My friend Tom Sundaram, an American Catholic of Indian (as in India) descent makes everybody uncomfortable with some nasty truths about Margaret Sanger. She was not shy about the racist views that the new Messiah of the GOP is also partial to, as he tells us here:
Sez Tom:
Quite a few people I know criticize pro-life people for seemingly quoting Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, “out of context.”
Things Margaret Sanger wanted to have happen:
That we should “keep the doors of Immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race, such as feeble-minded, idiots, morons, insane, syphiletic, epileptic, criminal, professional prostitutes, and others in this class barred from entrance by the Immigration Laws of 1924.“
That we should “apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization, and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.“
That “to insure the country against future burdens of maintenance for numerous offspring as may be born of feeble-minded parents, the government would pension all persons with transmissible disease who voluntarily consent to sterilization.“
That “the whole dysgenic population would have its choice of segregation or sterilization.“
That “there would be farm lands and homesteads where these segregated persons would be taught to work under competent instructors for the period of their entire lives.“
This “first step would thus be to control the intake and output on morons, mental defectives, epileptics.“
“The second step would be to take an inventory of the secondary group such as illiterates, paupers, unemployables, criminals, prostitutes, dope-fiends; classify them in special departments under government medical protection and segregate on farms and open spaces as long as necessary for the strengthening and development of moral conduct.“
There’s a lot of objectionable stuff further, but, importantly,
“Immigration: Open the gates of the U.S.A. to those countries whose inhabitants have the inherent talents and national characteristics desirable, eliminating entirely those countries whose subjects have already been difficult to assimilate…This plan to be in operation for ten years. In the meantime we shall organize and join an International League of Low Birth Rate Nations to secure and maintain WORLD PEACE.“
In other words, Margaret Sanger was bigoted, racist, against “prostitution” or otherwise described sex work, and generally pro-eugenics against anyone her audience considered unfit.
Given that her audience was a bunch of people that we are now finally acknowledging were racist themselves, this means that she was, further, racist as hell.
Without lending myself to use by movements on the right, I want my left friends to realize that many of their own major figures deserve the same unrelenting criticism.
I am all for the cleansing of memory that is taking place with Confederate statuary. I think it is vital, for this reason, to confront the thoroughly racist legacy of Sanger for two reasons.
First, the Left needs to confront instead of bury it because, as an advocate of a consistent life ethic, I think that, whatever our arguments about abortion are (and, by the way, Sanger opposed abortion), the veneration of this deeply racist woman is, ‘ow you say, problematic for the Left.
At the same time, I also think that the Left’s veneration of her is less of a problem than the MAGA antichrist “prolife” Cult’s active and ongoing promotion of the racism for which she stood. If the Left are hypocrite’s for downplaying her racism, the Right is far more repellent for brandishing the unborn as human shields while advocating racist rhetoric and policies that would have made Sanger blush.
Jesus tells this story:
A man had two sons; and he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he repented and went. And he went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” (Mt 21:28–31).
On the whole, if forced to choose, I will take the Lefty people who talk favorably of a racist like Sanger while living their lives in opposition to the racism she advocated over the Righties who fake having the vapors about her racism while doggedly supporting the white supremacy she advocated. Deeds, not words, are what matter most.
I know, I know. “But abortion!” Here’s the thing, O “prolife” MAGA racist: you’ve burned your credibility to ashes by your support of your racist MAGA Cult leader. Had you embraced the Church’s consistent ethic of life (as Tom does), you could credibly make the case Tom does that Planned Parenthood supporters need to back away from an embarrassing figure like Sanger.
But since the Number One advocates of Sanger’s racist rhetoric are now the “prolife” cultists in Trump’s white antichrist base, they have no room to lecture Planned Parenthood. It’s the same stupid pet trick as when they try the threadbare lie that the Dems are the “real” party of the KKK since the KKK was started by Southern Dems in the 1870s.
Racist Dixiecrats all joined the GOP after the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That’s why the GOP is teeming with KKK and Nazis today and the Dems elected the first black Prez in US History. Don’t BS me that you care about racism while defending the thugs marching under the Stars and Bars or the Swastika as “very fine people.”
Sanger is a repellent figure. But though PP owes her a debt, it is the GOP and the Cult of Trump who believe, embody, and live her racist rhetoric now.
Advertisement
11 Responses
jj
Of course. OF COURSE.
“The radical left and the radical right end up holding sweaty hands behind the velvet curtain”
(“And most people just don’t care”.)
My husband told me this decades ago.
And then there are those MILLIONS of white people who think pigment has to do with intelligence. Embarrassing.
Margaret Sanger didn’t hide *anything* about what she believed BUT her followers have coughed politely and looked the other way about where Planned Barrenhood places their abortuaries. All in the name of so-called”freedom”.
Racists, get OUT of town, and stop covering for planned genocide.
I’m sorry, but no.
