Ross, Loretta J. “The Color of Choice: White Supremacy and Reproductive Justice,” n.d., 1–18. http://www.dc-sds.org/files/The%20Color%20of%20Choice%20--%20Public%20Version%20with%20footnotes-1.pdf.
Annotation
In this article, Loretta Ross of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective explains the relationship between white supremacy and population control. According to Ross, white supremacy is “an interlocking system of racism, patriarchy, homophobia, ultra-nationalism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and religious fundamentalism that creates a complex matrix of oppressions faced by people of color in the U.S” (2). Although white supremacy is thought of as an ideology of the radical right, it is actually part of mainstream society’s ideas, according to Ross. She asserts that both conservative and liberal debates on reproduction encourage white women to have children and discourage women of color from having children. Ross argues that this becomes a way of maintaining power in the hands of white people. Reproductive justice, she says, tries to do two things to change this discrimination. It highlights reproductive rights as critical to women’s human rights, and presents the intersectionalities of the reproductive experience among race, class, and gender.
This article reframes understandings of reproductive rights as human rights. She also highlights the differing experiences with reproductive rights that white women and women of color have. Her discussion covers reproductive rights issues for women of color in the U.S. and elsewhere, especially in the developing world.