The Sad And Scary Truth About Reproductive Oppression And Black Women

Photo by Max Böhme on Unsplash

Earlier this month, an old clip of Rashida Jones’ character on Netflix’s #blackAF circulated social media of her referencing Black women being brought to the U.S. to breed babies. The now-viral clip has sparked debate about the accuracy of Jones’s claim during the almost 20-second-long monologue. Despite arguments from critics and skeptics who question her comments, it is well documented that Black women were initially brought to the U.S. to perform various physically laborious tasks among those breeding babies — an act that has since been referred to as reproductive oppression.

During the clip, Jones says that while some may wonder what would happen if shows like The Handmaid’s Tale were true, they need not look far. The storyline of women being used and valued only as vessels to carry and deliver babies was a bitter reality for Black women in America at one time. During slavery, enslaved Black women in the United States were forcibly impregnated and exploited for their reproductive labor. This was a critical component of the slave breeding industry, which was driven by the financial need for slave labor and the dehumanization of enslaved people and is now referred to as reproductive oppression, which social scientists and historians refer to as the regulation, exploitation — and even in some cases, the monetization — of…