The narrative that our planet is overpopulated is dangerous.

Population discourse and policies that result from this framing often blame communities and populations that are most marginalized by inequality, overconsumption/overproduction, and climate change.

It’s time to stop the blame.

Framing our ecological and economic crises as a consequence of overpopulation individualizes the problem. It limits both our imagination to envision systemic change and demand transformation from our governments, institutions, and corporations enabling and benefiting from harmful practices and policies that disproportionately impact vulnerable populations.

In the U.S., “overpopulation” narratives, coupled with supremacist thinking, has led to reproductive injustice. One example is the practice of forced sterilizations disproportionately conducted on Black and brown people.

Stop the Blame, 2nd edition is a tool originally created in 2010 to examine and discern “overpopulation” imagery. We recreated the tool to make it more accessible for audiences who are interested in exploring imagery and narratives to help us contextualize historic and emerging discourses fueling supremacist myths and policies.

The second edition of this tool is a project of our Challenging Population Control program, which produces research on eugenics, white supremacy, and “overpopulation” narratives to help inform the reproductive justice movement.

Check out the tool and learn more about our Challenging Population Control program.