Lack of universal access to healthcare equals genocide.

I doubt that girl will follow through on her supposed beliefs (I hate my parents, so I’ll drop out of school! Makes perfect sense!) if she actually did get pregnant.

Good point, Ms Kate. Infant mortality rates are higher for blacks, and probably has more to do with medical oversight of pregnancy and infancy being better for other groups because of poverty. Republicans only care for the lives of the unborn, and not even that, really, because they don’t want to do anything about environmental factors that can cause miscarriages.

Keeping poor women poor by denying them opportunity sounds closer to slavery to me than letting them make free choices about how to pursue their goals. And I think that message could break the anti-choice propaganda blitz—but I don’t know how to deliver the message. The anti-choice fanatics always seem to have money to spend.

Stop. Saying. “Pro-Life”. The people who actually are pro-life make up a tiny and powerless minority in the overall anti-choice movement. Stop buying into their terminology. WE are the ones who are pro-life.

I think Markita Eddy was being sarcastic.  I really hope she was.

I look at this program a little differently than Jesse does.  The anti abortion movement is heavily tied into the conservative movement, generally speaking.  The various groups: “right to life” “moral majority” anti gay, anti immigrant work together to elect Republican leaders, and to attack and disenfranchise liberal/progressive and Democratic politicians and policies.  This is a striaght up *wedge issue.*  The object isn’t to get a single black woman to bring her baby to term. The object is to encourage black voters to vote on a conservative party ticket. And it works, and has always worked, with a small percentage of conservative african americans and conservative hispanics.

Doesn’t every white liberal have one black friend? I have one—my dry cleaner.  She and her charismatic pastor husband voted for Bush because he was “pro life.”  The argument that abortion was a kind of “holocaust” in the black community was already being made, back then, but the stronger and straight up appeal was the “babeez is so pure and good! Evil libs want to kill all the babeez, and also jesus.”  She and her husband voted for Obama, but her husband prayed a lot about it because of Obama’s perceived pro-choice position.  They are actually friends of the person who ended up being in the white house as part of the Obama faith outreach thingy—which shows how carefully the Obama people approached this more conservative section of the black community.

I think the anti-abortion/anti choice outreach to the american black community also serves a two fold purpose—not only is it aimed at breaking the perceived democratic hold on black votes but it is aimed at making conservative white christians feel less racist about the rest of their own voting record on immigration, taxes, health care, etc…  There is also a long history in the anti choice movement itself of othering and demonizing white feminists, while holding up actual women who have abortions as deceived and betrayed.  That part is nothing new.  Talking to, or reaching out, to women of color as “victims” of feminism is just an extension of missionizing to the pagans generally.

aimai

The simplest explanation, as always, is projection:
“Liberals think of you as slaves” = “We think of you as slaves”, just as
“Liberals want to exterminate you” = “We want to exterminate you”,
“Liberals are all closet racists” = “We are all closet racists”,
“Liberals want to degrade women through contraception” = “Contraception interferes with our desire to degrade women”
“That college student is just a quota baby” = “I know I only got into college as a legacy baby”,
“They are all welfare queens with their hands out” = “We are all subsidy queens with our hands out”,
and of course the biggie,
“Liberals are fascists” = “We are fascists”.

Conservatives care so much for black people that they want to force black women to bear children against their will.

Gosh, how compassionate can you get?

Hi! I am a long-time lurker who decided to register for this post.

I am from South Dakota, which has a crazy, loud pro-life movement and one of the things that disgusts me most (apart from the whole mysogyny thing) is the racism of the movement. This organization http://www.abortionno.org/Resources/abortion.html protests around the state all the time using images of holocaust victems and lynched African-Americans to sell their movement, claiming “fetal genocide” is taking place. It both manages to coopt the tragic deaths of people in order to further a cause they may/may not have belived in and manages to diminish the problem of genocide that is still occurring around the world today.

I have also seen the argument in letters to the editor of our local paper that amount to stating that if it weren’t for abortion, we would have enough poor, exploitable white people that we wouldnt need any Mexicans to exploit. Added to the whole “choices=slavery” framework it is enough to make me sick.