If you’re going to judge someone’s motives, you have to do it by their own standards, not your own; and simply put, they don’t view abortion in the same way that you do. You know this.
There is a higher demand for abortion where there is poverty, lack of opportunities and social unrest. Minorities are affected disproportionately by these issues. You also know this.
So as satisfying as it may be to paint your ideological opponents in the worst possible light, a far more plausible explanation than some kind of hidden racial genocidal agenda, is simply the laws of supply and demand. It also must be easier to set up a clinic in an area that leans Democrat than in one that leans Republican.
But still, at the end of the day, this is simply not your call. And I doubt most of the people you’re claiming to defend would appreciate being used as props in the culture war.
Ah sacred cows…Your sacred cow. Can’t see it can you?
1.*Health care for all*.
2.Health clinics in poor women’s neighborhoods.
3.Equal opportunity for poor women.
4.Living wages for poor women.
5.Great childcare for poor women.
Planned Parenthood’s “PP” is the confederate flag of brown neighborhoods.
Dismantle their evil, racist, eugenic organization. They have no right to exist with such a breathtakingly foul record.
They need to pack their ignominious bags and get. out. of. town. Donald Trump who LOVES them needs to get. out. of. town. too.
I have no idea what you’re trying to say here. Are health care, child care, better opportunities and living wages supposed to be bad things now?
I’m sorry, but I find your conflation of access to abortion with racism and eugenics to be both insulting and patronizing to minorities. You don’t speak for them. They are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves, and the truth is that the overwhelming majority simply don’t agree with you.
Look, you want to oppose abortion, that’s your prerogative. But please lets not pretend that this is anything more than it is. This is not about them, its about you and your pet issues, or as you put it, your “sacred cow”.
Planned Parenthood has been STEEPED in racism from day one.
Are you brown?
I have eight brown children, and have helped brown women escape from a NO CHOICE situation.
I have heard their siren song, SEEN my sister ABUSED when she refused abortion. Treated like garbage when I refused an abortion, carried the child until almost term, and then made to wait for THREE days before my delivery with a dead child inside of me, because I wasn’t high priority. You people are almost as guilty as the MAGA cultists. ALL TALK. There is NO SUCH THING AS CHOICE if there aren’t CHOICES.
Health care doesn’t have to include Planned Parenthood. Women who seek abortion after opportunity and resources are made available to them don’t bother my conscience. Women who are FORCED to seek abortion because the resources offered them are stingy, meager, and untenable due to the politics of Republicans AND Democrats, *does* bother my conscience–because we CAN do something about giving poor women OPTIONS. Choice without options is like freedom from a jail cell.
Wake. Up. Mr. or Ms. Evil Striker.
I certainly hope you are a woman or a woman of color so I don’t have to tell you to go play video games somewhere. Planned Parenthood is from hell.
This may come as a shock to you, but Planned Parenthood are not the ones in charge of setting domestic economic policy. Truth be told, by the time a woman of meager resources has made the decision to get an abortion because she feels she has no other choice, a lot of things have already gone wrong; its a cascading system failure at all levels of society. Abortion providers are the ones at the very end of this causal chain; they’re a symptom, not a cause.
At this point, the only question remaining is how much additional economic, psychological and physical trauma will women go through before its all said and done. If these women, as you say, have no real choice, then they’re going to try to get an abortion no matter what. At least with Planned Parenthood around they have a better chance of surviving the ordeal.
Have you been to a doctor that doesn’t practice under the banner of “PP”?
Planned Parenthood is at the end of a long chain of abuse. Trauma is in their DNA.
Tell me what you know about trauma.
Those pro-lifers who use Margaret Sanger’s racism to discredit Planned Parenthood are *exactly* like those creationists who use Charles Darwin’s racism to discredit evolution.
98% B.S.
Let me repeat something.
If President Trump is our first Jim Crow president, as Rebecca Hamilton says, he is doing a really bad job at it. After all, the point of Jim Crow is to keep Blacks poor, disenfranchised, separated, and downtrodden.
When an administration provides historically black universities and colleges with record funding (and at record durations), and oversees the lowest unemployment rates for blacks in decades, and sees blacks open 400% more small businesses in its first year than they had owned in the year prior, none of that helps keep blacks poor, ignorant, separated, disenfranchised, and downtrodden. If that’s a try at Jim Crow, it’s a yuuuuuge fail.
There are two parts to eugenics. One part is that, even in nearly identical environments, people turn out differently. There is probably a genetic component to that. (There’s almost certainly a cultural component as well.) Ascribing, as TV’s President Trump apparently does (or did — that’s a 1988 clip, if I’m not mistaken) to this belief in an inheritable genetic component to say, wealth creation, political dominance, athletic performance, or academic performance, is not, from what I can tell, inherently evil.
The second is the belief that such differences in outcomes justifies eliminating some people from the gene pool, or imposing other disparate laws upon them. That is, without any doubt, entirely evil. And I don’t think we’ve seen any indications that TV’s President Trump does so.