to historical traumas.
African Americans are particularly susceptible to the intergenerational transmission of trauma through multiple mechanisms including ongoing discrimination and epigenetic inheritance. African Americans are at greater risk of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), than the general population, and are more likely to receive mental health care from primary care providers than whites. Mental health care is not easily accessed or accepted among black Americans as a result of the potential stigma of receiving a formal diagnosis and the cultural mistrust stemming from numerous racial disparities in health (3).”
References
1. Belkin, D. (August 2019). College board drips plans for SAT student adversity scores. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-board-drops-plans- for-sat-student-adversity-scores-11566928181
2. Brodkin, K. (1994). How Jews became white folks and what that says about race in America. New Brunswick, NJ. Rutgers University Press.
3. Goldstein, E., Topitzes, J., Birstler, J., & Brown, R. L. (2019). Addressing adverse childhood experiences and health risk behaviors among low-income, Black primary care patients: Testing feasibility of a motivation-based intervention. General Hospital Psychiatry, 56, 1–8. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0163834318303189
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4. Koenig, K. (August 2016). Kaine highlights civil rights work in urban league address. NBCnews.com. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/kaine-highlights-civil- rights-work-urban-league-address-n623106
5. Marsiglia, F., & Kulis, S. (2015). Diversity, oppression, and change. London, England: Oxford University Press.
6. Nelson, V. (August 2019). Addressing racial trauma and hate crimes on college campuses. American Progress. Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2019/08/09/473299/addressing-racial-trauma-hate-crimes-college-campuses/
7. PBS.org. (2003). An unfinished crusade: An interview with Jane Elliott. Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/an-unfinished-crusade-an-interview-with-jane-elliott/
8. Sacks, V., & Murphey, D. (2018). The prevalence of adverse childhood experiences, nationally, by state, and by race or ethnicity. Child Trends. Retrieved from https://ncvc.dspacedirect.org/handle/20.500.11990/1142
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5 Chicanery and Politics; Opposing Viewpoints
For most of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the Democratic Party has been identified as the party that defends America’s disenfranchised and marginalized populations. To some degree, this is true. The party has made significant efforts to serve these communities and to take a stand in defense 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