I have also seen the argument in letters to the editor of our local paper that amount to stating that if it weren’t for abortion, we would have enough poor, exploitable white people that we wouldnt need any Mexicans to exploit.

Conservative letters to the editor are awesome because you get the kind of conservatives who, not being public figures, are willing to just balls-out say what conservative politicians and pundits can only hint at (albeit often without much subtlety). Like the flood of “nuke the Middle East, kill millions of civilians, that’ll show ‘em” letters I saw right after 9/11.

This is just plain old race baiting.  Just done for the black community.  “They don’t want you to have babies! They want you to die off!” Really? Outside of Michael Steele who was placed at the top of the GOP to go against Obama what serious black republican has ever been elected to office?  And don’t bring up the reconstruction era variety who would clearly have been democrats in modern America.

These kinds of things are just a game that conservatives play in debates to defuse the real debate.  They try to point fingers first.

there’s a large element of the conservative movement that has never stopped thinking about black people as slaves.  Ever.

You’re a slave if you vote for Democrats.  You’re a slave if you choose to have an abortion.  You’re a slave if you work at Wal-Mart and have kids (and are black, mind you - white people are just making a living, duh).  And because you’re a slave, you might as well put that strong nigger back and that pliable nigger mind to work getting them what they want rather that what you might think you want.  And why would what you want matter anyway?  You’re just a slave!

For some reason, this last paragraph didn’t sit right with me, and I think I finally figured out why: it gives that block of conservatives too much credit. Sure, some conservatives still think of black people as slaves, but at least they still acknowledge that slaves have minds and can think and want—you know, that slaves are actually people.

I think that large element of the conservative movement you’re talking about here isn’t quite that generous. I don’t think they see black people as human beings at all. They probably see poor whites and women as slaves, but from all of the “slavery wasn’t that bad” bullshit they spew, it really seems like they see slavery as a “step up” from the “natural order” or something.

I’m not sure I’m expressing that very well, but there’s often a vibe of “we were nice enough to let you be slaves—you should be thanking us!” in the rhetoric from these people. I don’t even want to think what they would do if they weren’t so “nice” and “Christian”...

@ aimai #7

Thank you.  Deeply insightful comments.

Conservatives hate black people. Why would they want more black babies? They’ll only do their damnedest to kill them off at every stage in life once the cord is cut.

Jesse, you forgot about a few big ones in the “liberals are racist” projection memes.  Two I can think of right now are the anti-environtal crowd and the anti-evolution crowd.  The first one is anchored by CORE and Roy Innis who believe that environmentalists are out to get blacks cause somehow DDT was protecting blacks from malaria or stuff.  Then the second one is anchored by the Ben Stein crowd who thinks Darwin was a racist and shit.

Then I read this: http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/lamb/100214 about how calling tea partiers “tea baggers” is equivalent to the n-word and I almost died laughing.

To #8: I agree, conservativism is one big walking talking piece of projection.

I second that aimai has hit the nail on the head with this one.  It’s the Republican M.O. after all. From the Southern Strategy on, wedge issues have been their core strategy and this is just another instance of that.

It’s interesting that whenever these jackasses try to equate abortion with slavery (1), the implication is that they’re both atrocities.

But when the same people discuss slavery in any other context, they become the national distributors of that “oh, slavery was great for the slaves, so beneficial, the slaves were so happy, black people should be so grateful for it, etc.” blather
_______
(1) It’s not widely known, but apparently in the Old South, the usual way of acquiring slaves was to wake up one morning with the realization that you had bought some slaves without meaning to, and then carrying said slaves around bodily for nine months.

Outside of Michael Steele who was placed at the top of the GOP to go against Obama what serious black republican has ever been elected to office?

Your point is completely valid, but to be fair, there have been two black Republicans elected to Congress in the last 50 years.

Edward Brooke was the first post-Reconstruction African-American elected to the U.S. Senate representing Massachusetts from 1967 to 1979.  John Kerry currently holds the seat formerly occupied by Brooke.  To my knowledge, however, Brooke was a fairly moderate non-wingnutty Republican, as were most Republicans in Congress from the Northeast.

J.C. Watts was elected to represent Oklahoma’s 4th Congressional District in the Republican bloodbath of 1994.  He served 4 terms and retired in 2003 to go collect his wingnut welfare check as a lobbyist.

