The term "eugenics" has begun to resurface in national and international newspapers on a daily basis. Whether from journalist / activist Theo Wilson, who unearthed eugenics at the core of white supremacist organizations after posing as a member online, to a Tennessee sheriff who offered inmates sentence reductions if they agreed to reproductive sterilizations (vasectomies or hysterectomies), eugenics has returned to the forefront of American popular culture. Despite the proliferation of both its policies in government, housing, education, and healthcare, and its common use in everyday media, the most Americans remain clueless about what eugenics is, how it functions, and their own utilization of its principles in everyday life.
Wilson, for instance, found that the majority of white supremacists and neo-Nazis believe American Americans to be not just another race of people because of their skin color, but
an entirely different species of animal -- an sub-human species, classified scientifically between an orangutan and a human. Wilson's findings as an infiltrator of these white supremacist organizations feed directly back to scientific and medical theories that would go on to inform government policies, housing , education, and marriage laws, and define a beauty, intellect, and social "fitness." CLICK VIDEO CLIP LEFT FOR THEO WILSON'S TEDTALK.
The Acumen Group, through its Community Lecture Series will begin its 2017 Fall Eugenics Lecture series, October 4. The 6-Week Course, will include lectures on the Scientific, Medical, Social, and Popular uses of eugenics, as well as the advertising images, film, and television models used to promote eugenic ideas. Since 2009, The Acumen Group has been on the cutting edge of up-to-the-minute coverage and analysis of scientific methodologies to isolate genetic "taint" in utero, efforts to pay reparations to survivors of U.S.-sanctioned forced sterilizations of citizens deemed too immoral, poor, socially unfit, or mentally deficient to reproduce, and the restructuring of standardized aptitude tests to disproportionately impact those already most marginalized within society. This course is designed to both inform and engage students -- of all ages and backgrounds, with the overwhelming goal of ensuring the mistakes of the past, made with the best of intentions, namely, creating better citizens, is not repeated.
Join Dr. Shantella Sherman and the Acumen Group team
Thursdays, October 5 - November 9 from 6-9 @
The Thurgood Marshall Center Trust
1816 12th Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20009
Registration is required and may be completed through the Acumen Store. Fees include course and study materials and are non-refundable.