🚀 go-pugleaf

Re-enslaving African American Women

by Loretta Ross
I have spoken on many campuses in the wake of the "Genocide Awareness 
Project," which displays posters at colleges to create controversy among 
young people about Black abortion. Students are understandably confused when 
presented with seemingly fact-based information that claims that Black women 
are the scourge of the African American community. I provide accurate 
historical and contemporary information about Black women's views on 
abortion.

African American women who care about reproductive justice know that the 
limited membership in the Black anti-abortion movement doesn't represent our 
views and we are not fooled into thinking that they care about gender 
justice for women. In fact, if they had their way, we would be re-enslaved 
once again, based on our fertility.

But the Black anti-abortion movement needs to be taken seriously. The people 
involved in it carefully exploit religious values to make inroads into our 
communities. They poison the soil in which we must toil.

Carefully orchestrated campaigns by Black surrogates for the religious and 
political right not only oppose abortion, but they also organize on behalf 
of many other right wing causes, such as opposing stem cell research, 
supporting charter schools and opposing affirmative action.

Through clever positioning and photo-ops by the right wing, the Black 
anti-abortion movement appears stronger and more numerous than it actually 
is. Generously funded by a predominantly white anti-abortion movement 
desperate for Black representatives, the Black anti-abortion movement seeks 
to drive a wedge into the African American community.

They tell African American women that we are now responsible for the 
genocide of our own people. Talk about a "blame the victim" strategy! We are 
now accused of "lynching" our children in our wombs and practicing white 
supremacy on ourselves. Black women are again blamed for the social 
conditions in our communities and demonized by those who claim they only 
want to save our souls (and the souls of our unborn children). This is what 
lies on steroids look like.

Opposition Research Needed

Who are these people in the Black anti-abortion movement? This movement 
needs to be carefully studied through opposition research. Information on 
them, their connections to white anti-abortion groups and their sources of 
funding is scant.

Of course, the most famous of the Black anti-abortionists is Alveda King, 
niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She is a Pastoral Associate, a member 
of the avid anti-abortion group Priests for Life, and Director of African 
American Outreach for the Gospel of Life Ministries. Because her father was 
Dr. King's brother, Alveda is the leading voice for linking the 
anti-abortionists to the Civil Rights movement. This is despite the fact 
that both Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King were strong supporters 
of family planning in general, and Planned Parenthood in particular. Alveda 
King, who lives in Atlanta, has also spoken out strongly against gay rights 
and in support of charter schools.

A widely known Black anti-abortion minister is Rev. Clenard H. Childress of 
New Jersey, founder of the BlackGenocide.org project and website. He is the 
president of the Northeast Chapter of Life Education and Resource Network 
(L.E.A.R.N.), established in 1993. He claims that the "high rate of abortion 
has decimated the Black family and destroyed Black neighborhoods to the 
detriment of society at large." He led protests at the 2008 NAACP convention 
in Cincinnati and has accused the organization of practicing racism against 
Black children. He is also on the board of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform 
that circulates the Genocide Awareness Project.

Alan Keyes, perennial presidential candidate, is also well known in 
anti-abortion circles. Keyes first came to national attention when President 
Reagan appointed him as adviser to Maureen Reagan (daughter of the 
president), as she led the official U.S. delegation to the UN World 
Conference for Women in Kenya in 1985. At this meeting, the U.S. affirmed 
its support for the infamous 1984 "Mexico City" policy that banned U.S. 
funds from supporting abortion worldwide. Keyes helped lead the 
anti-abortion protests at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, 
and is a favorite of the right for his fierce extreme views on a number of 
issues.

There are a handful of other Black spokespeople for the anti-abortion 
movement. The point is not how many there are, but the disproportionate 
impact they have. They have created the false impression that if only Black 
people were warned that abortion is genocide, women would stop having them 
in order to preserve the Black race, either voluntarily or pressured by the 
men in their lives.

The Sexism They Sell

The sexism in their viewpoints is mind-boggling. To them, Black women are 
the poor dupes of the abortion rights movement, lacking agency and 
decision-making of our own. In fact, this is a reassertion of Black male 
supremacy over the self-determination of women. It doesn't matter whether it 
is from the lips of a man or a woman. It is about re-enslaving Black women 
by making us breeders for someone else's cause.

I am reminded of the comments of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman in 
Congress, who dismissed the genocide argument when asked to discuss her 
views on abortion and birth control:

To label family planning and legal abortion programs "genocide" is male 
rhetoric, for male ears. It falls flat to female listeners and to thoughtful 
male ones. Women know, and so do many men, that two or three children who 
are wanted, prepared for, reared amid love and stability, and educated to 
the limit of their ability will mean more for the future of the Black and 
brown races from which they come than any number of neglected, hungry, 
ill-housed and ill-clothed youngsters.

We need our leading African American women's and Civil Rights organizations 
to speak out more strongly in support of reproductive justice. We need to 
organize young people to resist the misinformation directed at them by these 
groups. Many of our campuses are unaware of the activities of the Black 
anti-abortionists until they show up, usually invited by a white 
anti-abortion group.

But mostly, we need to let the world know that they do not speak for Black 
women. As my mother would say, "they might be our color, but they are not 
our kind."

November 24. 2008 - http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/cafe2.php?id=22