Gary Franks represented Connecticut’s 5th Congressional District for three terms from 1991-1997.

Those are the only three African-American Republicans elected to Congress since 1935.

What is perhaps even more shameful is that there have only been four African-American U.S. Senators since the 1880s (there have been six in total), and only three of them were elected to office (Roland Burris was appointed).  Even taking into account the fact that African-Americans make up a significantly smaller percentage of the overall U.S. population than whites, there still should be at least 10 African-American senators serving at any given time for it to be even close to being truly representational.  And as of January 2011, the U.S. Senate will probably go back to having zero black senators, barring an unforeseen appointment.

There was also a high ranking member of Eisenhower’s cabinet who was black and his name eludes me.  It’s a shame, but it’s 6 am and I can’t sleep.  You’re completely right, three black republicans representing the northeast except for Watts who got elected in a swatch of republican BS.  Essentially none won it because they were black, in fact most of them won it seems in spite of it. 

I’m not one to support the “representational” concept of how many should be serving since unlike representatives 2 senators are there to serve the people.  Representatives should be more in line with the ideology of their respective territory regardless of race and gender though the overwhelmingly white and male populace of the government is a bit much.  Which states though would be fairly represented if a senator were to be black?  I’m not saying that in a contrived racial way, I am asking though you would expect the highest black populations to elect a black senator but since no state currently has a black majority (I believe one of the Carolinas came close for a time) it is a relatively hard point to argue based on overall representation.  Long story short: Minority population is highly spread out for a state-by-state justification of electing a minority leader though honestly, I don’t see the issue with it.  I could care less if my senator or representative was black, white, male, or female just as long as they supported my views. 

To go back to my original point (as if I had one at this hour) is that the conservative movement is almost solidly white.  Whether it is racist by definition or became racist because of the general lack of diversity is up for debate.  We saw such movements when the 2nd and 3rd wave immigrants came and were absorbed but this may be a wedge created and maintained by the conservative ideologue.  But the fact is clear, they are racist.  They’re making these documentaries, calling in conservative black church leaders, and generally creating shenanigans to draw in the social conservative vote even though it means in elections electing representatives that will intentionally deny them equality all so that god can quietly cry as they deny the rights they themselves were denied less than three generations ago.  People are just now reaching social security age that can remember dogs, fire hoses, and segregation. 

The title really does say it all for this one.

E. Fredric Morrow.  So proud of myself for finally remembering his name.  Only 30 minutes later too!

I read his book “Black Man in the White House” and it sort of exemplifies the black republican.  Though truthfully Eisenhower was not a true conservative, more of a moderate leaning left in many cases.  It represents the ideal of the black republican from the northeast that was able to hold office where in squarely conservative states the only blacks to hold a federal office through election was during reconstruction or “the contract with america” era (that was more so a destruction of America.)

Molly, don’t forget the biggest justification for slavery was religious.  The slave owners felt like they were saving Africans from their non-Christian ways.  That was part of Robertson’s belief that the Haitians made a deal with the devil cause they escaped slavery.

Fast forward a few hundred years and it’s the Christians who are still considering black people slaves of Planned Parenthood.  Jesse is right, conservatives never stop thinking of black people as slaves.

Conservatives care so much for black people that they want to force black women to bear children against their will.

Remember - if you love something, take away its freedom.

Remember - if you love something, take away its freedom.

Which applies perfectly when you believe that what you love is lesser than you and incapable of making decisions for itself. Like puppies. Or women. Or the lesser races.  Such a burden on white men.

“They’ll only do their damnedest to kill them off at every stage in life once the cord is cut.”

They don’t even wait that long.  The rate of poor birth outcomes for non-whites is tragic, and most of it can be traced right back to institutional prejudice and societal hostility toward fertile woc.

“Institutional prejudice and society hostility!”

You silly! Don’t you know that once the Civil Rights Act was signed, all racism ended?

Considering the kind of rhetoric directed at Hispanics apparently attempting to ‘take over’ the country by ‘weight of numbers’, it seems very unlikely that urging black and other minority women to have more babies is part of any right-wing masterplan. That kind of ‘white panic’ has always been a feature of the right-wing and I can’t see them overtly encouraging any minority to increase in numbers. If they believe so sincerely that black lives are worth less why on earth would they care whether those same women have abortions or not?

