Opinion
Attacks on Planned Parenthood
“Challenging People to Shape
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C
onservatives are attacking
Planned Parenthood so vi-
ciously that you would be
forgiven if you thought that the
organization was running for pres-
ident as a Democrat. It is often
said, “The first casualty when war
comes is truth.”
Actually, the first casualty
of politics is truth.
That’s particularly true when it
comes to the orchestrated attacks
on Planned Parenthood. The an-
ti-choice Center for Medical Prog-
ress (CMP) has released seven vid-
eos that seek to discredit Planned
Parenthood. Media Matters said,
“The latest video again relies on
footage already debunked as high-
ly edited, features conversations
with third-party providers who
acted as the middlemen between
researchers and clinics, and relies
heavily on the account of a techni-
cian who did not work for Planned
Parenthood…”
Dr. Ben Carson, a retired neuro-
surgeon, has also launched a major
attack against Planned Parenthood
and he should know better.
In an interview with Fox News
on Aug. 12, Carson said that
Planned Parenthood erects most of
its clinics in Black neighborhoods
as a “way to control that popula-
tion.”
However, ABC’s Martha Radd-
atz reported, “Planned Parenthood
estimates that fewer than five
percent of its health centers are
located in areas where more than
one-third of the population is Afri-
can-American.”
In a detailed rebuttal, the Wash-
ington Post awarded Carson “Four
Pinocchios,” indicating a “whop-
per” of a lie, the highest level of
falsehoods.
“A 2011 report by Life Dy-
George E.
Curry
NNPA
Columnist
namics, which opposes abortion,
used Census data to determine
the African-American and His-
panic population of each zip code
where Planned Parenthood has an
office,” the newspaper recalled.
“The report was intended to show
statistics did not change when the
numbers were adjusted for nearly
600 providers that conduct more
than 400 abortions a year.”
Referring to the founder of
Planned Parenthood, Carson said:
“I know who Margaret Sanger
is and I know that she believed
in eugenics and that she was not
particularly enamored with Black
people.”
He is correct in saying that Mar-
garet Sanger believed in eugenics,
the idea that the human race can
be improved by encouraging or
discouraging reproduction based
on genetic traits. Even so, Carson
Fewer than one in 10 abortion providers
are located in neighborhoods where
more than half of the residents are
Black
that the abortion clinics are placed
mostly in areas where Black res-
idents exceed the average Black
population of the state.
“But when you look closely at
the data, it turns out that there are
only about 110 locations (out of
about 800) where the Black pop-
ulation exceeds 25 percent of the
overall population. That certainly
does not support the claim that
“most” clinics are in ‘Black neigh-
borhoods.’
“Separately, in 2011, the Gut-
tmacher Institute surveyed all
abortion providers (about 1,700),
including Planned Parenthood,
and found that 60 percent are in
majority-white
neighborhoods
— and that fewer than one in ten
abortion providers are located in
neighborhoods where more than
half of the residents are Black. The
tells only half of the story – the
half favorable to his point of view.
“…I think people should go back
and read about Margaret Sanger,
who founded this place – a woman
who Hillary Clinton, by the way,
says she admires,” Carson said in
the Fox interview. “Look and see
what many people in Nazi Germa-
ny thought about her.”
The Washington Post did just
that.
“Starting in 1916, Sanger’s
clinics at first were aimed mainly
at poor immigrant women. The
first clinic was in a neighborhood
‘populated largely by Italians and
Eastern European Jews,’ accord-
ing to the 2010 book “Birth Con-
trol on Main Street,” by Cathy
Moran Hajo. Sanger did not open
a Harlem clinic until the 1930s,
even though infant mortality rates
there were similar.
“Hajo found that in the 1916-
1939 period, white activists were
more likely to exclude African
Americans from clinics, rather
than include them. There were
some half-hearted efforts to cre-
ate African American clinics, but
white activists actually gave little
or no assistance. ‘Whatever the
activists’ personal beliefs about
race may have been, there was
no grand program to exterminate
nonwhites or the poor,’ Hajo con-
cluded.”
The Post also noted, “Sanger in
1938 appeared to speak positively
about the German program under-
taken by the Nazis. ‘Reports in
medical journals state that the in-
dications laid down in the German
law are being carefully observed.
