as essentially her own prerogative is being zealously deconstructed to effect an increase of White births over time.

Since before the nation was formed, White people have controlled the lives and reproduction of people of color.

Not unlike the legal maneuverings that effectively made a person property under American chattel slavery, these , to variable degrees, take ownership of women鈥檚 reproductive rights, in essence forcibly breeding White women to produce at higher rates.

White patriarchal control over the聽lives of women but especially women of color isn鈥檛 new, however.

Since before the nation was formed, White people have controlled the lives and reproduction of people of color.

Genocide of Indigenous peoples and chattel slavery of Africans and their descendants鈥攁 precursor to the criminalization and mass incarceration of Black and Brown people鈥攁re our most prominent examples.

Under chattel slavery, African women and their daughters were bred as animals for purposes of economic dominance, the financial benefits and dividends of which are still being realized today.

In 鈥淯n/Re/Dis covering Slave Breeding in Thirteenth Amendment Jurisprudence,鈥� author and law professor as 鈥渋ntricacies of a practice that consisted of sexual domination and reproductive exploitation, designed specifically to facilitate, economically and physiologically, the institution of slavery.鈥�

The war on drugs and 鈥渢ough on crime鈥� laws have also made long-lasting and devastating impacts on Black and Brown communities, the most significant being the loss of reproductive rights.

Even as some forms of marijuana have now been legalized or decriminalized in most states, many Black and Brown men and some women are incarcerated at higher rates than White people for the same offenses, and in many cases serve longer sentences.

Sociologist James Oleson suggests that the practice of eugenics didn鈥檛 disappear after World War II, but was 鈥渕erely repackaged.鈥� He writes in 鈥淭he New Eugenics: Black Hyper-Incarceration and Human Abatement鈥� that , and because minorities are incarcerated in disproportionately high numbers, they鈥檙e most dramatically affected. In fact, for Black males, 鈥渢he effect of hyper-incarceration might be so great as to depress overall reproduction rates,鈥� producing 鈥渁 de facto new eugenics.鈥�

In Gerber v. Hickman, a California district court held that incarceration of inmates 鈥渆ncompasses and restricts 鈥� the right to procreate,鈥� that incarceration not only hinders, but also extinguishes reproductive rights and may influence overall fertility rates.

Birth rates across demographics have slowed. But the recent abortion bans favor a fearful White populace.

The Black economic oppression along with mass incarceration of mostly Black men means Black births are likely to continue their decline. Now, as women are under threat of death or life in prison, the bans could forcibly increase White births under the hope of generating an uptick in the national White demographic.

Still, in the foreseeable future the country will be, as Elliot puts it, 鈥渕ostly brown.鈥