Do you know what a blood drop is?

I thought I did. I assumed, probably as do many of you, that it’s simply a drop of blood. That was before I watched a History Channel program called “Gangland,” a documentary show that reports on America’s various gangs.

A recent episode called “Blood Oath” was about the growth of the Bloods gang on the East coast, especially in the New York City/northern New Jersey area. In one scene, some very pregnant “Bloodettes” proudly boasted about how they would soon deliver “blood drops” -- a newborn child of a Blood and Bloodette.

Excuse me? Am I the only one who sees something terribly wrong with that? It’s troublesome enough that Bloods and other gangs in America even exist. But now their members are breeding?

I realize I’m krump dancing in an extremely explosive mine field by even broaching this topic, one that most Americans -- of all races -- don’t even think about, much less say out loud. But from time to time I pose precisely this question to students in a writing class I teach at Johns Hopkins University.

Is forced sterilization ever justified?

I have my students research the history of the Supreme Court decision known as Buck vs. Bell, which was handed down in 1927. Carrie Buck was a young white woman who lived in Virginia. Her mother had several children out of wedlock. After Carrie became pregnant as a result of being raped by her foster cousin, the state of Virginia had her sterilized to prevent her from bringing her “feeble-minded” offspring into the world.

The Supreme Court upheld the Virginia law. Other states had similar laws. Defense lawyers for Nazi war criminals on trial at Nuremburg in the late 1940s used Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ opinion in Buck vs. Bell as justification for Nazi Germany’s sterilization policies.

My students, almost unanimously, condemn the Buck decision. They’re horrified to even learn that some states even had forced sterilization laws (Those states have since repealed them, with some governors issuing apologies up the ying-yang.).

Part of me shares their sentiments. But another part of me asks if it’s right for our society to let men like Amir Winn procreate.

You’ve probably never heard of Winn. He was a member of East Orange, New Jersey’s notorious Double ii Bloods. On July 25, 2002, Winn fatally shot 29-year-old LaQuan Brooks, and you’ve probably never heard of him either.

Some Double ii Bloods had taken an interest in eight-year-old LaQuan Brooks Jr., letting the boy play with their money and bling and trying to recruit him into the gang. When Brooks Sr. learned about this insanity, he dashed up the street and confronted the Bloods, ordering them to leave his son be.

Winn learned of the “disrespect” and shot Brooks Sr. right in front of little LaQuan, who asked Winn, “Why you kill my daddy?” Winn pointed the gun at little LaQuan, but didn’t shoot.

The death of LaQuan Brooks should have ignited an anti-gang movement within black America that should be red hot by this point. The name LaQuan Brooks Sr. should be permanently etched into the memory of every black person in this country. There should be schools and streets in black neighborhoods named after him. Rappers should be competing with each other to see who can get their song honoring LaQuan Brooks Sr. on an album and on the airwaves first.

Instead, we get rappers rapping about not snitching, which is a backhanded way of praising Winn and his execution of Brooks Sr. We get black activists rushing down to Jena, Louisiana screaming about how white racism is still running rampant in America.

It’s important for many of us to ferret out white racism, you see. It keeps us from having to deal with nagging questions we don’t want asked, much less answered. And the nagging question about Amir Winn is this: Do we want people like him fathering children and inculcating them with the warped, twisted and sick set of values members of the Bloods and similar gangs possess?

The obvious answer is no. But that only leads us to the really disturbing question: What do we do about it?

The answer, apparently, is nothing. We get no discussion about it from our leaders. The issue isn’t on the radar of many within the black masses.

Instead, we’re content to sit idly by as Bloods and Bloodettes drop their blood drops.