Next Civil Rights Battle

The next battle for civil rights has begun. The creators of the movie Maafa 21: Black Genocide in 21st Century America identify the origins of this modern anti-civil rights agenda as steeped in the teachings of Darwinism and the modern eugenics movement.

The ancient Swahili term “Maafa” refers to the 250-year period of history in which African-Americans were held in bondage. Narrator Markus Lloyd explains that this period of time did not end with the abolition of slavery, because “a hidden racial agenda is keeping the Maafa alive into the 21st century.”

Francis Galton, known as the father of the eugenics movement, was a cousin of Charles Darwin and one of the first people to apply evolutionary theory to human genetics.

The film references Madison Grant, a co-founder of the American Eugenics Society, who authorized an exhibit at the Bronx Zoo in 1906 that involved a 22-year-old African named Ota Benga. Benga was displayed in a cage in the monkey house, sharing the cage with an orangutan. When questioned about the obvious ethical problems posed by the exhibit, Grant responded that it was created to demonstrate Darwin’s theory of evolution.

The film sadly points out that “ten years after this event, Ota Benga committed suicide.”

The film also describes how Adolf Hitler “was profoundly influenced by the American Eugenics Movement and that many of his government’s racial policies were actually developed from the writings of many American eugenicists like Madison Grant, and Harry Loughlin…” In fact, when Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger organized the 1927 World Population Conference, she gave a prominent leadership role to Eugen Fischer, a German eugenicist who advocated the extermination of the African-American population in Europe.

American eugenicists returned the German admiration by promoting Nazi Socialist policies in America, chief among them being forced sterilization of the “unfit” and “feebleminded.” In 1927, the case of Buck v. Bell legalized forced sterilization, a decision that has been chipped away through the years, but never fully repealed. The case involved a young woman named Carrie Buck who had given birth to an illegitimate child. The Commonwealth of Virginia wanted to sterilize Buck, claiming that she should not be permitted to have any more children because she was mentally handicapped.

According to Maafa 21, it was not until the advent of the birth control pill that the eugenics movement was able to put its evolutionary theories into practice. The film argues that the birth control pill creates a type of survival of the fittest—giving one the ability to decide that a child is unfit before he or she is even born. Sanger wrote in 1922 that society was “paying for and even submitting to the dictates of an ever increasing unceasingly spawning class of human beings who should have never been born at all…”

In 1929, Sanger spoke at a Klu Klux Klan meeting in Silver Lake, New Jersey, explaining her philosophy about birth control. She believed that “dysgenic groups” of people should be given a choice between forced sterilization or segregation from society. Maafa 21 tells the heartbreaking story of Elaine Riddick, who after being raped at age 13 was sterilized against her will after giving birth to her child. The state justified sterilizing Riddick because her family was poor and Riddick’s father abused her as a child. Riddick painstakingly relays her experience, saying that the sterilization “took away all my rights.”

Narrator Michele René argues that eugenicists also advocated for the United States government to “add birth control chemicals to the nation’s food and water supply.” Advocates strongly urged that this policy be “specifically targeted at urban neighborhoods.”

Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said that she does not believe that it is a “coincidence” that as African-Americans were demanding their civil rights, Planned Parenthood was advocating for mass acceptance of birth control and abortion on demand. The film notes the grossly disproportionate number of Planned Parenthood clinics in African-American communities, lamenting the ominous silence which has allowed this to continue.

“Since 1973, legal abortion has killed more African-Americans than AIDS, cancer, heart disease, and violent crime combined,” the film states. Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the United States. Maafa 21 argues that slick marketing and carefully coined phrases such as “reproductive health” and a “woman’s right to choose” allow Planned Parenthood to pursue their agenda unchallenged.

This agenda involves an uncompromising strategy to deal with criticism. It can be seen in organizations such as the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), which attempt to neutralize dissent within churches and other religious organizations. RCRC has taken the principle of “divide and conquer” to a new level, relentlessly pressuring churches to accept abortion as main stream and distorting the tenets of faith that require an absolute prohibition on the practice.

Maafa 21 argues that Planned Parenthood is able to use public funds with virtually no accountability. The film points out that when a third-world country experiences a major disaster, contraceptives and birth control are usually included as part of the humanitarian “aid” package. Such efforts are achieved through the support of organizations like Planned Parenthood.

No matter what kind of a “happy face” Planned Parenthood projects in their campaigns, it will never be able to escape Sanger’s haunting legacy. Maafa 21 is not only a compelling indictment of a corrupt organization, but an appeal for policies that will protect the innocent of the African-American community. Now is the time to consider all life as worth cherishing.

Brittany Fortier is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.