Monthly Archives: June 2021

Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminatedmillions in his quest for a co-called "Master Race."

But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn't originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing.

Eugenics was the racist pseudoscience determined to wipe away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in twenty-seven states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.

California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the Twentieth Century's first decades, California's eugenicists included potent but little known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate and Polytechnic benefactor Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles M. Goethe, as well as members of the California State Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.

Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America's most respected scientists hailing from such prestigious universities as Stamford, Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics' racist aims.

Stanford president David Starr Jordan originated the notion of "race and blood" in his 1902 racial epistle "Blood of a Nation," in which the university scholar declared that human qualities and conditions such as talent and poverty were passed through the blood.

In 1904, the Carnegie Institution established a laboratory complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island that stockpiled millions of index cards on ordinary Americans, as researchers carefully plotted the removal of families, bloodlines and whole peoples. From Cold Spring Harbor, eugenics advocates agitated in the legislatures of America, as well as the nation's social service agencies and associations.

The Harriman railroad fortune paid local charities, such as the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, to seek out Jewish, Italian and other immigrants in New York and other crowded cities and subject them to deportation, trumped up confinement or forced sterilization.

The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.

Much of the spiritual guidance and political agitation for the American eugenics movement came from California's quasi-autonomous eugenic societies, such as the Pasadena-based Human Betterment Foundation and the California branch of the American Eugenics Society, which coordinated much of their activity with the Eugenics Research Society in Long Island. These organizations--which functioned as part of a closely-knit network--published racist eugenic newsletters and pseudoscientific journals, such as Eugenical News and Eugenics, and propagandized for the Nazis.

Eugenics was born as a scientific curiosity in the Victorian age. In 1863, Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, theorized that if talented people only married other talented people, the result would be measurably better offspring. At the turn of the last century, Galton's ideas were imported into the United States just as Gregor Mendel's principles of heredity were rediscovered. American eugenic advocates believed with religious fervor that the same Mendelian concepts determining the color and size of peas, corn and cattle also governed the social and intellectual character of man.

In an America demographically reeling from immigration upheaval and torn by post-Reconstruction chaos, race conflict was everywhere in the early twentieth century. Elitists, utopians and so-called "progressives" fused their smoldering race fears and class bias with their desire to make a better world. They reinvented Galton's eugenics into a repressive and racist ideology. The intent: populate the earth with vastly more of their own socio-economic and biological kind--and less or none of everyone else.

The superior species the eugenics movement sought was populated not merely by tall, strong, talented people. Eugenicists craved blond, blue-eyed Nordic types. This group alone, they believed, was fit to inherit the earth. In the process, the movement intended to subtract emancipated Negroes, immigrant Asian laborers, Indians, Hispanics, East Europeans, Jews, dark-haired hill folk, poor people, the infirm and really anyone classified outside the gentrified genetic lines drawn up by American raceologists.

How? By identifying so-called "defective" family trees and subjecting them to lifelong segregation and sterilization programs to kill their bloodlines. The grand plan was to literally wipe away the reproductive capability of those deemed weak and inferior--the so-called "unfit." The eugenicists hoped to neutralize the viability of 10 percent of the population at a sweep, until none were left except themselves.

Eighteen solutions were explored in a Carnegie-supported 1911 "Preliminary Report of the Committee of the Eugenic Section of the American Breeder's Association to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means for Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the Human Population." Point eight was euthanasia.

The most commonly suggested method of eugenicide in America was a "lethal chamber" or public locally operated gas chambers. In 1918, Popenoe, the Army venereal disease specialist during World War I, co-wrote the widely used textbook, Applied Eugenics, which argued, "From an historical point of view, the first method which presents itself is execution Its value in keeping up the standard of the race should not be underestimated." Applied Eugenics also devoted a chapter to "Lethal Selection," which operated "through the destruction of the individual by some adverse feature of the environment, such as excessive cold, or bacteria, or by bodily deficiency."

Eugenic breeders believed American society was not ready to implement an organized lethal solution. But many mental institutions and doctors practiced improvised medical lethality and passive euthanasia on their own. One institution in Lincoln, Illinois fed its incoming patients milk from tubercular cows believing a eugenically strong individual would be immune. Thirty to forty percent annual death rates resulted at Lincoln. Some doctors practiced passive eugenicide one newborn infant at a time. Others doctors at mental institutions engaged in lethal neglect.

Nonetheless, with eugenicide marginalized, the main solution for eugenicists was the rapid expansion of forced segregation and sterilization, as well as more marriage restrictions. California led the nation, performing nearly all sterilization procedures with little or no due process. In its first twenty-five years of eugenic legislation, California sterilized 9,782 individuals, mostly women. Many were classified as "bad girls," diagnosed as "passionate," "oversexed" or "sexually wayward." At Sonoma, some women were sterilized because of what was deemed an abnormally large clitoris or labia.

In 1933 alone, at least 1,278 coercive sterilizations were performed, 700 of which were on women. The state's two leading sterilization mills in 1933 were Sonoma State Home with 388 operations and Patton State Hospital with 363 operations. Other sterilization centers included Agnews, Mendocino, Napa, Norwalk, Stockton and Pacific Colony state hospitals.

Even the United States Supreme Court endorsed aspects of eugenics. In its infamous 1927 decision, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. Three generations of imbeciles are enough." This decision opened the floodgates for thousands to be coercively sterilized or otherwise persecuted as subhuman. Years later, the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials quoted Holmes's words in their own defense.

Only after eugenics became entrenched in the United States was the campaign transplanted into Germany, in no small measure through the efforts of California eugenicists, who published booklets idealizing sterilization and circulated them to German officials and scientists.

Hitler studied American eugenics laws. He tried to legitimize his anti-Semitism by medicalizing it, and wrapping it in the more palatable pseudoscientific facade of eugenics. Hitler was able to recruit more followers among reasonable Germans by claiming that science was on his side. While Hitler's race hatred sprung from his own mind, the intellectual outlines of the eugenics Hitler adopted in 1924 were made in America.

During the '20s, Carnegie Institution eugenic scientists cultivated deep personal and professional relationships with Germany's fascist eugenicists. In Mein Kampf, published in 1924, Hitler quoted American eugenic ideology and openly displayed a thorough knowledge of American eugenics. "There is today one state," wrote Hitler, "in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of immigration] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States."

Hitler proudly told his comrades just how closely he followed the progress of the American eugenics movement. "I have studied with great interest," he told a fellow Nazi, "the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock."

