Barriers to Rebuilding the African American Community. Tywan Ajani
of their constitutional rights. The Democratic Party has also taken the lead in advancing social justice issues in the United States.
However, in the past, Democrats took a very different and dark view of social justice issues. The Democratic Party was not historically in favor of justice for minorities and the disenfranchised and was no friend to the civil rights movement. The party was founded by President Andrew Jackson. During this period of time, the Democratic Party vehemently and with great pride supported the institution of slavery.
In addition, allegedly, the Democratic Party was the influencer of an attempted extermination of both African American and Native American people groups. Ironically, the vast majority of African Americans, Native American, and Hispanic American people today support the Democratic Party; yet, it is the party that has historically brutally oppressed these populations.
How did this change? Here are some of the facts. Further investigation and research are suggested but here are some points to stir the discussion. Published ←33 | 34→comments made by a notable national football player is a great place to begin with.
Benjamin Watson is a former tight end for the Baltimore Ravens. He is an African American male and publicly criticized the “black support” for America’s abortion chief organization, Planned Parenthood.
Baltimore Ravens tight end Benjamin Watson is criticizing black support of Planned Parenthood, saying the abortion provider was founded to “exterminate blacks.” Watson, a devout Christian, said that blacks make up a large proportion of those who get abortions, and the whole idea with Planned Parenthood and [founder Margaret Sanger] in the past was to exterminate blacks, and it’s kind of ironic that it’s working (3).
Margaret Sanger has an infamous reputation in American History. She is the controversial founder of the Planned Parenthood organization, which is a robust agency primarily located in African American and Hispanic neighborhoods. Planned Parenthood is responsible for millions of abortions to black and Hispanic children and is supported financially by federal subsidies and tax money. Planned Parenthood historically embraced the philosophy of eugenics, which is defined as
The study of methods of improving the quality of human populations by the application of genetic principles. Positive eugenics would seek to do this by selective breeding programmes (9).
How is it that the history of the Democratic Party’s values, coupled with eugenics proponent Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood along with former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton be in favor of the black community? These are contradictory positions, and yet both the National Urban League and the Black Caucus aggressively campaigned for this party. There is either a colossal misunderstanding regarding this party’s history and values or there is a monumental plan of deception that has been impressively effective.
A closer examination of the ideals and beliefs of the founder of Planned Parenthood reveal that there is more to Sanger and her agenda. In fact, a deeper examination of her work continues to outrage the public. Her groundbreaking work not only reinforced negative racial stereotypes regarding African Americans but also provided the jet fuel that exploded the institutional social experiment that attempted to annihilate African Americans all together.
Sociologists Dr. Feagin and Dr. Bennefield reported that “black women suffered at the hands of physicians and scientists involved in early 20th-century ←34 | 35→‘eugenics.’ According to Washington, eugenics was appropriated to label black women as sexually indiscriminate and as bad mothers who were constrained by biology to give birth to defective children. The demonization of black parents, particularly mothers, as medically and behaviorally unfit has a long history, but twentieth century eugenicists provided the necessary biological underpinnings to scientifically validate these beliefs. Margaret Sanger, birth control pioneer, helped to devise a 1939 Negro Project which sought to reduce the black population through negative eugenics (2).”
Ms. Sanger’s efforts were largely successful. Black mothers in the United States lead the charge in abortions performed. Many of the abortions can be linked to crime and poverty and the growing trend that abortions are more socially acceptable. In either case. Ms. Sanger’s Negro Project sadly continues today in a more socially acceptable culture. The Wall Street Journal published an article on the crisis. It reported that “nationally, black women terminate pregnancies at far higher rates than other women as well. In 2014, 36% of all abortions were performed on black women, who are just 13% of the female population. The little discussed flip side of ‘reproductive freedom’ is that abortion deaths far exceed those via cancer, violent crime, heart disease, AIDS and accidents (8).”
The recent documentary Hillary’s America delves deeper into this revelation of systematic deception. Nevertheless, there is another riveting detail relating to the Democratic Party. In the book God Wants You To Be Rich, author and economist Paul Zane Pilzer reflects on how our America’s economic make-up was, and still, is heavily influenced by one man, John Maynard Keynes. Pilzer calls him the most influential economist of the 20th century, and states the following:
Keynes believed that the government should take affirmative actions—like cutting taxes and making public expenditures even when such actions created deficits to bring the economy up to full employment. Such a policy may not seem unusual today—indeed it has been embraced by the Democratic Party in the United States and most western European governments (6).
So what is Pilzer insinuating? He is informing the readers that our modern version of government in the West is built on the framework of what is called Keynesian economics. This economic theory believes in the valid and powerful use of government to control a large segment of specific populations, chiefly in the areas of employment and industry as well as poverty and minorities. A recent report exhibits racist administrative policies that still affect African Americans today. Pilzer reported that “the causes of residential segregation are complex, ←35 | 36→enduring and overlapping. It is only a few decades since racial segregation was an explicit goal of public policy (6).”
Wait a minute! One of the two major political parties in the most powerful government in the world, at one point, embraced a philosophy of immense and forceful government population control mechanisms? This is daunting but true. Here is another aspect of Keynesian economics at work. “One of Keyne’s suggestions for government employment programs in 1939 led to the United States building massive public housing projects throughout the nation. Perhaps more than any other single event, this government program of housing large groups of poor people together in public housing projects led to the multigenerational welfare state we have today (6),” says Pilzer.
Public housing projects? This sounds like the housing projects often referred to in rap songs and black cultural rhetoric. Yet, this is the party of choice for most African Americans and people of color today. John Maynard Keynes was a proud and noble member of the Democratic Party. How did his work and that of Margaret Sanger become construed as “good” and acceptable for the Democratic Party?
Historically, African Americans were Republicans. Abolitionists, such as Frederick Douglass, and white supporters, such as Abraham Lincoln, the founder of the Republican Party, vehemently opposed the institution of slavery. President Abraham Lincoln both renounced and legally terminated slavery in 1865. The legal order that officially ended slavery in the United States is known as the Emancipation Proclamation.
Today, the Republican Party opposes many of the social justice issues that the Democratic Party supports. This party also officially opposes abortion and the government support of Planned Parenthood. The founder of the Democratic Party, Andrew Jackson, was not only a slave owner, but he also advocated aggressively for slavery, and brutalized his own personal slaves during their tenure of bondage to him. Confusing as it sounds, these two parties have divided the country into liberal or conservative beliefs.
Conservative Republicans now