User:Beleg Strongbow/Maafa 21

Reception

Response to the documentary has been largely divided in accordance with predisposed positions on abortion in general, with pro-life activists giving strong support and pro-choice activists and advocates giving strong opposition. A notable exception is within the African-American community, which has the highest rate of abortions: though at times questioning the sincerity of the producers of Maafa 21, Afrocentric publications and commentators have expressed varying levels of support of the film's racist depictions of the Eugenics and Birth Control Movements. Conversely, Esther Katz and the Margaret Sanger Papers Project, leading experts on the life and works of Margaret Sanger, have categorized it as propaganda.

Afrocentric response

Lynette Holloway, a Chicago-based writer, former New York Times reporter, and associate editor for Ebony magazine, reviewed Maafa 21 in her article "Some Black Pro-Lifers Say Abortion Is Genocide", posted at The Root, an online magazine featuring commentaries centered around "black news, opinion, politics and culture." Throughout her article, Holloway addresses the questions Is black culture pro-choice or pro-life? If pro-choice, is it shifting toward becoming pro-life? If indeed shifting toward pro-life, what is effecting this shift?

Resulting from interviews with several black clergy, Holloway reported that a pro-life message within the black community "is nothing new." In apparent agreement to this assertion, Holloway cited results from a 2009 Gallup poll, revealing that, for the first time in Gallup's history, a majority (51%) of Americans consider themselves to be pro-life. More to Holloway's point, that black culture may be shifting toward a pro-life position, she referenced the results of a 2004 Zogby poll, as reported by Catholic News Service, which revealed that, among "African Americans, 62 percent said abortion should never be legal or be legal only when the mother's life is in danger or in cases of rape and incest." Conflicting with this public sentiment, Holloway also referenced that in 2006 a disproportionate 36.4% of all abortions were received by African-Americans, who make up only 13% of the U.S. population.

Given these revealing statistics, Holloway then examined the arguments for and against the accusation that industrialized abortion—and specifically Planned Parenthood—was founded upon the goal of controlling the size of the black population, if not eliminating it. Holloway identified Maafa 21 as evidence that this conspiracy theory continues to pervade the African-American community. As seen in the documentary, Rev. Johnny M. Hunter, national director of the Life, Education and Resource Network (LEARN), in Fayetteville, NC, is quoted, "We are losing 1,452 [African-American] children a day to abortions. That means within four days, more blacks have been put to death than the Ku Klux Klan has lynched in the history of this nation."

Giving Dr. Alveda King the last word, Holloway quoted the now pro-life clergy's confession of having been "beguiled by the women's rights movement" when she had consented to two abortions in the past, prior to returning to her "pro-life roots." Dr. King, a well-known pro-life activist and niece of assassinated civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is a notable figure in Maafa 21.

Later that same month, Holloway gave another brief reference to Maafa 21 in her article "Abortion Debaters Agree on One Thing", also posted at The Root. Here, Holloway included an uncontested accusation from Catherine Davis (also in the film), an ordained minister and the Director of Minority Outreach for Georgia Right to Life, that "the mostly white abortionist community [is] pushing black women to terminate their pregnancies to kill off the black race."

As recently as March of 2012, Holloway again brought attention to Maafa 21 at The Root in her article "Blacks, Abortion in 'Gates of Hell'", a review of the movie Gates of Hell (2012), which is a fictional "political action thriller" depicting a documentary from the (future) year 2016 reporting on the murderous activities of a black terrorist organization fighting an eugenics conspiracy by assassinating abortion providers. Despite the violent nature of the story, its producer, Molotov Mitchell, claims that his "film is in no way a call to arms or promoting violence." As Holloway described this highly controversial film, she personally acknowledged, "Equating abortion with black genocide has long been known as a hot-button issue."

Initially asking the question and then reinforcing the possibility that films like Gates of Hell and Maafa 21 may intentionally be tools of "social conservatives" to convince blacks to abandon the Democratic party, (though Maafa 21 incriminates Republicans as well) Holloway reiterated a point she made in 2010, citing the percentage of abortions performed upon African-Americans in 2008. Two years earlier (2006), the rate had been 36.4%, but in 2008 the rate had jumped to 40.2%, while the African-American percentage of the population had remained at approximately 13%. She related these statistics, showing abortion rates going up and population size remaining the same, as evidence of the relevance of these conspiracy theory films and as a potential factor for their effectiveness within African-American communities. Holloway acknowledged that, while abortion providers insist that these disproportionate rates are primarily the result of "a higher incidence of unintended pregnancies," the makers of Gates of Hell, Maafa 21 and the like are insisting that the real issue is carefully planned "accessibility," resulting from a racist desire "to extinguish the African-American community through abortion." Holloway suggested that this viewpoint and the publications promoting it should be seen as "par for the course."

