Scan barcode
A review by wmapayne
Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts
3.0
This is a tremendously worthwhile historical review of reproductive injustices directed at marginalized communities, both Black and Indigenous, in the United States. Roberts makes a compelling argument that the dominant forms of reproductive liberation are insufficient to meet the stigma and oppression placed on Black women, and takes the reader through powerful historical and contemporary examples of racialized reproductive injustice.
Unfortunately, Roberts’s prescriptive solutions to these injustices are inadequate. She does not generate a cogent argument for full liberation, instead relying on hackneyed concepts of individual liberty and government beneficence to the oppressed. For such a thoroughly-researched book, it is confusing that Roberts would fall back on political solutions that have already failed many times. This tends to weaken the message of the book.
Unfortunately, Roberts’s prescriptive solutions to these injustices are inadequate. She does not generate a cogent argument for full liberation, instead relying on hackneyed concepts of individual liberty and government beneficence to the oppressed. For such a thoroughly-researched book, it is confusing that Roberts would fall back on political solutions that have already failed many times. This tends to weaken the message of the book.