Author Edwin Black to lecture on the endangered deaf community

Edwin Black, the author of numerous books and investigations including War Against the Weak will offer a public lecture in Sacramento CA on the history of the eugenics movement in America on June 15, 2010. Entitled “Eugenics – From California to Auschwitz, Implications for the Deaf Community,” Black will recount the history of a movement that began in the United States but would go on to influence Nazi Germany as it carried out the Holocaust.

In his book War Against the Weak, Black recounted how American corporate philanthropies such as the Carnegie Endowment and Rockefeller Foundation launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing , and helped found and fund the Nazi eugenics of Adolf Hitler and Josef Mengele, creating the modern movement of "human genetics." With the goal of creating a superior, white, Nordic race by obliterating the viability of all people thought to be “defective,” the eugenics movement sought victims such as the infirm, Jews, African-Americans, brown-haired white people.

Author Black will demonstrate the dangers of this mentality to Americans who hard of hearing in his lecture to be held at the Grand Hall in Sacramento CA. Members of the deaf community are flying in from across California in an event that will be video-streamed live. Questions and answers on a range of issues will be taken internationally. It is the first such event of its kind for the deaf, employing six sign language interpreters and split screen filming.

The diverse coalition of sponsors is led Norcal Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the California Association of Deaf, and is cosponsored by Ohlone College Deaf Studies Division and Gallaudet University Regional Center at Ohlone College in association with the Jewish Federation of Sacramento Region, the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Mosaic Law Congregation and the Auto Channel. Additional sponsors include Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, State of California Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance, History Network News, the Institute for Religion and Public Policy, Jewish Virtual Library, and Spero Forum.

On June 16, 2010, Black will testify before the Health Committee of the California House of Representatives about the eugenic implications of controversial bill AB2072, which has become known as "Mendoza Eugenics." The legislation named for its sponsor California Assemblyman Tony Mendoza is seen as a threat the continuing unique culture of the deaf which thrive on American Sign Language. The deaf argue that the legislation would quickly make sign language disappear disconnecting deaf parents from their children.

Black's book, War Against the Weak, winner of the World Affairs Council's International Human Rights Award, has recently been made into a prize-winning movie of the same name.