Maafa 21
Encyclopedia
Maafa 21: Black Genocide in 21st Century America is a 2009 pro-life
documentary
film which draws a connection between the targeting of African Americans by the eugenics
movement in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the modern-day prevalence of abortion
among African Americans. The film argues that abortion is an attempted genocide
or maafa
of black people, and has been so since the 19th century.
The film has been praised by pro-life
activists and condemned by historical scholars, pro-choice activists, and other writers, particularly in light of its unfavorable depiction of Planned Parenthood
founder Margaret Sanger
, to whom it attributes racist and genocidal positions. Pro-life activists have said that the film is an exposé of the racism of abortion in modern times, and that Planned Parenthood is especially racist. Critics have called it a shockumentary and propaganda
for, according to them, distorting the role of Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood in the eugenics movement of the early 20th century, and for deliberately misinterpreting Sanger's position about black women and family planning, and for blaming racism rather than social conditions for the prevalence of abortion among black populations in America.
term "Maafa
", which means "tragedy
" or "disaster
", and is used to describe the centuries of oppression of African people, globally, during slavery
, apartheid and colonial rule. "21" refers to the maafa of the 21st century, which the film says is abortion
by black women. It states that abortion has reduced the Black population in the United States by 25 percent. The film discusses some of Planned Parenthood's origins (formerly the American Birth Control League
), attributing to it a "150-year-old goal of exterminating the black population." It attacks Margaret Sanger, along with other birth control advocates, as a racist eugenicist. The film features Alveda King
, who claims that Sanger targeted Blacks.
, at the United States Capitol Visitor Center
.
The film was shown in November 2011 in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia
, as part of an effort to link Virginia state Senator Edd Houck
to racism. Terry Beatley, the founder of a political action committee
called No Excuse Ministry, screened the film in a black neighborhood and distributed leaflets describing Houck as being supported by Planned Parenthood, and saying that Planned Parenthood was working toward race genocide of blacks. In the subsequent election, Houck was unseated by only 222 votes.
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."
Pro-life activists praise the film as a tool in their campaign against abortion rights, choosing to believe its claims although they are unfamiliar with the history of family planning or with the research that supposedly went into making the film.
Writer Michelle Goldberg
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 in access to reproductive services. She also said the film ignores the racist and eugenicist arguments 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 in fact they opposed it. Goldberg characterizes the film as dishonest propaganda
. On the Ms. magazine weblog, Eva McKend similarly criticizes the conclusions of the film, arguing that black women have high rates of unintended pregnancy due to income inequalities that prevent access to effective contraception.
Esther Katz, editor and director of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project at New York University
, questions the scholarship behind Maafa 21s portrayal of Sanger and her racial views, calling the film "propaganda". She said 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.
The editors of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project 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 said that the propaganda film portrays Sanger's Negro Project as being about abortion when it was not. 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, associate executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society
, writes that the film is a "shockumentary" used to support the activities of the black pro-life movement. Darnovsky quotes legal scholar Dorothy Roberts
who said that the black pro-life movement is "blaming black women for their reproductive decisions and then the solution is to restrict and regulate black women's decisions about their bodies... Ironically, they have that in common with eugenicists."
The Liberator Magazine
gave the film a mixed review. The reviewer said that the film "does a good job of placing the Eugenics movement into a larger historical context," but that "one gets the impression that the point [of the film] isn't so much about saving black people, but furthering a political agenda" against abortion, using emotional manipulation to do so.
Loretta J. Ross, author of the scholarly paper "African-American Women and Abortion: A Neglected History", founder of the National Center for Human Rights Education and co-founder of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, wrote that Maafa 21 was a "pseudo-documentary" produced by a white Texan—Crutcher—"who has made a career of attacking Planned Parenthood." Ross wrote that the premise of the film was wrong, 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. Ross wrote that black women understood that having fewer children allowed parents to give each child a better opportunity. Ross wrote that African-American leaders worked with Sanger to establish family planning clinics in black neighborhoods as part of a "racial uplift strategy", not racial suicide.
Pro-life
Opposition to the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-life, or anti-abortion, movement, a social and political movement opposing elective abortion on moral grounds and supporting its legal prohibition or restriction...
documentary
Documentary
A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...
film which draws a connection between the targeting of African Americans by the eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
movement in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the modern-day prevalence of abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
among African Americans. The film argues that abortion is an attempted genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
or maafa
Maafa
The Maafa refers to the 500 years of suffering of Africans and the African diaspora, through slavery, imperialism, colonialism, invasion, oppression, dehumanization and exploitation...
of black people, and has been so since the 19th century.