Hitler even wrote a fan letter to American eugenic leader Madison Grant calling his race-based eugenics book, The Passing of the Great Race his "bible."

Hitler's struggle for a superior race would be a mad crusade for a Master Race. Now, the American term "Nordic" was freely exchanged with "Germanic" or "Aryan." Race science, racial purity and racial dominance became the driving force behind Hitler's Nazism. Nazi eugenics would ultimately dictate who would be persecuted in a Reich-dominated Europe, how people would live, and how they would die. Nazi doctors would become the unseen generals in Hitler's war against the Jews and other Europeans deemed inferior. Doctors would create the science, devise the eugenic formulas, and even hand-select the victims for sterilization, euthanasia and mass extermination.

During the Reich's early years, eugenicists across America welcomed Hitler's plans as the logical fulfillment of their own decades of research and effort. California eugenicists republished Nazi propaganda for American consumption. They also arranged for Nazi scientific exhibits, such as an August 1934 display at the L.A. County Museum, for the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association.

In 1934, as Germany's sterilizations were accelerating beyond 5,000 per month, the California eugenics leader C. M. Goethe upon returning from Germany ebulliently bragged to a key colleague, "You will be interested to know, that your work has played a powerful part in shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are behind Hitler in this epoch-making program. Everywhere I sensed that their opinions have been tremendously stimulated by American thought.I want you, my dear friend, to carry this thought with you for the rest of your life, that you have really jolted into action a great government of 60 million people."

That same year, ten years after Virginia passed its sterilization act, Joseph DeJarnette, superintendent of Virginia's Western State Hospital, observed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, "The Germans are beating us at our own game."

More than just providing the scientific roadmap, America funded Germany's eugenic institutions. By 1926, Rockefeller had donated some $410,000 -- almost $4 million in 21st-Century money -- to hundreds of German researchers. In May 1926, Rockefeller awarded $250,000 to the German Psychiatric Institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, later to become the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry. Among the leading psychiatrists at the German Psychiatric Institute was Ernst Rdin, who became director and eventually an architect of Hitler's systematic medical repression.

Another in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute's eugenic complex of institutions was the Institute for Brain Research. Since 1915, it had operated out of a single room. Everything changed when Rockefeller money arrived in 1929. A grant of $317,000 allowed the Institute to construct a major building and take center stage in German race biology. The Institute received additional grants from the Rockefeller Foundation during the next several years. Leading the Institute, once again, was Hitler's medical henchman Ernst Rdin. Rdin's organization became a prime director and recipient of the murderous experimentation and research conducted on Jews, Gypsies and others.

Beginning in 1940, thousands of Germans taken from old age homes, mental institutions and other custodial facilities were systematically gassed. Between 50,000 and 100,000 were eventually killed.

Leon Whitney, executive secretary of the American Eugenics Society declared of Nazism, "While we were pussy-footing aroundthe Germans were calling a spade a spade."

A special recipient of Rockefeller funding was the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in Berlin. For decades, American eugenicists had craved twins to advance their research into heredity. The Institute was now prepared to undertake such research on an unprecedented level. On May 13, 1932, the Rockefeller Foundation in New York dispatched a radiogram to its Paris office: JUNE MEETING EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE NINE THOUSAND DOLLARS OVER THREE YEAR PERIOD TO KWG INSTITUTE ANTHROPOLOGY FOR RESEARCH ON TWINS AND EFFECTS ON LATER GENERATIONS OF SUBSTANCES TOXIC FOR GERM PLASM.

At the time of Rockefeller's endowment, Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a hero in American eugenics circles, functioned as a head of the Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics. Rockefeller funding of that Institute continued both directly and through other research conduits during Verschuer's early tenure. In 1935, Verschuer left the Institute to form a rival eugenics facility in Frankfurt that was much heralded in the American eugenic press. Research on twins in the Third Reich exploded, backed up by government decrees. Verschuer wrote in Der Erbarzt, a eugenic doctor's journal he edited, that Germany's war would yield a "total solution to the Jewish problem."

Verschuer had a long-time assistant. His name was Josef Mengele. On May 30, 1943, Mengele arrived at Auschwitz. Verschuer notified the German Research Society, "My assistant, Dr. Josef Mengele (M.D., Ph.D.) joined me in this branch of research. He is presently employed as Hauptsturmfhrer [captain] and camp physician in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Anthropological testing of the most diverse racial groups in this concentration camp is being carried out with permission of the SS Reichsfhrer [Himmler]."

Mengele began searching the boxcar arrivals for twins. When he found them, he performed beastly experiments, scrupulously wrote up the reports and sent the paperwork back to Verschuer's institute for evaluation. Often, cadavers, eyes and other body parts were also dispatched to Berlin's eugenic institutes.

Rockefeller executives never knew of Mengele. With few exceptions, the foundation had ceased all eugenic studies in Nazi-occupied Europe before the war erupted in 1939. But by that time the die had been cast. The talented men Rockefeller and Carnegie financed, the institutions they helped found, and the science it helped create took on a scientific momentum of their own.

After the war, eugenics was declared a crime against humanity--an act of genocide. Germans were tried and they cited the California statutes in their defense. To no avail. They were found guilty.

However, Mengele's boss Verschuer escaped prosecution. Verschuer re-established his connections with California eugenicists who had gone underground and renamed their crusade "human genetics." Typical was an exchange July 25, 1946 when Popenoe wrote Verschuer, "It was indeed a pleasure to hear from you again. I have been very anxious about my colleagues in Germany. I suppose sterilization has been discontinued in Germany?" Popenoe offered tidbits about various American eugenic luminaries and then sent various eugenic publications. In a separate package, Popenoe sent some cocoa, coffee and other goodies.

Verschuer wrote back, "Your very friendly letter of 7/25 gave me a great deal of pleasure and you have my heartfelt thanks for it. The letter builds another bridge between your and my scientific work; I hope that this bridge will never again collapse but rather make possible valuable mutual enrichment and stimulation."

Soon, Verschuer once again became a respected scientist in Germany and around the world. In 1949, he became a corresponding member of the newly formed American Society of Human Genetics, organized by American eugenicists and geneticists.

In the fall of 1950, the University of Mnster offered Verschuer a position at its new Institute of Human Genetics, where he later became a dean. In the early and mid-1950s, Verschuer became an honorary member of numerous prestigious societies, including the Italian Society of Genetics, the Anthropological Society of Vienna, and the Japanese Society for Human Genetics.