In 2010, The New York Times ran an article, by Shaila Dewan, entitled "To Court Blacks, Foes of Abortion Make Racial Case". While offering opposition to the film from pro-choice activists Loretta Ross of Sister Song and Ellen Chesler of Planned Parenthood, Dewan alluded to the relevance and effectiveness of Maafa 21 within the African-American community. Dewan identified the film as part of a larger effort of the pro-life movement to expose the abortion industry's alleged racist legacy. She noted that it "meticulously traces what it says are connections among slavery, Nazi-style eugenics, birth control and abortion." Dewan also referenced "a sting operation by young white conservatives who taped Planned Parenthood employees welcoming donations specifically for aborting black children...Planned Parenthood has apologized for the employees' statements and says they do not reflect the organization's values or policies." Despite this apology, the audio recordings "reinvigorated old claims that the organization was a front for racial genocide and that Sanger viewed blacks as undesirable," the reaction including demands from black leaders that government funding of Planned Parenthood be withdrawn. While opponents to legalized abortion have increasingly employed new tactics of conveying their message, including covert operations, billboards, TV ads and documentaries, Dewan called the key arguments of Maafa 21 and of the black anti-abortion movement "old news." Though admitting that Margaret Sanger, according to "scholars," is known to have endorsed eugenics, which employed such tactics as "birth control, sterilization and abortion," and simultaneously to have allied herself "with black leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois and Dr. King," Dewan overlooked the film's claim that this dual alliance was a tactic of Sanger to promote the abortion of black babies through the unwitting coercion of black leaders.

Dewan reported that pro-choice activists, like Loretta Ross from Sister Song, assert that the disproportionately high rate of abortion among African-Americans is not the result of a conspiracy but of a proliferation of unwanted pregnancies resulting from "lack of access to birth control, lack of education, and even a high rate of sexual violence." Ross concedes that the conspiracy theories are finding "fertile ground" within the black community, because they reiterate the "sanctioned prejudice and violence" to which African-Americans have long been exposed. Though unconvinced that its influence will be widespread, Dewan pointed out that Maafa 21 "is being regularly screened by black organizations" and acknowledged that "enough threads of truth weave through the" film to make it "persuasive to some viewers."

Loretta J. Ross, author of "African-American Women and Abortion: A Neglected History", founder of the National Center for Human Rights Education and co-founder of Sister Song, Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, wrote that Maafa 21 is a "pseudo-documentary" produced by a white Texan (Crutcher) "who has made a career of attacking Planned Parenthood." Ross said that the premise of the film was wrong and that black slave women brought to America the knowledge of birth control and abortion, arguing that black women worked to reduce their collective birthrate after the American Civil War as a way to raise themselves up, not as a form of race genocide. She wrote that black women believed that having fewer children allowed parents to give each child a better opportunity and that African-American leaders worked with Sanger to establish family planning clinics in black neighborhoods as part of a "racial uplift strategy," not as racial suicide.

The Liberator Magazine, an Afrocentric global publication, posted an extensive review of Maafa 21 on its online blog as an "exclusive feature." In their review, while strongly questioning the motive of the film's producers, they not only fully endorsed its conclusion and arguments but offered their own complimentary perspective of allegedly how (1) America as a nation has used eugenics and (2) Margaret Sanger, through the American Birth Control League (now Planned Parenthood), offered abortions as solutions to the "black problem" that resulted from the abolition of slavery in the 19th Century. The author expressed his personal disappointment with the film's backdoor approach to promoting "an end to abortion," lamenting that he "would have preferred a much more direct and honest approach" and accusing its producers of emotional manipulation. Despite this criticism, the article agrees with the film's depiction of the historical motivation for eugenics in America, stating that "the Eugenics movement...was, however, only one of many movements whose goal was the elimination en masse of black people." Though the ultimate conclusion of the article is overall agreement with the alleged facts, the author felt that the film (possibly intentionally) fell far short of fully revealing both the injustices perpetrated by white Europeans upon tribal peoples and the fallen nature of the United States of America. A similar response came from Harold Middlebrook, pastor at Canaan Baptist Church of East Knoxville and "a widely respected civil-rights leader." While rejecting the idea that Maafa 21 will have a lasting impact on African-American culture, largely due to his apprehensions of the sincerity of the film's producers, Middlebrook said that he "believes the theory that Planned Parenthood may be attempting to limit black births to increase white dominance."

In his article "'Maafa 21' The Undeniable Truth about Eugenics and Genocide", Rev. Ceasar I. LeFlore III, executive director of the Beloved Community Development Coalition and former Midwest regional director of the Life, Education and Resource Network and executive director of the African American Family Association Incorporated, frankly declared that he has been attempting to alert African-Americans to a racist history of abortion for "20 years"; he believes that Maafa 21 correctly ties together the slave industry, the eugenics movement and the abortion industry and hopes that the film will act as the thus-far elusive catalyst for awakening against industrialized abortion, what he calls, "America’s sleeping black giant." In an interview conducted by LeFlore, Maafa 21's producer Mark Crutcher explained that he felt the film has had so much credibility among African-Americans because of a statement made by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a NYT interview, where she revealed that her initial perception of Roe v. Wade was that it would be part of the response to population growth concerns held by some, "particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of." Crutcher concludes that many who initially opposed his documentary, subsequently interpreting Ginsburg's comment to implicate blacks, have since become some of his "staunchest allies."

