Dan Forest, an Idiot, Thinks Planned Parenthood Was Founded to Destroy Black People – INDY Week

On Monday, Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest, a candidate for governor, told a group of black ministers that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger created the organization to destroy the entire black race. The Cumberland County GOP shared the video on its Facebook page.

Theres no doubt that, when Planned Parenthood was created, it was created to destroy the entire black race,he said. That was the purpose of Planned Parenthood. Thats just the truth. Thats not just some bloc on the side. That was the purpose when that organization was created.

Forest is alluding to Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthoods founder, whose involvement in the eugenics movement has long beena subject of controversy. NPR ran a fact check of a similar statement Ben Carson made in 2015and found that Sangers role in the eugenics movement isnt entirely clear. She went to eugenics conferences because they intersected with the birth-control movement, which she supported.

She might have done so because she needed eugenicists to get behind her for political reasons; indeed, Theodore Roosevelt and John Rockefeller were both known eugenicists. Or she might have done so because she believed that eugenics could improve humanity, as did many elites of her era. In the early 20th century, many scientists bought into the idea based on Darwinism andGregor Mendels study of dominant and recessive genes.

Lending credence to the latter theory, Sangerwrote that theconsequences of breeding from stock lacking human vitality always will give us social problems and perpetuate institutions of charity and crime.

But as much as this is a favorite line of the anti-abortion crowd,its quite a stretch to suggest that her interest in eugenics was tied to racism. After all, she worked closely with W.E.B DuBois to get contraception into black communities.

The Negro race has reached a place in its history when every possible effort should be made to have every Negro child count as a valuable contribution to the future of America,she wrote. Sanger also sought out black ministers to combat misinformation on contraception and family planning.

Forest says he brought up these statements in the spirit of Martin Luther King, who was awarded the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Margaret Sanger Award in 1966.

Coretta Scott King accepted the award on Kings behalfand read a speech written by the reverend. If family planning is sensible, it can facilitate or at least not be an obstacle to the solution of the many profound problems that plague [African Americans], King said.

In the same speech, King told ministers that race didnt exist: [God] created a genetic code within Adam and Eve that gave the possibility for all the colors that we have now within humanity. Thats what He created. (Science has since caught up to King: Race is a social construct.)

As Gerald Givens, president of the Raleigh-Apex NAACP, pointed out in an interview with WRAL, when it comes to speaking in the spirit of MLK, Dan Forest would be well served to keep his mouth shut: Im not sure why the lieutenant governor feels hes authorized to speak on behalf of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or on what African American people see. His opposition to organizations like Planned Parenthood shows he has not learned much from Dr. King.

Forest, after all, is a vocal proponent of the voter ID law that a federal court ruled targeted African Americans with surgical precision. Hes also backed the General Assemblys repeated efforts at racial gerrymanderinganother way to minimize black voting power to enhance the GOPs control. And, in a June 2019 speech, Forest said that the U.S. has survived diversity and multiculturalism, rhetoric drawn straight from the white-nationalist tiki-torch brigade.

And since Forest brought up eugenics, we should probably mention that North Carolina actually had a eugenics program that forcibly sterilized thousands of poor black women until 1976. Several years ago, hundreds of women were likely denied compensation for their sterilization by the North Carolina Industrial Commission, whose members Governor Pat McCrory appointed, based on missing paperwork.

Forest was lieutenant governor at the time. Funny how we cant recall any major speeches on the subject.

In other news, today is the 47th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Heres the link to donate to Planned Parenthood, in case you want to piss Dan Forest off.

Contact digital content manager Sara Pequeo at spequeno@indyweek.com.

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Dan Forest, an Idiot, Thinks Planned Parenthood Was Founded to Destroy Black People - INDY Week