Human genetics' genocidal roots in eugenics were ignored by a victorious generation that refused to link itself to the crimes of Nazism and by succeeding generations that never knew the truth of the years leading up to war. Now governors of five states, including California have issued public apologies to their citizens, past and present, for sterilization and other abuses spawned by the eugenics movement.

Human genetics became an enlightened endeavor in the late twentieth century. Hard-working, devoted scientists finally cracked the human code through the Human Genome Project. Now, every individual can be biologically identified and classified by trait and ancestry. Yet even now, some leading voices in the genetic world are calling for a cleansing of the unwanted among us, and even a master human species.

There is understandable wariness about more ordinary forms of abuse, for example, in denying insurance or employment based on genetic tests. On October 14, America's first genetic anti-discrimination legislation passed the Senate by unanimous vote. Yet because genetics research is global, no single nation's law can stop the threats.

This article was first published in the San Francisco Chronicle and is reprinted with permission of the author.

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The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics | History ...

Provided by The LA Times President Trump speaks at a campaign rally Sept. 18 in Bemidji, Minn., where he made remarks espousing eugenics. (Associated Press)

Politicians often flatter their audiences, but at a rally in Bemidji, Minn., last month, President Trump found an unusual thing to praise about the nearly all-white crowd: its genetics. You have good genes, he insisted. A lot of it is about the genes, isnt it, dont you believe? The racehorse theory. You have good genes in Minnesota.

In case it was not clear from the sea of white faces that he was making a point about race, Trump later said the quiet part out loud. Every family in Minnesota needs to know about Sleepy Joe Bidens extreme plan to flood your state with an influx of refugees from Somalia, from other places all over the planet, he declared.

Trumps ugly endorsement of race-based eugenics got national attention, but in a presidency filled with outrages, our focus quickly moved to the next. Besides, this wasnt the first time wed heard about these views. A "Frontline" documentary reported in 2016 that Trump believed the racehorse theory of human development that he referred to in Minnesota that superior men and women will have superior children. That same year, the Huffington Post released a video collecting Trumps statements on human genetics, including his declarations that Im a gene believer and Im proud to have that German blood.

On eugenics, as in so many areas, the scariest thing about Trumps views is not the fact that he holds them, but that there is no shortage of Americans who share them. The United States has a long, dark history with eugenics. Starting in 1907, a majority of states passed laws authorizing the sterilization of people deemed to have undesirable genes, for reasons as varied as feeblemindedness and alcoholism. The Supreme Court upheld these laws by an 8-1 vote, in the infamous 1927 case Buck vs. Bell, and as many as 70,000 Americans were sterilized for eugenic reasons in the 20th century.

Americas passion for eugenics waned after World War II, when Nazism discredited the idea of dividing people based on the quality of their genes. But in recent years, public support for eugenics has made a comeback. Steve King, a Republican congressman from Iowa, tweeted in 2017, We cant restore our civilization with somebody elses babies. The comment struck many as a claim that American children were genetically superior, though King later insisted he was concerned with the culture, not the blood of foreign babies.

Eugenics has also had a resurgence in England, where the movement was first launched in the 1880s by Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin. In February, Andrew Sabisky, an advisor to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, resigned after it was revealed that he had reportedly written blog posts suggesting that there are genetic differences in intelligence among races, and that compulsory contraception could be used to prevent the rise of a permanent underclass. Richard Dawkins, one of Britains most prominent scientists, added fuel to the fire by tweeting that although eugenics could be criticized on moral or ideological grounds, of course it would work in practice. Eugenics works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs & roses, he said. Why on earth wouldnt it work for humans?

There is reason to believe the eugenics movement will continue to grow. Americas first embrace of it came at a time when immigration levels were high, and it was closely tied to fears that genetically inferior foreigners were hurting the nations gene pool. Eugenicists persuaded Congress to pass the Immigration Act of 1924, which sharply reduced the number of Italian, Jewish and Asian people allowed in.

Today, the percentage of Americans who were born outside the United States is the highest it has been since 1910, and fear of immigrants is again an animating force in politics. As our nation continues to become more diverse, the sort of xenophobia that fueled Trump's and Kings comments is likely to produce more talk of better genes and babies.

It is critically important to push back against these toxic ideas. One way to do this is by ensuring that people who promote eugenics are denounced and kept out of positions of power. It is encouraging that Sabisky was forced out and that King was defeated for reelection in his Republican primary in June. Hopefully, Trump will be the next to go.

Education, including an honest reckoning with our own tragic eugenics history, is another form of resistance. It is starting to happen: Stanford University just announced that it is removing the name of its first president, David Starr Jordan, a leading eugenicist, from campus buildings, and that it will actively work to better explain his legacy. We need more of this kind of self-scrutiny from universities like Harvard, Yale and many others that promoted eugenics and pseudo race science, as well as institutions like the American Museum of Natural History, which in 1921 hosted the Second International Eugenics Congress, at which eugenicists advocated for eliminating the unfit.

Trumps appalling remarks in Minnesota show how serious the situation is now. Seventy-five years after the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, a United States president not only spoke about good genes in racialized terms he believed that his observations would help him to win in the relatively liberal state of Minnesota. It is crucial that everyone who understands the horrors of eugenics works to defeat these views before they become any more popular.

Adam Cohen, a former member of the New York Times editorial board, is the author of "Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck" and, this year, "Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Courts Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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Op-Ed: Eugenics is making a comeback. Resist, before ...

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Organizers and supporters of an online petition are aiming to change the name of Dight Avenue in Minneapolis, which is named after a eugenicist.

The petition on Change.org had reached more than 300 signatures as of Tuesday morning, with a goal of 500. It states that the street name is harmful to people with disabilities and asks Mayor Jacob Frey and the Minneapolis City Council to change it.The street runs parallel to Hiawatha Avenue in the Howe neighborhood.

Dight Avenue is named after Charles Fremont Dight, who is described by the Minnesota Historical Society's MNopedia as "Minnesotas most avid and consistent supporter of eugenics." Heworked as a University of Minnesota professor and was elected to the Minneapolis City Council in 1914, all while leading a "crusade" to bring eugenics to the state.

As the Gale Family Library explains:

"Dight organized the Minnesota Eugenics Society in 1923 and began campaigning for a sterilization law. In 1925 the Minnesota legislature passed a law allowing the sterilization of the 'feebleminded' and insane who were resident in the state's institutions. For the next several legislative sessions Dight fought unsuccessfully for expansion of the law to include sterilization of the 'unfit' who lived outside of institutions."

