Eugenics and Race

Eugenics assumed the categorical reality of "races".
Coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883, eugenics aimed to promote "judicious mating."
Galton's eugenics involved:
- Promoting breeding of superior types.
- Checking the birth-rate of the "Unfit."
- Isolation to prevent "degenerates" from having children.
Galton's followers regulated immigration and implemented involuntary sterilization.
Galton proposed a subjective hierarchy of peoples, placing Anglo-Saxons above Africans and Australians but below ancient Athenians.
Galton's views reflected ignorance and racial prejudice, deeming Jews as parasitic.
Galton founded eugenics movement and believed it should be a dominant motive like religious tenets.

Charles Benedict Davenport established the Eugenics Record Office in America in 1910.
Harry Hamilton Laughlin formulated the "model sterilization law."
Involuntary sterilization became common, with approximately 1,000 people sterilized per year for six decades.
Buck v. Bell (1927): Supreme Court upheld involuntary sterilization.
Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

Germany passed its first sterilization law in 1927.
Hitler made sterilization compulsory in 1933, modeled after Laughlin's law.
Germany forcibly sterilized approximately 375,000 people before World War II and 2 million by 1945.
The Rockefeller Foundation supported Nazi "racial" policy by funding the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.
Josef Mengele, a former student, conducted experiments at Auschwitz.
Hitler's Mein Kampf promoted racial purity.
Hitler: "the Jews are not a race but a religion”
Euthanasia, a euphemism for murder, began during the war, targeting the "unfit."
Killing centers were established, and the gas chambers was perfected for extermination.
Extermination camps were set up to annihilate Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs.
Elie Wiesel: there was a lack of written documentation that was an agreed-upon national policy.
Euphemisms were used to describe the “solution”

Post-Civil War, concerns about "race" influenced government policies.
The 14th and 15th Amendments were opposed by advocates of "states' rights."
In 1790, citizenship was restricted to "free white persons."
Civil War: Abraham Lincoln, Civil Rights Act of 1866 overturned the Dred Scott decision
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first legislation using "race" to control immigration.
The immigration Restriction League was formed in Boston and pushed for literacy tests.
National Origins Act of 1924: implemented quotas based on national origin.
After Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans were perceived as the enemy.
Executive Order 9066: Japanese Americans were removed from their homes and placed in "internment" centers.