- Feb 2, 2006
- 578
- 179
*deja vu*
I disagree.
Kellogg was on something. Yes, he was putting acid on some girls. But, not a half of a million girls. He didn't have an impact on the general culture of girls, though he did have an impact of the direction of circumcision of boys, imho.
And, I didn't write the article. I didn't give it the title, the author did.
A couple 2 or 3 thangz:
The title reads "Female Circumcision Comes to America," which is not true. Female circumcision didn't COME to America, it was BORN in America.
https://sites.google.com/site/completebaby/female
White doctors (not just Dr Kellogg) had been practicing FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION on little white girls and big ol' white women in the United States of America decades before the practice was spotlighted and condemned in Afrika. But since the exact same practice was being done by highly edumacated, well to do white male elites with medical degrees, it was considered not as barbaric, but as therapeutic, hygienic and perfectly respectable. As usual, being white continues to have its privileges, even among some Black people. So if we're going to call people out for performing female circumcision, let's not pick and choose who we call out. Let's put EVERYBODY'S dirt out there and call them on it, not just Afrikan people.
That little blurb in the article glosses over the pervasiveness of the practice in this country. Dr Kellogg wasn't the only white doctor doing it. It was a common enough practice that it was described in medical journals edited by white males.