In 1933, he wrote a letter to German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, in which he voiced support for Hitlers intentions to stamp out mental inferiority in Germany. Hitler responded, thanking Dight and inviting him to a lecture in Munich, MNopedia says.

Dight died in 1938.

Dight not only founded the Minnesota Eugenics society but actively pursued the same type of eugenics as Nazi scientists such as Josef Mengele, the Change.org petition reads. This sort of legacy should not be recognized or lauded anywhere.

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Petition asks to rename Minneapolis street named after eugenicist who praised Hitler - Bring Me The News

To the editor:

Prenatal screening has nearly eliminated Down syndrome in Iceland. A few other countries are following suit. In the United Kingdom, it has been reported that up to 90% of those who test positive for DS terminate the pregnancy.

Embryo selection and alteration resulting from in vitro fertilization may soon go far beyond optimizing chances for a successful pregnancy. Advanced gene-editing techniques, known by the acronym CRISPR, have implications not restricted to the reduction of disease.

It brings us closer to being able to choose desirable traits such as approximate height, eye color and even skin tone. Altering the DNA of embryos to our liking might be inevitable as advances in human gene manipulation grow exponentially.

As we set about renaming buildings and streets due to the abhorrent beliefs of a past university president, we might also take a hard look at what going on in the present day. It looks an awful lot like eugenics although, I believe its been renamed.

Scott Thompson

Bloomington

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Letter: A rose by any other name ... - The Herald-Times

Here is a list of noteworthy films scheduled this summer. Release dates and platform are subject to change and reflect the latest information as of deadline.

CHANGING THE GAME (on Hulu) This documentary profiles three transgender athletes and their high school sports careers, with a particular focus on Mack Beggs, a transgender man who as a teenager wanted to compete in boys wrestling but, because of a rule in Texas, could only wrestle against girls.

ALL LIGHT, EVERYWHERE (in theaters) The biases of surveillance by the eye, by police body cameras and in the composite photography of the eugenics proponent Francis Galton, for example are the subject of this haunting, wide-ranging essay film from the Baltimore experimental director Theo Anthony (Rat Film). It won a special jury prize at Sundance.

THE ANCIENT WOODS (in theaters) The biologist and filmmaker Mindaugas Survila investigates the floral and faunal mysteries of a mostly untouched forest in Lithuania. Film Forum says the movie, poised between nature documentary and folklore, is suitable for children whose attention spans have not been destroyed by technology.

BAD TALES (in virtual cinemas) This Italian feature, winner of best screenplay at the Berlin International Film Festival last year, pulls back the facade of family life in a seemingly idyllic Rome suburb.

THE CARNIVORES (in theaters and on demand) The illness of a dog triggers the unraveling of a couple (Lindsay Burdge and Tallie Medel). The trailer promises ample servings of the dark and the grotesque.

CITY OF ALI (in virtual cinemas) Other documentaries have captured the highlights of Muhammad Alis career, but City of Ali deals specifically with his life in Louisville, Ky., where he was born and raised.

THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT (in theaters and on HBO Max) Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) return for whats either the third or the eighth Conjuring movie. (Spinoffs like Annabelle and The Nun only sort of count.) This one involves the case of Arne Cheyenne Johnson (Ruairi OConnor), who was convicted of manslaughter but who some believe was possessed. Michael Chaves (who directed another spinoff, The Curse of La Llorona) assumes the helm from the Conjuring director James Wan.

THE REAL THING (in virtual cinemas) Koji Fukada (the Cannes prizewinner Harmonium) directed this four-hour feature, based on a manga and condensed from a 10-episode series, about a toy seller who rescues a woman from being hit by a train and gets a whirlwind of adventure as his reward.

SLOW MACHINE (in virtual cinemas) In a fractured narrative, Stephanie Hayes plays an actress who has a series of bizarre encounters with a man who identifies himself as a New York City police intelligence specialist. The movie was shown in an experimental section of last years New York Film Festival.

SPIRIT UNTAMED (in theaters) The daughter (voiced by Isabela Merced) of a legendary horse rider (voiced by Eiza Gonzlez) hops into her mothers saddle in this computer-animated feature. Julianne Moore, Jake Gyllenhaal and Andre Braugher round out the vocal cast.

UNDINE (in theaters and on demand) Interweaving mythology and the history of modern Berlin, the German director Christian Petzold reunites the stars of his acclaimed Transit for a love story of sorts between a recently spurned tour guide (Paula Beer) and a diver (Franz Rogowski) who repairs bridges. What the film means is as slippery as the protagonists, who get soaked when a fish tank explodes during their meet-cute and are continually drawn to water.

THE AMUSEMENT PARK (on Shudder) In one of the stranger collaborations in cinema history, George A. Romero, just a few years removed from Night of the Living Dead, accepted an assignment from the Lutheran Service Society of Western Pennsylvania to make a film about the mistreatment of the elderly. True to form, he turned it into a horror movie. Made in the early 1970s and rarely shown until the recent arrival of a restored version in 2020, it will be widely available for the first time.

AWAKE (on Netflix) A cataclysm knocks out Earths power grids and gives the worlds population insomnia; the collective exhaustion leads to Purge-like conditions. Gina Rodriguez plays a former soldier whose daughter is somehow immune to the sleeplessness, but harnessing the cure isnt as simple as giving everyone valerian tea. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Frances Fisher co-star.

TRAGIC JUNGLE (on Netflix) Yulene Olaizola directed this 1920s-set magical-realist feature, shown at the Venice and New York film festivals last year. It centers on a fleeing woman (Indira Andrewin) who finds herself in the company of gum workers in the Mayan rainforest.

THE WOMAN WHO RAN (in theaters) In the latest film from the prolific South Korean director Hong Sang-soo, a character played by Hongs frequent star Kim Min-hee visits with three friends. There is also an argument with a neighbor about whether its all right to feed stray cats.

ASIA (in theaters) Shira Haas of Unorthodox plays a Russian immigrant in Israel who faces challenges both with her health and her mother (Alena Yiv). Ruthy Pribar directed, and it won the top prize from the body that gives out Israels equivalent of the Academy Awards.

CENSOR (in theaters) Shown at Sundance, this stylized British horror film is set in the 1980s, when what became known as video nasties violent, cheaply made movies available on cassette were all the rage. Niamh Algar plays a censor who does her utmost to protect the public (but maybe wasnt so great at protecting her sister years earlier). Prano Bailey-Bond directed.