Preying mantis @25—Good point. If you break down America’s rather shameful infant mortality rate, white, Asian and Latina women and their babies do about as well as most mothers/babies do in developed countries.  Black mothers/babies (and Indian M/Bs living on reservations) have obstetric results close to those of Caribbean M/Bs, and you know their prenatal care has been utter crap—assuming they had any at all.

In a just world, every time Bart Stupak et al. run their pie-holes about how their concern for defenseless babies requires them to kill HCR, a grieving mother should be allowed to slap them.

(See here for the US racial breakdown, and here for the rest of the world.) (Curiously, though, Mexican M/Bs seem to do better here than in Mexico—better than Anglos in the US, even—so we don’t completely suck.)

The core racism in this right wing construct in full view when we see that certain white voter blocs are never considered enslaved no matter how slavishly they behave as they are manipulated but the Republican Party.  Time and time again, large numbers of poor white fundamentalists/evangelicals (to take one segment) vote overwhelmingly against their economic interests on the promise that “morality” is being served by voting for Republicans, who promptly go off to the seats of government and actively undermine the economic lives of those voters while failing over and over (it might be said of some—but by no means all—not for lack of trying).  So, according to the right wing, those white voters are exercising their considered judgment while black voters in the same situation are simply dupes.  It don’t get more racist than that.

“and I can’t see them overtly encouraging any minority to increase in numbers.”

I assume you also can’t see them overtly encouraging minority voters to turn out for or support initiatives that punt control of fertility back to the state, hoping like hell that the minority voters in question don’t stop to think about how state control of fertility has historically turned out for minorities in general.  See also, gay rights and state use of the power to officially recognize or refuse recognition to certain unions.

I accidentally cut out a bit while doing some editing of that entry above.  After “over and over” it should read:  “to eliminate teh gays and free reproductive choice.”  My apologies.

You silly! Don’t you know that once the Civil Rights Act was signed, all racism ended?

You mean the Emancipation Proclamation, don’t you? The Civil Rights Act was just Yankee oppression instigated by Communist agitators.

What’s weird about this new tact is that the nuttier parts of the right used to suggest (both implicitly and sometimes explicitly) that abortion was bad because too many white fetuses were being aborted—this was Eric Rudolph’s justification for his crimes, for example.

Wow, that’s surprising about Mexican-Americans having lower infant mortality than non-Hispanic whites.

You mean the Emancipation Proclamation, don’t you?

We don’t listen to hip-hop around here.

I’m wondering if one enormous difference between race issues in the US and NZ (apart from the, you know, slavery unpleasantness) is that the Maori actually have a coherent organic culture and structure, which is quite capable of both speaking up for itself and weighing in whenever a Pakeha or another Maori makes some stupid comment.

Aimai, I have more than one black friend; but I heard sentiments like you recount as far back as grad school in 1994, when a pregnant black classmate said one of the great threats to American life was the “Save the whales, save the trees, kill the babies” movement.

Piator, I guess no one in the US has “a coherent organic culture and structure,” not even our indigenous people (they have, like, dozens of cultures).  What we have are individuals who weigh in:  Hutchinson, Dyson, and Coates spoke up forcefully and cogently when Cosby made his stupid comments.

The desegregation destroyed the communities that Cosby grew up in unintentionally because racist only went being doors to prevent blck companies from competing fairly; added onto the already weak position small business is against big.  His rant was a lament that when given opportunity many fall back upon complaints of poor treatment and disenfranchisement.

Of course, you can find even more white people in the same situation - their community destroyed, no opportunity for them among their homes, their businesses predated upon by corporations etc.  The difference is that a white person can pass as not being from one of those communities, a black person cannot.  So Cosby’s success requires some level of emotional fortitude that is above average in people in general.

Of course white disenfranchised people have a national political party for voicing their fears and protectionist desires; black people do not, generally.

Piator, I guess no one in the US has “a coherent organic culture and structure,” not even our indigenous people

The dominant majority (and I’m including Pakeha here) never need it. They just assume that their values are “normal”.

