The L.A. Times follows up their recent story on state funding of crisis-pregnancy centers with a piece today on how anti-choicers are making more effort to reach out to black women. Honestly, I don't think this is a new phenomenon. Maybe they're building more centers in urban areas, but they've always produced their own special brand of misleading advertising and literature designed to appeal to black women: Calling Margaret Sanger a racist or likening abortion rights to genocide and slavery. (See the "Classroom" commercial, for example.)
Antiabortion activists are fighting back with their own appeals to black pride. In particular, they target Planned Parenthood's founder, Margaret Sanger, as a racist intent on eliminating people of color. One popular flier — recently mailed to 10,000 homes in minority neighborhoods in Waco, Texas — declares, "Lynching is for amateurs" and compares "Klan Parenthood" clinics to Nazi death camps.
But honestly, the effects of this type of "outreach" pale in comparison to the years of relationship-building and education done by the pro-choice movement. The piece mentions the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice's work to get to know black pastors, and how Planned Parenthood representatives speak to church congregations about things like contraception and HIV testing -- which are core services that the anti-choice movement will never offer women.
Yarbrough, 28, had seen the ads promising help for crisis pregnancies, but those clinics were a long bus ride away, out in the suburbs. Plus, that was a white woman's world, she thought; how could they understand?"I had this view … that I'd be saying, 'I can't afford this, I can't afford that' and I'd be looking at [the counselor] and thinking, 'You can, because you probably have a husband at home who's a doctor or a lawyer,' " she said.
So Yarbrough started dialing abortion clinics. At one, a secretary sensed her despair and referred her to the Family Care Pregnancy Center, run by a black megachurch in south Dallas.
This directly contradicts what the anti-choice movement is always saying about abortion providers -- that they want to coerce women into abortions, no matter how ambivalent they're feeling. Clearly, the receptionist at the clinic could tell Yarbrough was hesitant, and so referred her to a church counselor.
Says a vice-president of the crisis-pregnancy chain Care Net, "[Black women] look at us as a group who cares very little about what's going on in the inner city, the poverty and all the other issues." That about sums it up. Unlike the antis, pro-choicers don't just use race as a basis for cheap sloganeering. We have long demonstrated that we truly care about a woman's lifelong reproductive health care -- not just about what happens to the fetus if she has an unplanned pregnancy.
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Can't say that I'm surprised by this. Black women are four times more likely to get an abortion than white women. But there are many reasons behind this, young African American women are twice as likely to become pregnant before leaving high school.
In our community, there is this anti-abortion streak that many people seem to have. I don't understand this because as I pointed out before, black women are four times more likely to terminate their pregnancies .
This is scary to me, because there are black leaders who believe that abortion is a form a black genocide.
I wonder if the vice-president Care Net would adopt a black baby?
I think it's important to acknowledge that the early birth control movement was, in fact, very racist and eugenicist. That's part of the reason why the abortion rights campaign in the 70s didn't include many black women. Even Margaret Sanger advocated compulsory sterilization of "morons, mental defectives, epileptics, illiterates, paupers, unemployables, criminals, prostitutes and dope fiends" at one point. So while we ought to resist efforts to stifle choice, we should be aware that women of color have historically viewed birth control in a more oppressive light than the white folks.
That was one aspect of the early birth control movements, but it wasn't the whole story by a long shot, as Emma Goldman's involvement will attest. Margaret Sanger's main focus when it came to eugenics was not wha we now term women of color--it was the dirty immigrants. She formed her views on birth control while working as a visiting nurse among Jewish and Italian populations, and when her first clinic opened, she had the announcements and flyers printed up in Yiddish and Italian as well as English.
Her bigotry was not our bigotry, and we shouldn't elide the two.
As to forced sterilization--yep, that sucks.
That was one aspect of the early birth control movements, but it wasn't the whole story by a long shot...
Oh, of course not, and I wasn't implying that it was. I'm merely cautioning against reifying Margaret Sanger as some patron saint of all things good, or the birth control movement as this progressive cause embraced by a global sisterhood. I understand that Planned Parenthood et al has come a long way since then.
Oh, definitely! I wasn't meaning to slam you, just to do some color commentary!
"Often the inner-city, the immigrant and minority populations are invisible when we think of the whole abortion issue," said Peggy Hartshorn, president of Heartbeat International, which runs nearly 900 antiabortion counseling centers across the nation -
Invisible to whom? Certainly not to the women contemplating abortion or their friends and families.
— almost all in mostly white suburbs
Hmmm...I wonder why Black women don't want to hear what you have to say.
There is no doubt today that Margaret Sanger was a virulent racist and bigot by today's standards.