DOMINO: BATTLE OF THE BONES (in theaters) No, its not a sequel to Tony Scotts 2005 movie Domino, in which Keira Knightley played a bounty hunter, or one to Brian De Palmas recent film of the same title. Rather, its the story of how a man and his stepgrandson compete in a domino tournament. Baron Davis, the former N.B.A. star, directed and co-wrote.

HOLLER (in theaters and on demand) Jessica Barden plays a promising Ohio student who begins working in scrap-metal yards to keep her family together. Nicole Riegel directed; Pamela Adlon and Gus Halper co-star.

IN THE HEIGHTS (in theaters and on HBO Max) Expected to have been a huge hit in the summer of 2020, now destined to be a return-to-the-movies toe-tapper in 2021, this film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Mirandas best-musical Tony winner the one before Hamilton, that is stars Anthony Ramos (a.k.a. Philip Hamilton) as Usnavi, the bodega owner Miranda played on Broadway. Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) and Miranda also appear. Jon M. Chu, who showed his skill with screen musicals in two of the better Step Up movies, directed from a screenplay by the musicals book writer, Quiara Alegra Hudes.

THE MISFITS (in theaters) Pierce Brosnan, two decades from his turn in the Thomas Crown Affair remake, plays another thief who joins forces with a group to steal gold bars that a businessman (Tim Roth) uses to finance terrorists. Renny Harlin directed.

PETER RABBIT 2: THE RUNAWAY (in theaters) James Corden returns as the voice of Beatrix Potters famous hare, although Glenn Kenny of The Times wrote that the first film, from 2018, dispensed with the sweetness and light and lyricism of the books. Here, Peter ventures out of the garden to make trouble.

SKATER GIRL (on Netflix) Rachel Saanchita Gupta plays a teenager in northwestern India who discovers skateboarding and begins to dream of competing at a championship level.

SUBLET (in theaters) John Benjamin Hickey plays a grieving travel journalist (for The New York Times, no less) who rediscovers his zest for life in Tel Aviv. Eytan Fox directed.

WISH DRAGON (on Netflix) Jimmy Wong provides the voice of a college student and John Cho the voice of a wish-granting dragon in this animated feature, which is set in Shanghai and counts Jackie Chan among its producers.

REVOLUTION RENT (on HBO Max) How does La Bohme transplanted to Alphabet City play when its transplanted to Cuba? This documentary follows Andy Seor Jr., the son of Cuban exiles, as he works to put on an American-produced staging of Rent in that country. Seor directed with Victor Patrick Alvarez.

AN UNKNOWN COMPELLING FORCE (on demand) This documentary delves into the murky matter of what killed nine hikers in the Ural Mountains in 1959. (A study published earlier this year said it was quite possibly an avalanche.)

THE HITMANS WIFES BODYGUARD (in theaters) Samuel L. Jackson is the hit man. Ryan Reynolds is the bodyguard. What more do you want me to say? A.O. Scott wrote of The Hitmans Bodyguard in 2017. Well, Salma Hayek played the hit mans wife in that movie, too, and now theyre all back for a sequel. Antonio Banderas and Morgan Freeman also star.

A CRIME ON THE BAYOU (in theaters) Nancy Buirski (The Rape of Recy Taylor) directs this documentary about Gary Duncan, who was convicted of simple battery in Louisiana after trying to stop a skirmish near an integrated school. The Supreme Court ultimately found that he had a right to a jury trial.

FATHERHOOD (on Netflix) Kevin Hart plays a widower adjusting to life as a single father in this drama directed by Paul Weitz. Its adapted from a book by Matthew Logelin.

LUCA (on Disney+) In Pixars latest, two sea monsters disguise themselves as boys to experience the wonders of the Italian Riviera on land. Jacob Tremblay and Jack Dylan Grazer voice the two main characters; Enrico Casarosa (the Pixar short La Luna) directed.

RISE AGAIN: TULSA AND THE RED SUMMER (on National Geographic and Hulu) This documentary from Dawn Porter (John Lewis: Good Trouble) looks at the 1921 massacre in Tulsa when white residents destroyed what was known as Black Wall Street.

RITA MORENO: JUST A GIRL WHO DECIDED TO GO FOR IT (in theaters) The EGOT-winning actress revisits her career, recounting her experiences with discrimination in Hollywood, her breakthrough role in West Side Story and more. Mariem Prez Riera directed.

SIBERIA (in theaters and on demand) The idea of Abel Ferrara directing Willem Dafoe as a bartender in Siberia will be irresistible to fans of a certain brand of uncompromising cinema. In an interview, Ferrara described it as an odyssey movie.

THE SPARKS BROTHERS (in theaters) Edgar Wright directed what feels like the definitive portrait of the band Sparks, a.k.a. the brothers Ron and Russell Mael, who straddle an almost imperceptibly thin line between the comic and the earnest and whose most consistent trait over 50 years has been their interest in reinventing their sound. Their first movie musical, Annette (Aug. 6), also comes out this summer.

SUMMER OF 85 (in theaters) Franois Ozon directed this tale of young summer romance, which was selected for the canceled Cannes Film Festival last year. A boy (Flix Lefebvre) is saved from a boating accident and then taught worldly ways by his rescuer (Benjamin Voisin).

SWEAT (in theaters) Another selection from the Cannes-that-wasnt, this Polish feature from Magnus von Horn stars Magdalena Kolesnik as a fitness influencer who faces the burdens of being extremely online.

SWEET THING (in theaters) Alexandre Rockwell, a mainstay of American independent filmmaking in the 1990s with films like In the Soup, directs his children in a coming-of-age film about a long and fantastical day.

TRUMAN & TENNESSEE: AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION (in theaters and virtual cinemas) The documentarian Lisa Immordino Vreeland puts Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams in an artistic dialogue with each other. Jim Parsons reads Capotes words in voice-over and Zachary Quinto reads Williamss.

12 MIGHTY ORPHANS (in theaters) Luke Wilson, Vinessa Shaw and Martin Sheen star in this true story of a how an orphanages football team went to compete for championships in Texas during the Great Depression.

SISTERS ON TRACK (on Netflix) Three sisters Tai, Rainn and Brooke Sheppard raised in tough circumstances in Brooklyn won medals in the Junior Olympics and were declared SportsKids of the Year for 2016 by the childrens edition of Sports Illustrated. This documentary tells their story, on the track and off.