We’ll know racism has ended in this country, and that we’ve entered a truly colorblind society for real when working class whites vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party and wealthy minorities vote overwhelmingly Republican.

it is aimed at making conservative white christians feel less racist about the rest of their own voting record

Conservatives will always tell you that Rush Limbaugh cannot be racist because he has an actual black man screening phone calls for him. Of course, Simon Legree’s not exempted from being racist because he had black folks working for him. Limbaugh’s calling Golden by a made up name might not sit well with some people, either.

White conservatives will also tell you it’s a post racial era and they don’t see color anyways, so it’s past time to get rid of affirmative action, which was only letting unqualified Negroes take the place of more deserving whites and Asians in college and jobs.

Limbaugh has a black screener?  I guess if the only reason for hiring someone is to say “look, I’m not racist”, then you are racist.

not only is it aimed at breaking the perceived democratic hold on black votes but it is aimed at making conservative white christians feel less racist about the rest of their own voting record on immigration, taxes, health care, etc.

This is really the biggie. The stuff in Jesse’s post and other things like it aren’t for any black person’s edification, they’re so white people who froth at the mouth as they spit out vicious racist screeds about welfare queens and SUPERPREDATORS and illegal immigrants and other such shit, can then indulge in the fantasy that they’re actually wonderful people who want to help the poor benighted blacks/Mexicans/whoever and it’s those awful liberals who are the real racists.

The fact that the overwhelming majority of the people to whom they’re supposedly trying to appeal utterly reject their arguments suits them just fine, because they get to reconfirm their views that those people are just too stupid and inferior to see how tolerant and unbiased the right really is.

it’s those awful liberals who are the real racists.

Yes, liberals are the ones who don’t think black people can make it without hte crutch of affirmative action. But what I want to know is why “performance on standardized tests” = “merit” in our meritocracy.

Limbaugh has a black screener?

Apparantly he does… his name is James Golden, but he is referred to by Limpballs as “Mr. Snerdly”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Golden_(radio_personality)

But what I want to know is why “performance on standardized tests” = “merit” in our meritocracy.

Because we adopted the authoritarian Prussian model of education in the late 19th Century, and we’re worse for it.

I think it may be in part the very wingnut origin of this conspiracy theory that gives it such traction. If (as stubborn’s post points out) the notion of abortion as black genocide is being peddled by people who blacks already know want to commit genocide on already-born black people, it gains a certain credibility for being apparently counterintuitive. And, of course, rightwing types have never had trouble with telling different lies to different audiences, so there’s no actual conflict between this myth and the crap they spew to white audiences about being outbred.

In practical terms, of course, it rampantly ignores the fact that abortion and other forms of birth control are typically used to control the timing of children, rather than (well, in addition to, but we’re not living in victorian england or a catholic country) the total number. So the abortion numbers don’t represent offspring permanently foregone but rather offspring delayed until the time for their arrival was more felicitous. In fact, given the horrorshow that is premature/single parenthood, it’s quite plausible for many women that abortion results in an increase in total family size.

The moment I read this in the NY Times, I wondered when the pandagon crew would get around to addressing it.  Thank you for your pointed response to the nonsensical idea that the conservative movement give a shit about the people they’ve been actively working to oppress and sabotage.

One note:  I did (in a sick way) enjoy the comments in the NY Times article from the “Minority Outreach Coordinator” about how much more cost effective it was to lie to the population they were trying to reach (the article cites how they defunded hotline promotion to fund this position).  Why publicize a hotline when you can generate interest with a slick marketing campaign aimed to deceive?

Finally, apologies if I’m echoing other comments, I’m tired and it’s late, and I only skimmed other esponses.

While the film may be recent, the antiabortion movement using abortion=black genocide isn’t. About twenty years ago I had the misfortune to have a friend who turned anti-abortion after having kids, and bought into pretty much everything the antis had to offer, including this. I felt compelled to point out that it was the most inefficient genocide in history, considering that the supposedly targeted population constantly increased while it was going on. (Which led to her trying to psychoanalyze “why” I was pro-choice, because, y’know, there must be a hidden reason why I was, even though she had been for all of her adult life up to that point. Sigh.)