Thursday, June 23, 2011

Eugenics, The Pledge, And The Worst Mother Of The Year.

I figured that I would set politics aside for today's post to talk about a some strange news coming out of North Carolina, California, and... where ever the hell NBC is based (New York?).  All three stories are, quite frankly, very disturbing, and I want to give everyone reading this a heads up - the California one may make you doubt humanity more so than you probably already do.  The other two will really solidify that doubt.  I'm sure of it.

Oh, South Carolina.  I'll miss making fun of you.  Please send us
more gems like this one...


For once, South Carolina can feel embarrassed by its northern less-hick counterpart.  In 1933, North Carolina became one of a few other states where eugenics was practiced, specifically targeting low income females.  For those of you that don't know, eugenics is the practice of sterilization to rid the targeted species of "unfit" characteristics.  Let me just toss a few key words back out at you:  "sterilization"; "unfit characteristics"; "targeting low income females."

Social workers for the state would pressure parents into sterilizing their sons and daughters - a practice that all other states with eugenic laws swept under the rug shortly after World War II.  Why?  Because a lot of evidence (and I mean an overwhelming amount of evidence) showed that Hitler's Third Reich pursued eugenics in an attempt to create their pure, Aryan race.  But that didn't stop North Carolina!  Nazis be damned!



Sterilization continued until 1977, peaking between the 1950-1960.  While this whole entire debacle is reprehensible, the good thing is that North Carolina is debating on how to compensate the victims.  The other states only apologized.

NBC, meanwhile, is catching some flak for editing out "under God, indivisible" two times when children recited it for some golf thing last weekend.  I don't know all the details, mostly because I fall asleep whenever someone mentions golf.  It's one of the reasons why I'm so surprised that this is causing such an uproar.  I mean, who watches golf?

"Wait, really?  People were actually paying attention
to our golf broadcast?  Well, damn."


So while NBC apologized profusely for editing the phrase out, the anti-same sex marriage, anti-abortion group known as the "Family Research Council" (which probably does little research on anything) demands that "NBC... remedy this abuse by airing a series of [PSAs] with the entire Pledge of Allegiance".  President Tony Perkins of the FRC didn't stop there.  He said that, in addition to the daily PSA, he would like to see NBC produce a program explaining the history of the pledge and why "under God" was inserted into it.  

My stance is thus:  I stopped saying the pledge around middle school.  Maybe it was a rebellious teen thing, I don't know.  As someone who isn't the least bit religious, I'll admit that the phrase "under God" never stood out or bothered me.  I just chose not to say the pledge as a whole, and wondered why a group of people were making such a fuss about three words of it.  To me, the whole idea of the pledge was, and is, completely outdated.  I don't think we should be afraid of "the Commies" anymore (or ever, really), nor do I think that we can spot non-patriots with it.  If you don't like it, don't say it.  It's that simple.  I stopped saying it under my own free will, and I was only thirteen.  Why NBC edited the phrase out is beyond me.  But the unbelievable overreaction from the FRC is, in my mind, the reason why this story blew my mind.  For fuck's sake, who would watch a documentary about the history of the pledge?!

Finally, the story straight out of a Stephen King novel.  A mother of four in California decided to knock that number down to three back in March.  In a case of "I'm more creative than any snapped mother on planet Earth", it took the police three months to figure out just how Ka Yang's six week old baby girl was murdered.  Fourth degree burns on a child - rare and brutal injuries that have only been seen in three other states - is definitely a mysterious way for a six week old baby to go.


But hey, that's just my interpretation.  I'm sure people put their own babies into microwaves all the fucking time.  Just when I think humans have done it all, someone goes and does something like this.  Maybe California state should've stopped 29 year old Ka Yang at her second goddamn child?

And the mother of the year award goes to... 
not Ka Yang...



2 comments:

Hannah K said...

The mother just looks like she's right out of a horror movie.

My dad and I have talked about the eugenics thing...Pretty messed up. Ever heard of the Tuskegee Experiment?

A Sane Break said...

Yeah, the Tuskegee Experiment was pretty disgusting. Wanting to see the affects of untreated syphilis is horrifying, but doing so under the blatant lie of trying to help practically rots the soul.