The film has been praised by pro-life
Pro-life
Opposition to the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-life, or anti-abortion, movement, a social and political movement opposing elective abortion on moral grounds and supporting its legal prohibition or restriction...
activists and condemned by historical scholars, pro-choice activists, and other writers, particularly in light of its unfavorable depiction of Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood Federation of America , commonly shortened to Planned Parenthood, is the U.S. affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and one of its larger members. PPFA is a non-profit organization providing reproductive health and maternal and child health services. The...
founder Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Higgins Sanger was an American sex educator, nurse, and birth control activist. Sanger coined the term birth control, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established Planned Parenthood...
, to whom it attributes racist and genocidal positions. Pro-life activists have said that the film is an exposé of the racism of abortion in modern times, and that Planned Parenthood is especially racist. Critics have called it a shockumentary and propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
for, according to them, distorting the role of Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood in the eugenics movement of the early 20th century, and for deliberately misinterpreting Sanger's position about black women and family planning, and for blaming racism rather than social conditions for the prevalence of abortion among black populations in America.
Synopsis
The title comes from the SwahiliSwahili language
Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large stretches of the Mozambique Channel coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including the Comoro Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Somalia...
term "Maafa
Maafa
The Maafa refers to the 500 years of suffering of Africans and the African diaspora, through slavery, imperialism, colonialism, invasion, oppression, dehumanization and exploitation...
", which means "tragedy
Tragedy (event)
A tragedy is an event in which one or more losses, usually of human life, occurs that is viewed as mournful. Such an event is said to be tragic....
" or "disaster
Disaster
A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...
", and is used to describe the centuries of oppression of African people, globally, during slavery
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the trans-atlantic slave trade, refers to the trade in slaves that took place across the Atlantic ocean from the sixteenth through to the nineteenth centuries...
, apartheid and colonial rule. "21" refers to the maafa of the 21st century, which the film says is abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
by black women. It states that abortion has reduced the Black population in the United States by 25 percent. The film discusses some of Planned Parenthood's origins (formerly the American Birth Control League
American Birth Control League
The American Birth Control League was founded by Margaret Sanger in 1921 at the First American Birth Control Conference in New York City. The League was incorporated under the laws of New York State on April 5, 1922. Its headquarters were located at 104 Fifth Avenue, New York City from 1921–30 and...
), attributing to it a "150-year-old goal of exterminating the black population." It attacks Margaret Sanger, along with other birth control advocates, as a racist eugenicist. The film features Alveda King
Alveda King
Alveda Celeste King is an American Christian minister, conservative, pro-life activist, and author. She is a niece of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and daughter of the late civil rights activist Rev. A. D. William King, Sr. and his wife Naomi Barber King...
, who claims that Sanger targeted Blacks.
Release and screenings
The film was released on June 15, 2009, and the premiere screening was held on June 18, 2009, on the eve of JuneteenthJuneteenth
Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is a holiday in the United States honoring African American heritage by commemorating the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. State of Texas in 1865...
, at the United States Capitol Visitor Center
United States Capitol Visitor Center
The United States Capitol Visitor Center is a large underground addition to the United States Capitol complex which serves as a gathering point for up to 4,000 tourists and an expansion space for the US Congress. It is located below the East Front of the Capitol and its plaza, between the Capitol...
.
The film was shown in November 2011 in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia
Fredericksburg, Virginia
Fredericksburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia located south of Washington, D.C., and north of Richmond. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 24,286...
, as part of an effort to link Virginia state Senator Edd Houck
Edd Houck
R. Edward "Edd" Houck is a Democratic member of the Senate of Virginia, representing the 17th District since 1984. He was defeated by a margin of 222 votes in his attempt to be re-elected on November 8, 2011.-State Senate:...
to racism. Terry Beatley, the founder of a political action committee
Political action committee
In the United States, a political action committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect political candidates or to advance the outcome of a political issue or legislation. Legally, what constitutes a "PAC" for purposes of regulation is a...
called No Excuse Ministry, screened the film in a black neighborhood and distributed leaflets describing Houck as being supported by Planned Parenthood, and saying that Planned Parenthood was working toward race genocide of blacks. In the subsequent election, Houck was unseated by only 222 votes.