AGAINST THE CURRENT (in theaters) No, its not a Great Gatsby spinoff. Its a documentary about Veiga Gretarsdottir, a transgender kayaker who sets out to circumnavigate Iceland in the more difficult counterclockwise direction.

F9 (in theaters) Just when Dom (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) thought they had settled into a quiet family life, Doms brother (John Cena) who is every bit the driver Dom is, and also an assassin turns up to settle scores. Justin Lin directed.

FALSE POSITIVE (on Hulu) Ilana Glazer and Justin Theroux play a couple trying to get pregnant who discover that their doctor (Pierce Brosnan) has a dark side.

I CARRY YOU WITH ME (in theaters) The documentarian Heidi Ewing (Detropia) turns to dramatized filmmaking, though not entirely (to say more would be a spoiler), with this story of the love between two Mexican men (Armando Espitia and Christian Vzquez) and how their bond endures after one, with his eye on working as a chef, crosses into the United States.

THE ICE ROAD (on Netflix) Liam Neeson plays a badass big-rig driver trying to rescue entombed miners in the frozen reaches of Canada.

KENNY SCHARF: WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (in theaters and on demand) Malia Scharf, with Max Basch, directed this look at her father, who emerged from the East Village art world of the 1980s.

WEREWOLVES WITHIN (in theaters) Holed up in a snowstorm, the residents of a small town must contend with lycanthropy. Josh Ruben directed; Milana Vayntrub and Sam Richardson star.

WOLFGANG (on Disney+) Not Amadeus Mozart, but Puck. David Gelb (Jiro Dreams of Sushi) directed this portrait of the celebrity chefs career.

AMERICA: THE MOTION PICTURE (on Netflix) With the voice of Channing Tatum as a chainsaw-wielding George Washington, this irreverent animated feature makes a travesty of key figures of the American Revolution. Jason Mantzoukas and Olivia Munn also supply voices. Matt Thompson directed.

LYDIA LUNCH THE WAR IS NEVER OVER (in theaters and virtual cinemas) The New York underground filmmaker Beth B directed this portrait of another figure from the scene, the No Wave singer Lydia Lunch.

ZOLA (in theaters) A tale originally told in a viral 148-tweet thread (and then in a Rolling Stone article about the thread) is now a major motion picture, directed by Janicza Bravo (Lemon) and written by Bravo and the playwright Jeremy O. Harris (Slave Play). Taylour Paige stars as a waitress and occasional stripper who is taken on a wild trip to Florida by another stripper (Riley Keough). Colman Domingo also stars.

NO SUDDEN MOVE (on HBO Max) The pandemic hasnt slowed down Steven Soderbergh. His latest feature is a crime thriller starring Don Cheadle as an ex-con who plots a convoluted scheme that goes awry. Benicio Del Toro, Ray Liotta, Jon Hamm and Amy Seimetz are among the many familiar faces populating Detroit in 1954, when the film is set.

BEING A HUMAN PERSON (in theaters) The Swedish commercial director turned deadpan filmmaker Roy Andersson is the subject of this documentary, which follows the making of his latest movie, About Endlessness, which opened in April.

FEAR STREET (on Netflix) R.L. Stines Fear Street books have become three feature films set in 1994, 1978 and 1666, respectively that will be released on a weekly basis starting July 2. Stine has said that the content wont be toned down for children. Leigh Janiak directed all three movies, and cast members recur throughout.

FIRST DATE (in theaters and on demand) Tyson Brown plays a teenager who takes his dream girl (Shelby Duclos) on a misadventure-filled outing in a dilapidated Chrysler.

THE FOREVER PURGE (in theaters) In the Purge franchise, murder is made legal for one day a year. This fifth film in the series dares to ask, what if it were more than one day? Judging from the trailer, you should also count on commentary on United States-Mexico border politics.

SUMMER OF SOUL ( OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED) (in theaters and on Hulu) In his first feature documentary as director, Questlove assembles joyous archival footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of concerts that developed a reputation as the Black Woodstock. The film features electrifying performances from Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Ray Barretto and more.

TILL DEATH (in theaters and on demand) The Jennifers Body star Megan Fox plays a woman who wakes up handcuffed to her husbands corpse in this thriller.

THE TOMORROW WAR (on Amazon). Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski and J.K. Simmons are all tapped for a war effort against aliens that wont happen until 30 years in the future. Time travel makes this possible.

BLACK WIDOW (in theaters and on Disney+) The Marvel universe continues to swallow promising actors by casting Midsommar and Little Women standout Florence Pugh as Yelena, who is brought together as a family with Scarlett Johanssons Black Widow. The Australian filmmaker Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome) directed.

SUMMERTIME (in theaters) Carlos Lpez Estrada (Blindspotting) directed this vibrant panorama of life in Los Angeles. Its like a musical, but instead of bursting into song, the characters share their emotions in poetry, written by the cast members, who are poets.

THE WITCHES OF THE ORIENT (in theaters) Julien Faraut, an archivist whose documentary John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection posed intriguing parallels between tennis and cinema, recounts how textile workers in Japan became an internationally celebrated volleyball team.

CAN YOU BRING IT: BILL T. JONES AND D-MAN IN THE WATERS (in theaters and virtual cinemas) The dancer Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz direct a portrait of the choreographer as LeBlanc oversees a production of his 1989 work D-Man in the Waters, which addressed the AIDS epidemic in dance.

ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS (in theaters) Taylor Russell and Logan Miller, who played escapees in the first Escape Room (2019), find themselves ensnared again.

ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN (in theaters) Morgan Neville (Wont You Be My Neighbor) directed this portrait of the Kitchen Confidential chef, who died in 2018.

SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY (in theaters and on HBO Max) In 1996, Michael Jordan joined the Looney Tunes on the basketball court. This time its LeBron James who assembles Bugs and the gang for a hybrid live-action/animated round of hoops, with a lot of other Warner Bros. intellectual property filling out the sidelines. Malcolm D. Lee directed.

AILEY (in theaters and on demand) Using archival footage and its subjects words, the director Jamila Wignots documentary recounts the career of the dancer-choreographer Alvin Ailey (1931-89).

EYIMOFE (THIS IS MY DESIRE) (in theaters) The siblings Arie and Chuko Esiri directed this film set in Lagos, Nigeria, about two people separately trying to leave for Europe.

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA: TRANSFORMANIA (in theaters) The transformation in this fourth feature of the animated franchise happens when a monsterfication ray turns humans into monsters and monsters into humans. But theres a behind-the-scenes transformation, too: Draculas vocal cords arent supplied by Adam Sandler this time, but by Brian Hull.

