Breeding Like Guppies

When I was an impressionable young college student, I took a class with a professor who was notoriously conservative, bordering on fascist. I kind of wanted the thrill of having my own belief systems challenged and I needed to take his class to satisfy my requirements for my major.

I don't actually remember what the class was even about, but I will never forget the day Professor I. was lecturing about his theory on poverty. I'm paraphrasing but he basically said poor people were poor because they were stupid and that the higher the economic class the smarter the population gets. He did not base his theories on race, but he did say that unfortunately poor Black people were the ones reproducing the most, thereby dumbing down the entire Black race. He then expanded that theory to most minority groups.

So my friend, who is Indian (from India) raised her very brown hand and asked the obvious question, 'So if we're smart and relatively well-off and of color, should we be breeding like rabbits to offset the dumbing down of the race?' And Professor I. looked at my friend and I and said, "No, you should be 'breeding like guppies' that's how serious the situation is. It is up to you intelligent colored people to have more children to save your race." He was totally serious. He had placed my entire self-worth on my ability to reproduce. Kind of like back in the slave days I thought!

Needless to say my friend and I protested loudly and called him all sorts of names to his face, but his words continue to haunt me. I don't believe his stupid people are poor theory, but for some reason his "breeding like guppies" theory left such a bad taste in my mouth that as the Spaniard and I contemplate going for SpaNegro #3 I feel all of this existential guilt like I might be following his directive. Of course I'm not, but on both sides of this argument, as a Black woman I feel somehow having that third child makes me a stereotype of some sort. Gosh the burden.

Peace & Good Health