I wouldn't try to stake out any argument on the grounds that she was not.
Jason:
Who here advanced such an argument?
The original post.
Eh, Jason only shows up here to attack feminism. He's not worth taking seriously, really.
No, I'm here to defend it from halfwits who carry the banner without knowing what it means.
Anyway, since when is the underlying assumption that feminism's critics are "not worth taking seriously?"
That's not the attitude of a serious thinker. You ought to be welcoming dissenting voices, because it is their arguments that helps you fine-tune your movement.
The OP characterized the criticism of Sanger as a racist as misleading. It's not misleading in the slightest. Sanger was a cretin and an avowed eugenicist.
Know what's not worth taking seriously? People who react to those who point out factual matters which are easily verified with ad hominems.
Whether you choose to continue fitting yourself in that category is up to you.
I suggest folks take a look at the thread going on at Salon on this topic. There seems to be a lot of anger there.....
No, I'm here to defend it from halfwits who carry the banner without knowing what it means.
Interesting, coming from someone who seems to unquestioningly support an intensely racist and misogynistic institution--the U.S. military. Perhaps you should lay your banner down until you find out what it truly represents.
Jason:
A gentle suggestion. It might behoove you to include direct quotes in your posts.
The four words that you criticize are quite easy to miss, and, for what it's worth, have little to do with the argument on whole.
I'll agree that Sanger had major issues, very much so in keeping with the attitudes of her time. That is unfortunate.
However, the post addresses a larger issue, and that issue does deserve attention.
In addition, calling those people who post and write here "half-wits" is not only insulting but uncalled for.
No, I'm here to defend it from halfwits who carry the banner without knowing what it means.
Ah, you've got a Moses-among-the-hottentots complex.
Funny how your "defense" always seems to put you at odds with people who've spent a great deal of their lives studying and advocating feminism. Guess everyone's wrong but you, huh?
Yeah Jason, serious legitimate and honest criticism is worth taking seriously. You however, have a history of talking out of your ass so it’s kind of hard to try to listen to you. And as far as facts…. wasn’t it you who said something like “You would rather go back in time, revoke suffrage for 10 million women who never dreamed of having the right to vote�? Yeah, you don’t particularly seem like a person who has any kind of regard for facts.
Sojourner,
Go look up what "suffrage" means, kiddo.
As for those who've spent "a good deal of their lives" studying and advocating feminism, in most cases here that doesn't seem to be a particularly long time.
Oh, and Chris, your remark about the "intensely racist and misogynistic institution" is basically a laugh line that tells me a lot more about you than it does the military, which isn't even remotely germain to this thread, anyway.
Back to the original point - you now have three commenters who agree that Sanger had, ummm, issues.
That's pretty well established.
If you want to argue that I shouldn't be taken seriously, it's probably better not to try to do it when I was demonstrably right in the first place.
Oops. Make that four posters acknowledging Sanger was a cretin.
Yet you choose to focus on me, for being one of four people pointing out the truth?
You're not interested in critical reasoning. You're interested in recreating the college echo chamber, and it shows.
who cares? last time i checked M. Sanger isnt currently running PP. why not rally against the racist institution that is umm the military, the job market, the government?! oh right, cuz this just happens to be something that actually HELPS disadvantaged people. shut it down! someone who was involved in it was racist!
sheesh, the logic of some people.
Irony of ironies, all is irony.
"shut it down?"
What in the world are you talking about? And who are you to be talking about logic?
The OP characterized the criticism of Sanger as a racist as misleading. It's not misleading in the slightest.
Even though it is true that Sanger was a racist, it is still misleading in the context of the way in which the crisis pregnancy centers are using it. They are essentially trying to convince black women that birth control and abortion are bad because one of the early promoters of these things was a racist. This is completely misleading information. Just because Sanger held some unfortunate views does not automatically negate all the positive work she did. So, we can all admit that Sanger was a racist but still disapprove of the misleading way in which the centers use this information.
I agree with sbanson. We're kinda straying away from the larger point being made in the article.
And Jason, I was in the Army. My comment was based on personal experience backed up by numerous studies on the issue (to which I can direct you, if you wish).
"And who are you to be talking about logic?"
1)you dont know me
2)i actually wasnt responding to your comments...you must be looking for fights, so im steering clear.
Elektro,
Fair enough.
Jason: please go away. I don't recall your arguments on previous threads, but what you've written here is nothing but shit stirring
It pains me to be forced to read pages of nit-picking and arguing as people attempt in vain to debate with people like you
Call it an echo chamber if you like. The real world I live in does not reflect these values and it's a balm to my soul to read discussions and civil debates between articulate, enthusiastic, educated people who are as concious of institutionalised oppression as I am
Don't be such a fragile, shrinking violet. I'm not here to be a "balm to your soul," and neither is anybody else.