THE LAST LETTER FROM YOUR LOVER (on Netflix). In this summers addition to the tear-jerker sweepstakes, Felicity Jones plays a journalist who uncovers an affair from the 1960s between another journalist (Callum Turner) and a married woman (Shailene Woodley).

MANDIBLES (in theaters and on demand) The French absurdist and electronic musician Quentin Dupieux (Deerskin) serves up another deadpan oddity, about two friends trying to train a giant fly.

OLD (in theaters) It wouldnt be an M. Night Shyamalan film if the premise werent shrouded in mystery, but judging from the Super Bowl trailer, it stars Gael Garca Bernal and Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread) as parents vacationing with their family on a beach that magically turns their children old.

SNAKE EYES: G.I. JOE ORIGINS (in theaters) Based on the line of action figures, this franchise adds to its collection by giving an origin story to Snake Eyes, played by Ray Park in earlier movies and now embodied during his ninja-training phase by Henry Golding.

RESORT TO LOVE (on Netflix). Christina Milian plays a singer who aspires to superstardom but is reduced to performing at her exs wedding.

ENEMIES OF THE STATE (in theaters and on demand) Executive produced by Errol Morris, this documentary, directed by Sonia Kennebeck, unravels the case of Matt DeHart, a hacktivist who sought refuge in Canada and claimed the F.B.I. had tortured him.

THE GREEN KNIGHT (in theaters) Dev Patel has a seat at the round table as Gawain, the nephew of King Arthur, in the director David Lowerys quest to revive the Arthurian legend onscreen. Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton and Sarita Choudhury also star.

JUNGLE CRUISE (in theaters and on Disney+) In 1916, a British researcher (Emily Blunt) travels to South America and hires a roguish, Bogartian skipper (Dwayne Johnson) as her guide through the Amazon. Its based on a ride at Disneyland, and indirectly on a long lineage of Hollywood adventure films. Edgar Ramrez, Jesse Plemons and Paul Giamatti co-star. Jaume Collet-Serra directed.

THE LAST MERCENARY (on Netflix) French authorities falsely allege that a young man has been trafficking arms and drugs. Unfortunately for them, his father is played by Jean-Claude Van Damme.

NINE DAYS (in theaters) Winston Duke plays an interrogator at a way station of sorts, where he interviews people actually unborn souls some of whom will earn the right to be born as humans. Zazie Beetz plays an interviewee who confounds him. Edson Oda wrote and directed.

SABAYA (in theaters and on demand) This documentary trails intrepid volunteer workers in Syria who extract women and girls held captive as sex slaves by the Islamic State.

STILLWATER Tom McCarthy (Spotlight) directed Matt Damon as an American oil-rig worker whose daughter (Abigail Breslin) is imprisoned for murder in Marseille, France. She says she is innocent; he scrambles to help her.

ANNETTE (in theaters) While Edgar Wrights documentary about the band Sparks (June 18) covers the cinephile musicians history of movie projects that never came to fruition, this feature film gives them their chance: They wrote the screenplay, the songs and the score for this love story, and Leos Carax (Holy Motors) directed. Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard star.

EMA (in theaters) The Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larran directs this story of a dancer (Mariana Di Girolamo) and a choreographer (Gael Garca Bernal) whose lives are thrown out of whack after they return the boy they adopted.

JOHN AND THE HOLE (in theaters and on demand) At the age of 13, John (Charlie Shotwell) gains a measure of adult independence by drugging his immediate family (Jennifer Ehle, Michael C. Hall and Taissa Farmiga) and imprisoning them in a bunker. Pascual Sisto directed this detached, chilly open-ended allegory.

THE MACALUSO SISTERS (in theaters) The Italian playwright and theater director Emma Dante directed this story of five orphan sisters in living in Palermo. She adapted it from her play.

THE SUICIDE SQUAD (in theaters and on HBO Max) If it doesnt work the first time, add a definite article. Poised somewhere between a reboot of and a sequel to Suicide Squad (2016), the movie sets several DC characters, including Margot Robbies Harley Quinn, loose on a jungle island. James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) wrote and directed. With Idris Elba, John Cena, Sylvester Stallone and Viola Davis.

THE KISSING BOOTH 3 (on Netflix) This entry in the series finds Elle (Joey King) getting ready for college.

CODA (in theaters and on Apple TV+) A crowd-pleaser (and awards-grabber, with four prizes) at this years Sundance Film Festival, the movie tells the story of a child of deaf adults (Emilia Jones) in a working-class Massachusetts fishing family. She wants to sing, a passion that is alien to her non-hearing parents (Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur) and brother (Daniel Durant). Sian Heder directed this remake of a French film.

DAYS (in theaters) A highlight of last years New York Film Festival, the director Tsai Ming-liangs feature follows two men one in Taipei, then Hong Kong (the Tsai regular Lee Kang-sheng); the other in Bangkok (Anong Houngheuangsy) who in the second half meet, and for a little while are not alone.

DONT BREATHE 2 (in theaters) In the first Dont Breathe (2016), Stephen Lang played a blind veteran whose dark secrets were among that home-invasion tales surprises. Theres more on those in this sequel. Rodo Sayagues directed, co-writing with Fede Alvarez, who directed the original.

FREE GUY (in theaters) Ryan Reynolds plays a bank teller who finds out, Truman Show-like, that he is actually a background character in a video game. Shawn Levy directed. Jodie Comer and Lil Rel Howery also star.

THE MEANING OF HITLER (in theaters and on demand) The documentarians Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker examine the rise of Nazi Germany and draw parallels with the rumblings of authoritarianism across the globe today.

THE LOST LEONARDO (in theaters) Andreas Koefoeds documentary investigates the dealings that surround Salvator Mundi, the most expensive painting ever sold at auction, when in 2017 it was billed as a lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Unsurprisingly, not everyone agrees.

RESPECT (in theaters) Find out what it means to her: Jennifer Hudson plays Aretha Franklin in this biopic of the Queen of Soul, directed by the theater vet Liesl Tommy. With Mary J. Blige as Dinah Washington, Audra McDonald as Franklins mother and Forest Whitaker as Franklins father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin.

CRYPTOZOO (in theaters and on demand) Its really more of a cryptid zoo, a cryptid being an animal that is the subject of lore but does not actually exist, like the dream-eating creature that everyone is after in this movie. Its an animated film, from the graphic novelist Dash Shaw. Lake Bell, Michael Cera, Louisa Krause and Thomas Jay Ryan provided some of the voices.

