The Award Winning Newspaper Of Pace University

THE PACE CHRONICLE

The Award Winning Newspaper Of Pace University

THE PACE CHRONICLE

The Award Winning Newspaper Of Pace University

THE PACE CHRONICLE

Photo Courtesy of Pace Athletics.
Softball Sweeps Doubleheader vs Georgian Court
Dylan Brown, Managing Editor • March 20, 2024

LAKEWOOD, N.J.- Pace picked up two road wins versus Georgian Court University yesterday afternoon. Game 1 went Pace's way with a final score...

Front of Miller Hall. Photo Courtesy of webpage.pace.edu
President Krislov on Campus Involvement and School-Town Relations
Dylan Brown, Managing Editor • March 18, 2024

This article is on the topic of on-campus involvement and school/town relations. For the article about academics, the article about student life,...

Outside of the Office of SGA
Diaz And Tracey Wins 2024 SGA Election
Pace Chronicle StaffMarch 15, 2024

Incumbent President Nick Diaz and Vice President Paris Tracey have won reelection to their respective offices in the Student Government Association....

Black Genocide: Is It Really a Conspiracy Theory?

It is relatively easy to let lyrics fly over your head, but in Kanye West and Jay-Z’s song “The Joy,” West’s brief moment of political activism is more poignant than his more memorable commentary on President George W. Bush. “I never understood Planned Parenthood ‘cause I never met nobody planned to be a parent in the hood,” said West, an observation made of the nearly 100 year old organization. West’s observation is not too far gone, being that 78 percent of Planned Parenthood’s clinics are in minority communities. Black people make up 12 percent of the population but comprise 35 percent of abortions in the United States. However, in an investigative documentary entitled Black Genocide in the 21st Century directed by pro-life activist Mark Crutcher, the beginnings of Planned Parenthood and their ties to eugenics stems as far back as the abolition of slavery.

For many of the wealthy elite during the late 1800s, slaves being set free was labeled the “Negro Dilemma,” a dilemma that would release 14 million uneducated and unemployed Black people into the economy. Common dialogues amongst the elite were that Blacks were seen as a liability and could bankrupt the economy given their circumstances and lack of contribution to America. To help appease this dilemma, elitists originally planned to colonize Blacks or send Blacks “back to Africa,” but once they realized this plan was too blatantly extreme and would require too much funding from the government they turned to a Darwinian practice called eugenics. The father of eugenics and cousin of Charles Darwin Francis Galton, who has been honored for his works with various medals, introduced this theory. Galton came from a wealthy family that made the majority of their wealth from the slave trade. Like many other eugenicists, Galton did not reject slavery until it was abolished and it was no longer legal to exploit Blacks.

Galton believed in increasing those he felt were high in stock and decreasing those that were low in stock. In a quote from Galton’s interview with the Jewish Chronicle in 1910, Galton states, “I do not join in the belief that the African is our equal in brain or in heart… we have an equal right to utilize them to our advantage.” Galton’s contributions to the American Eugenics Society and his texts were a form of inspiration for Adolf Hitler when he and the Nazi party were planning the Holocaust. Afro-Germans were sent to concentration camps and the children were forced to subject themselves to sterilization as to avoid being sent to the gas chambers. In Hitler’s text Meinkampf, he expressed: “The Jews were responsible for bringing the Negroes into the Rhineland… infecting the white race with the blood of inferior stock.”

It is believed by many social scientists who studied the beginnings of eugenics that the ideology was created to pit all of Black America against White America. Eugenics went through three distinct phases; their most extreme was during the period of shaming Blacks, stating that they did not possess enough intellect, self-reliance or self-control to sustain life without external support. The second phase was positive eugenics, the theory that Whites would reproduce so much that it would overwhelm the Black population. Naturally, this theory failed as well and progressed into negative eugenics: the creation of an environment for Blacks that would convince them to limit the amount of children they have, which would in turn lead to race suicide. These theories were obviously extremely politically incorrect and the language needed to be more socially acceptable in order for the agenda to be promoted. Subliminal codes from slavery such as “feeble minded” and “unfit” allowed for the eugenics movement of the mid-1900s to reach society with a watered down intent even though society knew of the demographic they were speaking of.

The leaders of eugenics by the 1920s were industrialists and billionaires who needed to hire crusaders to carry out their work in society, to put a face to their agenda. One of the most famous crusaders was Margaret Sanger, founder of the American Birth Control League and publisher of The Birth Control Review. The American Eugenics Society needed a front man, and Sanger needed money for her two startups.  Sanger was listed as a member of the American Eugenics Society as late as 1956, has spoken at the rally of a New Jersey chapter of Ku Klux Klan and was an advocate for controlling populations of “unfit” people from reproducing. Sanger in an interview with journalist Mike Wallace in 1957 stated: “…we are paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.” Sanger called upon the government for funding to allocate spaces and plots of land for groups of “illiterate, poor and unemployed” people that would be segregated from society until they developed better moral conduct. The language used to subliminally attack the Black community by these organizations continued, and the consistent use of these terms normalized society, numbing them from the connotations and implications of these words. However, after the Holocaust became a household conversation, and eugenic ties to Hitler were common knowledge, the public became uncomfortable with eugenics and population control.

The American Birth Control League recognized this and sought the help of marketing experts who advised that they stray from words such as control in favor of words such as planning. In 1942, the American Birth Control League would be known as Planned Parenthood; however the change in name did not change their agenda. After abortion was legalized by President Richard Nixon through the Supreme court decision of Roe v. Wade, Black organizations such as the Black Panther Party spoke out against Planned Parenthood and the use of contraceptives such as birth control saturating the Black community in an effort to control populations of Blacks. Cases of unauthorized sterilization in exchange for the continuation of welfare assistance from the government also became reoccurring during this period, with the most famous case being Elaine Riddick. Riddick’s grandmother, who was illiterate, was presented with papers to allow the sterilization of her granddaughter who was pregnant at thirteen after being raped.

While the history of Planned Parenthood clearly suggests a particular aversion to Blacks and minorities, I do believe that in the case of pregnancy through rape or sexual violence, abortion is necessary but the conversation of abortion did not just include these cases. This overwhelming amount of information points to the most uncomfortable truth that the creation of Planned Parenthood is deeply rooted in a need to control populations of Blacks through a decorated agenda. The most unsafe place for a Black child is in the womb of a Black woman, and as long as the option is oversaturated in working class, impoverished minority neighborhoods, the agenda will continue to be lived out.

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About the Contributor
Ebony Turner, Opinion Editor
 Ebony Turner is a journalism major and double minor in political science and African American studies. She's always had a vested interest in writing stories and thought pieces on people and subjects that would otherwise be unheard of. Ebony currently serves as the opinion editor of The Pace Chronicle, and has been writing for the paper for two years, introducing the first black culture column 40 Acres & a MacBook to the newspaper. She enjoys taking pictures of her food on instagram and watching episodes of Sex and the City 500 times per day - after her homework, of course. She has interned for Vanity Fair magazine, and is currently interning for ELLE. She can be reached at [email protected]
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