[sensitiveguy]

After the 34-year-old Maryland woman entered her Alford plea, the judge sentenced her to a five-year suspended sentence and five years of supervised probation. The woman will also have to register as a sex offender for 10 years, complete a drug and alcohol treatment program and attend parenting classes.

Her offense? She tricked out her 16-year-old daughter.

This particular horror story didn’t happen in Maryland’s largest city, the notorious metropolis known as Bodymore, Murderland. You have to go about 35 or 40 miles south of Baltimore for this one, which shows that my hometown hasn’t quite cornered the market on horror stories in this state.

This one happened in Annapolis. The girl was 16 and living with her maternal grandmother when she decided Grandma’s rules were too strict. She went to live with her mother. I’ll bet she wishes she had stayed with Grandma now.

There is a lesson here for teens who get too big for their britches and feel that the rules and limits parents or grandparents set are too harsh: Those rules and limitations are put in place for your benefit, idiots.

It wasn’t long before the mother was pressuring her daughter to have sex with a 59-year-old “man.” The daughter did, and the man forked over $150 to the mother. Then the mother pressured the daughter into having sex with a 24-year-old man in exchange for drugs.

Before I go on, I have something to say to that 59-year-old “man,” who’s only three years older than I am: There are plenty of stunningly beautiful women much closer to your own age. Don’t believe me? Try watching TV Land’s “She’s Got The Look," you old fart.

Now, back to the mother. Anybody see anything wrong with the sentencing? Why isn’t this woman in jail?

And parenting classes? Excuse me? I’m afraid you readers who post on the BlackAmericaWeb.com message boards will have to weigh in on this one. Those of you who are parents of girls who are now 16 or at one time were 16, please answer this question: Did you need “parenting classes” to know you shouldn’t trick out your 16-year-old daughter?

My daughter is 20 years past her 16th birthday. Somehow, tricking her out never occurred to her mother and me.

I suspect it’s pretty much the same deal for the rest of you. I was so outraged when I read this particular story that my gut reaction was “Where’s a good compulsory sterilization law when we need one?”

And trust me, we do need one. Especially for cases just like the one described above. Many states had compulsory sterilization laws at one time. Almost all have been repealed. Some states even issued formal apologies for even engaging in the practice.

I say it’s time to bring back compulsory sterilization. Those of you who argue otherwise are going to have to explain to me why the mother described in this column should be allowed to have any more children and get a second -- or third or fourth -- chance to mess up another 16-year-old girl’s life.

The compulsory sterilization laws many states passed in the early part of the 20th century were inspired by the eugenics movement, an attempt to create a "pure" race. But contrary to what you might suspect, it wasn’t right-wingers or conservatives who were the most ardent supporters of these laws.

Many people considered progressive for their time favored compulsory sterilization. Margaret Sanger, the birth control advocate who’s practically a saint to the abortion rights crowd, was one of them. Anybody familiar with her “Negro project” in which she tried to encourage black ministers to support forced sterilization to keep our numbers down? W.E.B. DuBois was a Sanger supporter.

Lest anyone think I’m advocating the forced sterilization of a black woman here, I’ll give a description of the daughter as it appeared in the Baltimore Sun.

“With bright blue eyes and lush auburn waves, the teenage girl is both sullen and thoughtful as she describes the times her mother arranged for her to have sex with men for money --- on the living room couch, in a car, in a neighbor’s bathroom.”

Bright blue eyes and lush auburn hair? Doesn’t sound like a sister to me. Chances are the mother is white too. Probably with bright blue eyes and lush auburn hair.

If you want to make this a race thing, then make it this race thing: What would the woman’s sentence have been if she were black?