Monday, January 12, 2015

Minnesota Nice?

Minnesota "Home" for the Feeble-minded

In 1925, Minnesota became the 17th state to pass Eugenics legislation into law. These laws were intended to "protect the gene pool" and allowed Minnesota to perform forced sterilizations/ marriage restrictions on those considered/ labeled "feeble-minded", "unfit", "sexual delinquents", "immoral", "inebriants", "crippled", "dirty", "strange looking", "mentally defective", etc.



Over 2,000 documented sterilizations took place in Minnesota (between 1925-1975)...those most often targeted for sterilization were poor, sexually active, disabled, mentally ill and quite often undesirable women/ immigrants/ minorities...to rid society of negative genetic traits.

Dr. Charles F. Dight
 
 
The leader of the Minnesota Eugenics Movement was Charles Dight, a professor of medicine at Hamline University and the University of Minnesota...


He maintained that mental inferiority/ poor genetics could be easily spotted through two simple "analytical" tools...skull shape/ size and Jazz music. Dight argued that "great men" have larger foreheads/ frontal lobes, while "lower animals" have smaller foreheads...and that Jazz Music was the "devil's kind" of music. He stated that the mentally inferior enjoyed Jazz because it appealed to their "inborn animal nature."

Is it possible that Dr. Dight came up with these theories to distract people from his small forehead and his secret love of Jazz music?



 

 


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