IDKMYDE: Eugenics and Elaine Riddick

Today’s episode of IDKMYDE introduces, Medical Apartheid: The dark, twisted history of how Black folks—especially women—became science projects without consent, and why we’re still fighting to be heard in hospitals today.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FM

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On today's episode. If I didn't know, maybe you didn't either.
Let's talk about something crazy you probably didn't hear enough
about in school, eugenics. Now, eugenics sounds like a fancy
science word, right, like, oh, that must be some tech
that Elon Musk is cooking up. But no, it was
a straight up evil plan to decide who was fit

(00:21):
to have babies and who wasn't. Spoiler alert, if you
were black, poor, or disabled, they decided you weren't fit.
I didn't know. Maybe you didn't know. I didn't know.
Maybe I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know.
I didn't know. So back in the day, from like

(00:43):
nineteen twenty nine to nineteen seventy four, white folks was
out here playing god. They sterilized over sixty thousand people
in the United States forcibly, like imagine going to the
doctor and instead of fixing your cough, they're like, yeah,
you're never having kids. You're welcome. Out of the sixty thousand,
North Carolina alone sterilized over seventy six hundred people. And

(01:05):
North Carolina was super nuts because they let social workers,
not doctors, not judges, but social workers decide who should
get sterilized. I mean they sitting there with their notepads,
your poor check, your single check, you back talk to
your teacher in third grade. Yeah, sterilized. And they loved

(01:26):
throwing around this term called feeble minded, Like what even
is that? They called folks feeble minded for being poor
or for not finishing school. One of the most infamous
cases was a black girl named Elaine Riddick. She was
fourteen years old, got pregnant after being raped, and instead
of helping her, the state sterilized her. They called her

(01:47):
feeble minded. It was a legit diagnosis. Cisors just trying
to survive being black and poor in North Carolina. Here's
the kicker. They claimed they were helping society, like sterilizing
people would stop poverty or crime. Nah, fam it just
made them feel powerful while ruining people's lives. Families were destroyed,

(02:07):
the legacies were cut off, and survivors like Elaine Riddick
been fighting for justice ever since. And don't think this
is ancient history. Forced sterilizations are still happening prisons, immigrant
detention centers. Yeah, they didn't tried to find a wrap
around for it. Y'all ain't slick, So let's keep it real.
If you don't know your history, they'll run the same

(02:28):
playbook on us again. And let's all take a moment
to remember Elaine Riddick and all the people who were
brave enough to speak out because one thing's for show
and two things for certain Black folks might be resilient,
but we shouldn't have to bounce back from this. And
I didn't know. Maybe you didn't either. I didn't know.