rolling "Is This Racist?" thread

most certainly. this seems like something that might need a little more verification, for sure.

BTW, it doesn't actually say she's seeking $50k, just that damages "exceed $50k" and are "to be determined at trial." There's a formality in many states that you have to plead that your damages exceed a certain amount in order to be in one court vs another.

Kind of also wonder if they could have just called this an ordinary negligence tort. The "wrongful birth" claim is usually for situations where the doctor fails to inform about or prevent some very severe deformity/disability that would or might have caused the parents to abort -- obviously using that theory here has some pretty disgusting implications, and I can't imagine it flies.

i am just not seeing how heinous it is. i mean if you had wanted one white person's sperm but were accidentally given another white person's sperm, and--importantly--you found out about it (in a way other than the child having some genetic defect, or it not being your husband's when you wanted your husband's), there would be a breach of the clinic's duty to give people what they asked for. but no damages. i do not practice in the area of medical malpractice and do not want to. also i'm going outside to contemplate this not on the internet.

― flatizza (harbl), Thursday, October 2, 2014 6:22 PM (Yesterday)

i think your tongue is at least partially in cheek, but basically i agree with in orbit. women who can conceive without medical help have agency to choose their partners and choose, to a certain extent, what the child they carry will look like. they can do that in racially suspect ways, but they have that ability. a woman who goes to a sperm bank to conceive should have that same choice. for that reason i think she has a very strong case, though awarding her additional damages for whatever race-related distress she's experienced seems like a bad idea and unnecessary

the added flip tho is that her argument locates racism not in herself but in her community. couldn't the clinic argue that, ok, you're happy and you love your healthy child, but you live in a place with deep prejudice, how is that our problem? move!

man, what a case. can imagine dick wolf skipping around in his heavily-draped sitting room, barking at assisants, unable to contain his excitement

Law & Order: So Damned Racist

what kevin said is what I meant above, def not that there should be additional damages for the "harm" of having a black child, just that we can't really delegitimize the woman's choice because it was race-based.

Can sperm banks screen for carriers of genetic conditions, either automatically or on request? Even if they don't, what if you picked someone from a background that was less likely to be, say, a cystic fibrosis or sickle cell carrier because you knew you were one, and then your baby was born with a condition that would kill her? It's not just how the offspring LOOKS.

They screen all this stuff during IVF so I assume the answer is yes.

yeah exactly. i wonder whether the donor would even have to consent to that -- i'd imagine not, they probably get their compensation regardless, and it's up to the woman whose sperm she chooses, right? xp

I feel like so many things are horrible in this case: the baby's bi-racialness, the hair comments, the mother's quotes, the framing in the press. But the underlying issues re fertility and choice are bedrock serious.

Before anyone jumps on it, sorry, I should have said "making the baby's bi-racialness THE ISSUE" not that it is literally horrible.

can they make some kind of argument that they wanted the child to look like both parents bc they weren't necessarily going to tell the kid that there was a donor? that kinda bridges imo a legitimate concern about the way the baby looks while eliding the racist town nonsense?

...

At some point, the kid is going to look at her lesbian parents and figure out that a donor was involved somewhere

I mean maybe they were gonna try for "we slapped our vaginas together and PRESTO instant baby" but somehow I doubt it

http://illiterateinfant.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/baby-ikea.jpg

i didn't realize it was lesbian couple

lol djp

I think the argument, "hey you have a healthy child, so no harm done" is pretty offensive tbh, but apparently that was the basis of a 2007 NY decision:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/10/ohio_sperm_bank_black_donor_mix_up_can_a_white_mother_with_a_biracial_baby.html

(can't C&P for some reason but skip down to the Andrews v. Keltz mention)

And that decision was actually a case of mixing up the husband and would-be biological dad's sperm with someone else's, which seems worse than this case.

I believe the two situations are exactly as bad

something something lenny brisco says something about wrongful insemination

I think it's safe to say that they're both bad and that people are entitled to their subjective reasons for wanting control over their own child-having decisions.

and that suing for what is basically "damages" because of your child's race is scummy as fuck.

tbh I'm really reading up on sperm donation now

*reads up furiously*

lol shakey

I think the argument, "hey you have a healthy child, so no harm done" is pretty offensive tbh, but apparently that was the basis of a 2007 NY decision:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/10/ohio_sperm_bank_black_donor_mix_up_can_a_white_mother_with_a_biracial_baby.html

(can't C&P for some reason but skip down to the Andrews v. Keltz mention)

― my jaw left (Hurting 2), Friday, October 3, 2014 4:04 PM (6 hours ago)

yeah this is kind of what i was thinking of. i'm not endorsing it but i am recognizing that what everyday people think of as a harm is not the same as what you can recover when you sue someone. i am not sure offensive is the word i would use though i do agree it's not good. these are just kind of weird questions one doesn't get to think about every day. fortunately?

i would think that rape victims might find it offensive to compare to rape however

That might be true and if anyone who reads it is offended, I apologize. Rape and non-consensual impregnation are the most time-tested way of controlling women's fertility though. It's only modern medicine that creates the possibility of the second without the first.

I guess I liked to think there was a real Black dude from I dunno East Flatbush or something who was THAT into healthy eating as a from of subversive self-care.

― Orson Wellies (in orbit), Monday, September 29, 2014 4:47 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark

http://www.amazon.com/The-Hood-Health-Handbook-Practical/dp/1935721321

http://www.itvs.org/films/soul-food-junkies

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xap1/v/t1.0-9/10155047_1600144650213238_3549923115314653361_n.jpg?oh=d01764fc1d29cc78915fbf594bd6723e&oe=54B67F2B&__gda__=1420702482_ecaadd5132623819ebe0fc232d9d9c47

phat le rappeur

Willing to give it a pass as long as the kid doesn't put on blackface xp

i haven't seen the movie napoleon dynamite since it was released in theaters 800 blog years ago but i just thought of it for some reason and remembered that there is a part when one of the characters dates a black woman with a "black"-sounding name and this is supposed to be inherently hilarious. not a question, really. that was racist. i feel horrified that when i first saw that movie as a high school freshman i liked it.

borat came out around that time too i think. and team america: world police. were audiences and critics more tolerant of racial stereotypes in mainstream comedies ten years ago?

i can assure you there was nothing hilarious about napoleon dynamite

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_th4LsV9kE
both xp and not xp

were audiences and critics more tolerant of racial stereotypes in mainstream comedies ten years ago?

critics maybe

My highschool classmates didn't care that much. I'm sure the kids there now read thinkpieces and are at least aware of terms like intersectionality if it isn't literally part of the curriculum. In my ed classes they are telling me to teach definitions of racism and sexism as interlocking sytems rather than discrete individual attitudes directly to high schoolers

Treesh do you enjoy the comedy of Tom Green

they made the fake fat belly painted onto the t-shirt white instead of black

that's a… sign of racial sensitivity i think??

Probably more a reflection on their expected target demo

otm

Tom Green, that's a name that really takes me back

can i have that hamburger necklace however

hey, this is racist AND sexist:

http://flavorwire.com/480990/pete-pete-was-all-white-people-slimed-author-mathew-klickstein-on-why-ren-and-stimpy-was-better-than-clarissa-and-nickelodeons-diversity-problem

re: borat, Napoleon Dynamite, Team America

All these films are horribly racist and I complained about them at the time here on ILX and people argued/disagreed w me about all of them