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304 pages, Hardcover
First published June 13, 2023
The Birth of a Nation is three hours of racist propaganda — starting with the Civil War and ending with the Ku Klux Klan riding in to save the South from black rule during the Reconstruction era.The attitude of the times towards sexuality was equally appalling,
Griffith portrayed the emancipated slaves as heathens, as unworthy of being free, as uncivilized, as primarily concerned with passing laws so they could marry white women and prey on them.
Drawing upon Freudian notions that sexual development began in infanthood, public officials reasoned that aged, senile individuals often resorted to an earlier stage of development, finding themselves attracted to childrn and no more able to control their impulses than those they lusted over.Michigan, where the quadruplets lived was the first of 26 states to pass such laws. J. Edgar Hoover, first director of the FBI called for a "War on Sex Criminals" so dedicated was he "to the scourge of degenerates".
In the case of homosexuals, the problem was that normal development had not occured, often because men had lacked a conventional father-figure with whom to identify or had been subjected to a smothering mother. Never learning healthy masculinity, these individuals too, related to and abused the young.
Sexual psychopath laws offered a solution. These authorized law enforcement to arrest questionable persons and surrender them to asylums until psychiatrists deemed them safe, in some cases by castrating them.