Feeble-Minded White Trash a full length by
During the 1920s in rural Virginia, Hattie Clawson, an illiterate laundress with two illegitimate children , one of them Black, hasn't heard of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes or his majority opinion in the landmark case Buck vs. Bell. But she will feel the impact of the court's decision when the Commonwealth forces her to undergo an involuntary sterilization, severs her parental...
During the 1920s in rural Virginia, Hattie Clawson, an illiterate laundress with two illegitimate children , one of them Black, hasn't heard of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes or his majority opinion in the landmark case Buck vs. Bell. But she will feel the impact of the court's decision when the Commonwealth forces her to undergo an involuntary sterilization, severs her parental rights and takes her son and daughter away. What will she and her children do to survive in a society preoccupied with race and class? Will the stigma every go away? All told, 33 states had laws that authorized forced sterilization during the 20th century; 65,000 Americans were affected, 85% of them were women. To this day the U.S. Supreme Court has not overturned its decision in this case.