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| Maafa 21 | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Mark Crutcher |
| Produced by | Life Dynamics |
| Release date | June 15, 2009 |
| Running time | approx. 137 mins |
| Country | United States |
Maafa 21: Black Genocide in 21st Century America is an anti-abortion documentary film made in 2009 by pro-life activist Mark Crutcher. The film argues that the modern-day prevalence of abortion among African Americans is rooted in an attempted genocide or maafa of black people. It claims that the eugenics movements that targeted African Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries formed the basis for the abortion-rights movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. The film has been enthusiastically received by anti-abortion activists but has been criticized as deceptive by others including Margaret Sanger Papers Project director Esther Katz.
Synopsis
The title comes from the Swahili term "maafa", which means tragedy or disaster and is used to describe the centuries of global oppression of African people during slavery, apartheid and colonial rule, while the number "21" refers to an alleged maafa in the 21st century (though beginning in the 19th), which the film says is the abortion of the unborn among African Americans. The film states that abortion has reduced the Black population in the United States by 25 percent. It 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 Dr. Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., who claims that Sanger targeted black people.
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 Juneteenth, at the United States Capitol Visitor Center.
Reception
Reviewers of the film have generally criticized its attribution of racist views to family planning activists, as well as the other claims it makes to tie genocide to family planning. Critics note that the film blames the high abortion rate among black women on a conspiracy rather than on unequal socioeconomic conditions.
Pro-life activists in Knoxville, Tennessee praised the film as a "valuable tool for discourse" against abortion. MovieGuide, an online database of movie reviews that use a "Biblical perspective" while attempting to assist families with their entertainment choices, gave Maafa 21 a quality rating of "EXCELLENT" (4 out of 4 stars) and a content rating of "WORTHWHILE: Discernment required for young children" (+1 from a range from +4 down to -4). It describes the film as a "very carefully reasoned, well-produced exposé of the abortion industry, racism and eugenics" that "proves through innumerable sources that the founders of Planned Parenthood and other parts of the abortion movement were interested in killing off the black race in America and elsewhere." While declaring the conclusions of the film to be "irrefutable," the review questioned the use of class warfare.
Catholic.net's review of Maafa 21 offers evidence of the film's broad exposure to a diverse collection of individuals, groups, and organizations and through multiple formats, including the internet, print, television, and radio. This exposure includes mainstream publications, TV and radio talk show hosts, religious organizations, Afrocentric news sources, government officials, and political organizations. From the perspective of Catholic.net, the general response has been overwhelmingly positive, revealing the documentary's effectiveness in its ability to sway opinion and to generate emotion against industrialized abortion.
Esther Katz, editor and director of the Margaret Sanger Papers Project (MSPP) at New York University, said that quotes attributed to Sanger are taken out of context. 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, particularly in her vilification "of immigrants" and of her advocating "for the sterilization of the mentally challenged," which Maafa 21 insists were code words for the black race. Editors of the online blog for the MSPP question the scholarship behind Maafa 21's portrayal of Sanger and her racial views, calling the film "propaganda".
Loretta J. Ross, author of "African-American Women and Abortion: A Neglected History", founder of the National Center for Human Rights Education and co-founder of Sister Song, Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, wrote that Maafa 21 is a "pseudo-documentary" produced "by a white Texan, Mark Crutcher, who has made a career of attacking Planned Parenthood." Ross said that the premise of the film was wrong and 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. She wrote that black women believed that having fewer children allowed parents to give each child a better opportunity and that African-American leaders worked with Sanger to establish family planning clinics in black neighborhoods as part of a "racial uplift strategy," not as racial suicide.
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 isn't so much about saving black people, but furthering a political agenda" against abortion, using emotional manipulation to do so. A similar response came from Harold Middlebrook, pastor at Canaan Baptist Church of East Knoxville and "a widely respected civil-rights leader." While rejecting the idea that Maafa 21 will have a lasting impact on African-American culture, largely due to his apprehensions of the sincerity of the film's producers, Middlebrook said that he "believes the theory that Planned Parenthood may be attempting to limit black births to increase white dominance."
Marcy Darnovsky, associate executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, wrote that the film is a "shockumentary" used to support the activities of the black pro-life movement.
See also
References
- Dewan, Shaila (February 26, 2010). "To Court Blacks, Foes of Abortion Make Racial Case". NYTimes.com. Manhattan, NY: The New York Times Company.
- ^ Holloway, Lynette (March 15, 2010). "Some Black Pro-Lifers Say Abortion Is Genocide". TheRoot.com. online magazine: The Washington Post Company.
- ^ "Smear-n-Fear". Margaret Sanger Papers Project. 2010. Retrieved November 23, 2011.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Carlson, Frank N. (June 2, 2010). "Anti-abortionists Accuse Knoxville Planned Parenthood of 'Black Genocide'". MetroPulse.
- ^ "Klan Parenthood", an interview of Mark Crutcher (7/22/2009)
- ^ Rev. LeFlore III, Ceasar I. (January 10, 2010). "An Interview with Mark Crutcher". Freedom's Journal Magazine (FreedomsJournal.net). Matteson, IL: Wallace Multimedia Group LLC.
- Interview of Dr. Alveda King
- "What The Ratings Mean" (MovieGuide)
- MovieGuide. "Let My People Live". MovieGuide.org. Retrieved August 20, 2012.
- Catholic.net. "Maafa21 Black Genocide in 21st Century America". Catholic.net. Retrieved August 21, 2012.
- Ross, Loretta J. (1992). "African-American Women and Abortion: A Neglected History" (PDF). Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. 3 (2). The Johns Hopkins University Press: 274–284. ISSN 1049-2089.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Ross, Loretta J. (2011). "Fighting the Black Anti-Abortion Campaign: Trusting Black Women". On The Issues.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Black Yoda (2010). "Maafa 21: black genocide in America (film review)". The Liberator Magazine. Retrieved November 23, 2011.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - Darnovsky, Marcy (April 7, 2011). "Behind the New Arizona Abortion Ban". Biopolitical Times. Retrieved November 16, 2011.