Living in Black Radio, an internet-based radio producer that promotes African culture in its entirety by using both music and talk programming, actively promotes Maafa 21, reinforcing their approval of the film by acting as a discriminating distributor. On their homepage, they declare that Maafa 21 is "the hardest hitting documentary of our generation," calling the level of detail "awesome" and agreeing with its premise that industrialized abortion, with the full cooperation of "many black elites," is a covert extension of the eugenics movement, founded upon the goal "to eliminate Blacks from the U.S. population." Likewise, Black Christian News, an online resource "dedicated to reporting breaking news from a black, Christian perspective for the glory of God," strongly recommends the film, calling it "stunning" and concluding that Maafa 21 has exposed "the real agenda behind 'choice.'"

Scholarly response

Esther Katz, editor and director of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project (MSPP) at New York University, said that quotes attributed to Sanger are taken out of context or simply fabricated. While criticizing the film's depiction of Sanger as a genocidal eugenicist, Katz concedes that "Sanger made mistakes" and "was very naïve" in her campaign to legalize contraception, particularly in her vilification "of immigrants" and of her advocating "for the sterilization of the mentally challenged," which Maafa 21 insists were code words for the black race.

Pro-choice response

Editors of the online blog for the MSPP questioned the scholarship behind Maafa 21's portrayal of Sanger and her racial views, calling the film "propaganda." They also praised retired teacher and blogger Arthur G. Broadhurst, who wrote against Maafa 21 in his Christian Humanist column, saying that the film was guilty of misinformation and distortion. Broadhurst rejects the film's portrayal of Sanger's Negro Project as being about abortion, saying that the Negro Project was about family planning and birth control, all voluntary, formed and implemented in coordination with black leaders who wanted to help black communities prosper.

Marcy Darnovsky, the associate executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, wrote that the film is a "shockumentary" used to support the activities of the black pro-life movement. Michelle Goldberg, characterizing the film as dishonest propaganda, argued that the film falsely attributes racist views to family planning activists like Sanger and Gunnar Myrdal and deflects attention from claims of racial discrimination regarding access to reproductive services. She also said that the film ignores the racist and eugenicist arguments allegedly used by opponents of family planning and that it implies or states outright that eugenics advocates such as Charles Davenport and Adolf Hitler supported family planning, when, according to Goldberg, they actually opposed it, though this opposition was exclusively within the context of the "Aryan Race", not of those considered by the Nazis to be inferior. On the Ms. magazine weblog, Eva McKend similarly criticized the conclusions of the film, claiming that black women have high rates of unintended pregnancy due to income inequalities that prevent access to effective contraception.

Pro-life response

MovieGuide, an online database of movie reviews that use a "Biblical perspective" while attempting to assist families with their entertainment choices, gave Maafa 21 a quality rating of "EXCELLENT" (4 out of 4 stars) and a content rating of "WORTHWHILE: Discernment required for young children" (+1 from a range from +4 down to -4). MovieGuide describes the film as a "very carefully reasoned, well-produced exposé of the abortion industry, racism and eugenics" that "proves through innumerable sources that the founders of Planned Parenthood and other parts of the abortion movement were interested in killing off the black race in America and elsewhere." While declaring the conclusions of the film to be "irrefutable," the review questioned the use of class warfare.

In The New American, a John Birch Society publication, Rebecca Terrell praised Maafa 21 as "an explosive exposé of the racist eugenics agenda of the abortion industry in the United States." Terrell pointed out how the film describes a racist agenda, not limited to "abortion mills," that has extended all the way to the White House, utilizing "a disturbing recording in which Richard Nixon expresses racial prejudice and his approval of black eugenics through abortion."

Catholic.net's review of Maafa 21 offers evidence of the film's broad exposure to a diverse collection of individuals, groups, and organizations and through multiple formats, including the Internet, print, television, and radio. This exposure includes mainstream publications, TV and radio talk show hosts, religious organizations, Afrocentric news sources, government officials, and political organizations. From the perspective of Catholic.net, the general response has been overwhelmingly positive, revealing the documentary's effectiveness in its ability to sway opinion and to generate emotion against industrialized abortion.

Supporters of the film also include Alex Jones; Freedom's Journal Magazine; Southern Baptist Texan.

Maafa 21 has been a main topic of discussion on The Glenn Beck Show; Blog Talk Radio; Point of View.

References to Maafa 21 have also appeared in The Washington Times.