The NAACP National Office joins with the South Carolina State Conference NAACP and the Charleston Branch NAACP in denouncing the comments of county council candidate Nancy Cook, who also sits on the Charleston County School Board.
While being interviewed on WTMA-AM's morning show April 3, Cook suggested that teen mothers and unmarried women who have more than one child should either be sterilized or have subsequent children removed from their custody.
“Such comments are strikingly incendiary and offensive,” said NAACP Field Operations Chief Rev. Nelson B. Rivers, III. “Her words are especially insulting coming from a female in the American South, where poor women were once involuntarily sterilized and often labeled as ‘unfit mothers’ because of their color or economic class.”
In response to criticism of her words, Cook has been defensive and lacking in sincere regret. She has stated that her remarks were not intended to be racist and were made as a private citizen and from her perspective as a professional counselor, not as school board vice chairwoman.
“An experienced politician and servant of the people should know better than to use such divisive words,” said South Carolina State Conference, NAACP President Lonnie Randolph, Jr. “It is regrettable that a public official who derives her livelihood from families in transition, and is sworn to serve the highest interests of children and families should appear to hold such contempt for them. They deserve better. Every decent caring citizen must expect better.”
The NAACP stresses the need for Cook to recant her remarks and seek sensitivity training where she can fully understand why they were egregious and hurtful. The NAACP also urges others on the school board to denounce such despicable speech and issue a reprimand of Cook for her hateful words.
Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its more than half-million adult and youth members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities and monitors of equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.
--For more information contact: rmcintire@naacpnet.org
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