Support
MovieGuide, a film rating website that judges films based on how well they promote conservative Christian values, gave the film an "Excellent" rating. It describes the film as a "very carefully reasoned, well-produced exposé of the abortion industry, racism and eugenics." MovieGuide found the conclusions of the film to be "irrefutable", though it criticized the film for employing class warfare.In The New American, a John Birch Society
John Birch Society
The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom. It has been described as radical right-wing....
publication, Rebecca Terrell praised Maafa 21 as "an explosive exposé of the racist eugenics agenda of the abortion industry in the United States."
Pro-life activists praise the film as a tool in their campaign against abortion rights, choosing to believe its claims although they are unfamiliar with the history of family planning or with the research that supposedly went into making the film.
Criticism
Reviewers of the film have generally criticized its false attribution of racist views to family planning activists, as well as the other false claims it makes to tie genocide to family planning and the fact that it blames the high abortion rate among black women on a conspiracy rather than on unequal socioeconomic conditions.Writer Michelle Goldberg
Michelle Goldberg
Michelle Goldberg is a Brooklyn-based journalist and the author of the books Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, and The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World. She is formerly a contributing writer at Salon.com...
argued that the film falsely attributes racist views to family planning activists like Sanger and Gunnar Myrdal
Gunnar Myrdal
Karl Gunnar Myrdal was a Swedish Nobel Laureate economist, sociologist, and politician. In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the...
and deflects attention from claims of racial discrimination in access to reproductive services. She also said the film ignores the racist and eugenicist arguments used by opponents of family planning, and that it implies or states outright that eugenics advocates such as Charles Davenport
Charles Davenport
Charles Benedict Davenport was a prominent American eugenicist and biologist. He was one of the leaders of the American eugenics movement, which was directly involved in the sterilization of around 60,000 "unfit" Americans and strongly influenced the Holocaust in Europe.- Biography :Davenport was...
and Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
supported family planning when in fact they opposed it. Goldberg characterizes the film as dishonest propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
. On the Ms. magazine weblog, Eva McKend similarly criticizes the conclusions of the film, arguing that black women have high rates of unintended pregnancy due to income inequalities that prevent access to effective contraception.
Esther Katz, editor and director of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, questions the scholarship behind Maafa 21s portrayal of Sanger and her racial views, calling the film "propaganda". She said 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.
The editors of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project 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 said that the propaganda film portrays Sanger's Negro Project as being about abortion when it was not. 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, associate executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society
Center for Genetics and Society
The Center for Genetics and Society is a nonprofit information and public affairs organization, based in Berkeley, California, United States. It encourages responsible use and promotes the regulation of new human genetic and reproductive technologies, to confine them to what it considers...
, writes that the film is a "shockumentary" used to support the activities of the black pro-life movement. Darnovsky quotes legal scholar Dorothy Roberts
Dorothy Roberts
Dorothy E. Roberts is the Kirkland & Ellis Professor at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, Illinois.Roberts received her Bachelor of Arts from Yale University and her Doctor of Jurisprudence from Harvard Law School. She is an author, lecturer, and lawyer...
who said that the black pro-life movement is "blaming black women for their reproductive decisions and then the solution is to restrict and regulate black women's decisions about their bodies... Ironically, they have that in common with eugenicists."
The Liberator Magazine
The Liberator Magazine
The Liberator Magazine is a quarterly print publication started by Brian Kasoro, Gayle Smaller, Tazz Hunter, Kenya McKnight, Marcus Harcus and Mike Clark in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. The first issue was published July 21, 2002. Currently Brian Kasoro and Kamille Whittaker serve as co-editors,...
gave the film a mixed review. The reviewer said that the film "does a good job of placing the Eugenics movement into a larger historical context," but that "one gets the impression that the point [of the film] isn't so much about saving black people, but furthering a political agenda" against abortion, using emotional manipulation to do so.
Loretta J. Ross, author of the scholarly paper "African-American Women and Abortion: A Neglected History", founder of the National Center for Human Rights Education and co-founder of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, wrote that Maafa 21 was a "pseudo-documentary" produced by a white Texan—Crutcher—"who has made a career of attacking Planned Parenthood." Ross wrote that the premise of the film was wrong, 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
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
as a way to raise themselves up, not as a form of race genocide. Ross wrote that black women understood that having fewer children allowed parents to give each child a better opportunity. Ross wrote that African-American leaders worked with Sanger to establish family planning clinics in black neighborhoods as part of a "racial uplift strategy", not racial suicide.