Nobody is "forcing you to read" anything.
And if you can't abide a dissenting view, then don't operate under the illusion that what you're reading is a "debate."
I wasn't even the first to note that Sanger was a witch. I was just the one attacked for pointing out the fact.
Grow a thicker skin, kiddo.
O.K. The three unacceptable terms in your post are:
1. Shrinking Violet
2. Witch
3. Kiddo
If you cannot learn to be civil, and to contribute something while doing it, you're better off trotting over to the Freeper-land.
I wasn't even the first to note that Sanger was a witch.
Actually, Jason, I do believe you are the very first on this page to call Sanger a witch. And I most definitely hope you are the last.
Oo, you can call me kiddo. I suppose that makes you more mature than me?
What I am endeavouring to do, unlike you, is be polite. I'm quite capable of abusing you, but I hardly want to feed the troll.
The fact anyone would call me a shrinking violet would make anyone who knew me laugh. Mate, what I was trying to represent in my post was HOW SICK I AM OF IDIOTS LIKE YOU. Go away
"What I am endeavouring to do, unlike you, is be polite... HOW SICK I AM OF IDIOTS LIKE YOU"
Heh. You're funny.
As I said, I'm not here to be "a balm to your soul." Nor am I here to humor you by "going away."
But if you want to discuss women's issues, I'm all ears.
My central point, from the beginning, is this: Margaret Sanger is not a sacred cow. She was a virulent racist and geneticist who deliberately attempted to suppress the population of the working class, to include blacks, Jews, and Italian immigrants.
It's a sorry spectacle to see this kind of hero worship from people who don't know all that much about who she was or the views and policies she espoused. Indeed, there seems to be an active move to sweep them under the carpet.
This has been a huge rhetorical opening for anti-abortion groups to exploit, and they've done it.
Your arguments for choice should stand on their own merits, and not be predicated on the fetishization of Margaret Sanger.
Margaret Sanger ought to be an embarrassment for the unit.
(She's not the only nutcase, as a review of Ayn Rand's biography would reveal. Just the relevant one here.)
"My central point, from the beginning, is this: Margaret Sanger is not a sacred cow. She was a virulent racist and geneticist who deliberately attempted to suppress the population of the working class, to include blacks, Jews, and Italian immigrants...
"...Your arguments for choice should stand on their own merits, and not be predicated on the fetishization of Margaret Sanger."
Good point. Weren't some of the pioneers of rocket science Nazis? Don't lots of people today make arguments for space travel without fetishizing them?
Who is fetishizing Margaret Sanger? There's only a passing reference to her in the original post.
You know what? LOTS of progressive people from the past were racist/sexist/homophobic by today's standards. For instance, Tommy Douglas, the father of universal health care in Canada said that homosexuality was a disease.
It doesn't change the good things they did, and it doesn't have anything to do with the movements today. Making Sanger the focus of this debate when contraception has done so much to improve the status of women throughout the world DESPITE her racism is what is misleading.
You see how the OP was about how the crisis pregnancy centers were misleading women of color about the intentions of Planned Parenthood by making Sanger's racism central, and now the thread has been distracted into discussing Sanger instead of crisis pregnancy centers' misleading literature?
This thread is so meta it hurts.
And calling people here "kiddo" is extremely direspectful and also sexist in the context of someone who is presumably an adult male speaking to someone who is presumably an adult female. We are not children, and you are not our benevolent teacher/overlord.
Were some of the early rocket scientists Nazis? Yes.
And pointing out that they were Nazis is not misleading.
Same thing with Sanger. Sanger was a eugenicist. She could not be considered racially progressive, even by the standards of her contemporaries. Her rhetoric and logic was similar to some of her fascist contemporaries in Europe.
Actually, black women are three times more likely than white women to have an abortion, not four (sorry, I am anal about facts).
Unfortunately, I live in a very conservative and religious town, I swear there are at least 8 churches within a half mile radius of my home! I didn't think to look into that before we bought our house. I see two anti choice billboards on my way to school, which is only about ten miles. One of them is in the "white suburb" and the other is in the major city, which is predominately black. The one in the suburbs is so nice and sentimental. It shows a nice picture of nice smiling people and it says "Choose Life". The one in the city changes frequently. Last month it had a picture of a black baby and it said "Abortion: The Number One Killer of African Americans.
I think one of the major problems are the inequities in having access to reproductive health care. And issues of poverty. There are alot of issues, but in my personal opinion our community doesn't do a good job at addressing these issues.