THE NIGHT HOUSE (in theaters) Rebecca Hall plays a widow who discovers that her husband had a thing for women who looked quite a bit like her, one of whom is played by Stacy Martin. What was he up to? David Bruckner directed, with an appetite for jump scares.

PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE (in theaters) The techno-fitted animated canines of the childrens TV series make the leap to the big screen.

THE PROTG (in theaters) This is the second movie of the summer in which Samuel L. Jackson plays a hit man (after The Hitmans Bodyguards Wife) except that this one concerns the hit mans daughter (Maggie Q), or at least the woman he raised like a daughter, a hit woman herself, who seeks revenge after he is murdered. Michael Keaton co-stars, also playing a killer. Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) directed.

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Summer Movies 2021: Heres Whats Coming to the Big (and Small) Screen - The New York Times

We need to talk about the disproportionate rate of miscarriages and stillbirth among black women I trust healthcare individuals but not the healthcare service.

This quote from a focus group participant, conducted by Cambridge academic Dr. Kenny Monrose for the Black British Voices Project, illustrates the broken relationship between the healthcare service and the black community. A 2018 study found that black women were five times more likely to die in childbirth than their white counterparts.

These figures for many may come as a shock, but for black communities across the UK, this is unsurprising and represents just one element of a longstanding, complex history of medical racism and misogynoir.

(Misogynoir is the dislike of, contempt for or ingrained prejudice against black women, according to the Google dictionary)

Dating back generations, and with origins in eugenics, scientific racism and slavery, black women have persistently had their pain and suffering questioned by medical professionals.

Eugenics is the study of how to make humans reproduce to maximise characteristics judged desirable.It was widely discredited as racist during the 20th century according to Oxford languages.

These professionals make assumptions about our capacity for endurance and resilience. The strong black woman trope is terrifying and familiar to us all. In every room we enter, we change ourselves to satisfy the white male gaze. We smile, let others walk in before us, and nod along when spoken to.

This performance of acceptable femininity, has been drilled into us as necessary for our survival because if we are seen as aggressive and intimidating, we will also be seen as unworthy of care.

Ultimately, this shape-shifting does not help us. The wise words of Audre Lorde remind us that silence will not protect us. We cannot separate our blackness from our womanhood.

We will always be seen as intimidating, because that is how we have been historically and socially constructed to appear. It is not the job of black mothers to convince medical professionals that they are truly in pain, whether that be mental or physical. When womens issues such as reproductive or gynaecological health are dismissed by medical professionals, it is not difficult to imagine how negatively this can impact health outcomes for black women, who face discrimination due to their race and gender.

Healthcare, like many other institutions, represents yet another area where black women are not protected and are expected to make do. We are not given the same levels of care and protection that many white women receive. While white motherhood is praised, black mothers are expected to fail. They also have to deal with stereotypes such as the missing black father.

Just think about how differently the media spoke about Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle holding their baby bumps. In two Daily Mail articles (2018, 2019), Middleton was described as tenderly and protective. In contrast, Markle was criticised for virtue signalling and accused of being unsympathetic to people who didnt have children.

Although the idea of representation is being criticised as an empty buzzword, and a tick box exercise for businesses that want to seem woke, it does have consequences for communities like ours.

Stereotypical images, such as that of the mammy who cares for white children, overshadows how diverse and complex black womens experiences can be.

In the media, black women are stigmatised. At the same time, the idea that we only exist to care for and cater to whiteness persists.

Black single mothers are demonised as overly sexual. They are blamed for issues such as youth violence and educational underachievement. Supposedly depriving their sons of male role models, the black single mother is marked out as dangerously subverting the idea of the perfect nuclear family.

What we dont see in the media are the unique challenges black mothers face in creating joy for children while balancing the emotional work of preparing them for a world that was not designed for them. White parents may encourage colour-blindness and assume that discussing race with their children is unnecessary, but not having to think about race during childhood is a luxury that black communities dont have.

When black parents remind black children about their behaviour, they are not simply disciplining them. They are trying to teach their children to navigate a world where blackness is demonised and devalued. The freedom of childhood is an experience that black children do not have equal access to. Their innocence is often interrupted by racism in everyday life. While motherhood is a complex journey for all, the particular burdens shouldered by black women to keep children safe must be explored.

On days like International Womens Day, the media becomes saturated with images of female empowerment which cater to a very specific category of woman: the white, middle-class girlboss. Clawing her way to the top and smashing the glass ceiling (all with a child perched on her hip), the white middle-class girlboss is seen as the epitome of female success. Girlboss narratives praise the white middle-class woman who is able to blend motherhood seamlessly with career achievement, but often neglect the ways whiteness makes these doors easier to open.

Black mothers, in contrast, do not only face a gendered glass ceiling, but must also navigate a world of work where aspects of their racial and cultural identity, such as hair and dialect, are seen as unprofessional.

Ignoring these intersectional barriers, girlboss feminism suggests that poor and working-class black mothers are to blame for the difficulties they face. Our society accepts the myth of meritocracy and assumes they havent worked hard enough.

In a meritocracy, people are in positions of power because they have earned it.

The goal should not be for black mothers to blend into a corporate world which is built on, and continues the capitalist, colonial structure.

Instead, the position of black mothers should serve as a catalyst for a radical re-imagining of what female empowerment could mean. What does feminist liberation look like beyond the limits of the patriarchal, imperialist and capitalist structures of the corporate world?

The issues that black women and children face are complex. Black communities continue to work towards solutions. The impactful work of women like Candice Brathwaite who fights to Make Motherhood Diverse is an example that comes to mind.

However, the British press treatment of Meghan Markle after she opened up about her struggles with mental illness reminds us just how far we have to go. If this is how a lighter-skinned, privileged woman married into the royal family is treated, how would they treat a darker-skinned working class woman?

As black women watching this unfold, we hold our breath and wonder when there will be a turning point? When will people decide to listen? Momentary shock and outrage will not save black women only structural change and action will.

Aisling Gilgeours is a postgraduate student in Marginality & Exclusion within the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge.

Maya McFarlane is an undergraduate student in Human, Social & Political Sciences at the University of Cambridge. She is also the Womens and Non-Binary officer for the Cambridge SU BME Campaign.

The rest is here:

Black British Voices: Black women, mothers and children remain unprotected - The Voice Online