These are congenital feeble-mind-
edness; schizophrenia, circular
insanity; heredity epilepsy; he-
reditary chorea (Huntington’s);
hereditary blindness or deafness;
grave hereditary bodily deformity
and chronic alcoholism,” she said.
“The rights of the individual could
be equally well safeguarded here,
but in no case should the rights
of society, or which he or she is a
member, be disregarded.’
“Yet in 1939, she wrote that be-
fore Hitler came to power, ‘I was
one of the few Americans who
joined the Anti-Nazi Committee
and gave money, my name and
any influence I had with writers
and others, to combat Hitler’s
rise to power in Germany.’ She
added that ‘my three books were
destroyed [burned] and have not
been allowed to circulate in Ger-
many.’”
It would be great if we could get
these orchestrated lies about abor-
tion out of circulation.
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Are You Having Fun with Today’s Politics?
“I
’ll see your two Blacks and
raise you two more.”
The vast majority of the news is
centered on politics, specifically,
the 2016 presidential race, which
is 14 months away.
Talking heads on news shows
are so giddy about the political
possibilities, and it is obvious that
they see the upcoming election as
simply “fun,” as one commentator
said.
Is it fun for Black people? Are
you having fun yet? I doubt it.
You’re too busy trying to make
ends meet — that is, if you even
have any ends in the first place.
Folks are making millions of
dollars on political hype, hysteria,
and histrionics, while most Black
folks are falling deeper into the
abyss of economic despair and
desperation. Just think about it: all
the cable news shows are replete
with political claptrap – morning,
noon, and night.
They never highlight economic
solutions for Black people, never
feature conscious Black people as
guests on a regular basis, and nev-
er move beyond the mundane dis-
cussions and point-counterpoint,
arguing that takes place between
and among so-called experts and
intellectuals.
Of course, no problems get
solved in that process.
Page 2 August 26, 2015 The Portland and Seattle Skanner
James
Clingman
NNPA
Columnist
While political discourse is
dominating the news, real issues
that connect to Black economic
growth and power are given very
short shrift.
Each news channel has its own
Black faces, none of whom is able
to go “off the plantation” to speak
directly to the important issues rel-
will solve our problems.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is
certainly disrupting the political
business-as-usual process these
days, but they are waiting for the
candidates to give them a plan
through which Black lives will in-
deed matter. The candidates give
them scripted rhetoric, but no spe-
cific public commitment regarding
real change. Asking politicians to
do the right thing will only keep us
waiting for another 50 years; we
must demand what we want, very
specifically, and get an oral and
written commitment from them
before we give them our votes.
Politicians will say whatev-
er makes us feel good; they will
Folks are making millions of dollars on
political hype, hysteria, and histrionics,
while most Black folks are falling deeper
into the abyss of economic despair
evant to Black people. They con-
sume hours of airtime doing their
best imitation of Pavlov’s dog, sal-
ivating over their preferred candi-
date and offering milquetoast as-
sessments to Black issues, mainly
through a political lens, as if that
dodge our issues or simply ignore
us; or they will do what Hillary
did when the brother in BLM
“asked” what she would do to
help. She turned the question back
on him, saying, “You tell me what
you want.”
Presently, politicians control the
game. We must start and control
our own game.
Where is their indignation about
what happened to Sandra Bland
and more recently Charnesia Cor-
ley, who was humiliated by police
officers who forced a cavity search
on her in a gas station parking lot
in Harris County, Texas, in plain
sight of passersby?
Most politicians only value
Black folks when it’s time to vote.
Ann Coulter said, “Our Blacks are
so much better than their Blacks,”
in her defense and support of Her-
man Cain. We are just pawns on
their chessboard, chips in a high-
stakes poker game.
I recently posed two questions to
a Black Republican who recruits
Black voters: What will Black
folks get if we all vote for the
Republican candidate? What will
Black folks lose if we do not vote
at all? He could not answer those
questions. The same questions
apply to the Democrats, but more
importantly they apply to us. More
specifically, we must stop “ask-
ing” and start demanding – with
the collective power to reward and
punish.
We can win this fight. We simply
have to use the right weapon. You
cannot properly defend yourself
in a gunfight if your weapon of
choice is a switchblade.