The new book by Sara Clarke Kaplan, "The Black Reproductive: Unfree Labor and Insurgent Motherhood," looks at Black freedom and the dismantling of oppressive systems through the lens of Black reproduction and Black feminist theory.
Kaplan is an associate professor of ethnic studies and critical gender studies at the University of California, San Diego. Her writing explores the foundation of ideology and stereotypes around Black reproduction.
"I really argue that from the beginning of this country onward that whether it be slave mothers who were imagined to commit infanticide or welfare queens or hyper-fertile Black women in the South to today's ideas about baby mamas, Black matriarchs or video vixens, that these ideas about Black women's reproduction are part of how we understand race and gender in the U.S. on every level," Kaplan said.
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Kaplan joined Midday Edition to talk about her new book and how a better understanding of U.S. history as it relates to Black women's reproduction can dismantle systems of oppression.
