Dark Continent: RACE SUICIDE

Monday, May 14, 2007

RACE SUICIDE

I got the copy-edited version of an encyclopedia entry that I’ve written on race suicide for the forthcoming Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History. Race suicide is a concept that represents fears of being overwhelmed by another race because of the low birth rate of one’s own race.

I love writing encyclopedia entries. They are kind of like puzzles. You have to know the topic well enough to know what belongs in a 400- to 3500-word article. The race suicide entry is about 1500 words. Especially when you want to write entries that cover global issues, it’s a real challenge to write coherently about a topic in that kind of short form. In this case, I was able to show how the term worked in the U.S., among both blacks and whites, Europe, and Australia.

Among my favorite “factoids”: Theodore Roosevelt, who popularized the term in the early 20th century, called white middle- and upper-class women who limited their family sizes, “race criminals.” Margaret Sanger, feminist advocate for birth control, wanted to limit the fertility of the “unfit.” And, in 2006, Pat Roberson, host of the conservative 700 Club, warned, “Europe is right now in the midst of racial suicide because of the declining birth rate.” Race suicide is one of those concepts that just won’t die!

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Academic Biography

Professor White's first book, Sierra Leone’s Settler Women Traders: Women on the Afro-European Frontier, was winner of the Letitia Brown Memorial Publication Price in 1987. Her book with Iris Berger, Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: Restoring Women to History, has become a standard reference text and has been translated into Japanese. Her most recent book is Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability. She has been named a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in Sierra Leone and a Mellon Scholar and has received a Kidder-Peabody Grant for research in The Gambia. Her appointments have included chair of the Five College Black Studies Executive Committee and member of the Graduate Faculty of the University of Massachusetts. She has a B.A. from Wheaton College, an M.A. in African history, and a Ph.D. in history from Boston University.

Along with her teaching and scholarly career, she has had a distinguished career in academic administration. At NYU, she was appointed Vice Provost in 2005. She advised the Provost on faculty appointments, tenure, and promotion. She worked closely with the Faculty Senators Council to enhance work-life conditions for faculty. She also spearheaded the university’s efforts to diversify the faculty and has responsibility for the Office of Academic Appointments, the Center for Teaching Excellence, and the Faculty Resource Network, a faculty development consortium of 52 institutions of higher education.

From 1998 to 2005, Professor White was dean of NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she greatly increased the school’s visibility and reputation. From 2001-05, she was chair of NYU’s Deans Council. Prior to coming to NYU, she was a professor of history and Black studies at Hampshire College, where she also served as Dean of the School of Social Science and Dean of Faculty. While completing her Ph.D. at Boston University, she was an instructor at the University of Sierra Leone and a research assistant at the Afro-American Studies Center at Boston University.