Is Racism Alive and Well in America?

MT @kirstiealley: White people used to make black people drink from separate fountains...Now we just shoot their children #Justice4Trayvon
— Liza Sabater (@blogdiva) July 15, 2013

I watched a good part of the George Zimmerman trial and I came to the same conclusion as many legal experts did. Almost all of the legal experts said that the prosecution did not have a case and that if justice was to be done in this particular case, George Zimmerman would have to be found not guilty. And that is exactly what the jury did when they acquitted Mr. Zimmerman.

Yet there is a very vocal group of people in this country who are still claiming that the acquittal of George Zimmerman proves that racism is alive and well in this country. And they are partially right - racism is more rampant, more institutionalized and more lethal in America than it has been at any time in our history, including legalized slavery. But the George Zimmerman case is a sideshow, it is nothing more than a distraction so that the Black community will not see the real insidious racism that is literally destroying them. Trayvon Martin was a victim, not of George Zimmerman, but of the institutional racism that exists in the United States of America.

What are some of the signs of this racism?

Walk into any minority neighborhoods in any big city, and you will first notice the many ads and billboards for beer and alcohol in those neighborhoods. These signs cannot be found in white neighborhoods. This is no accident. According to an article from Huffington Post:

Booze and binge drinking -- it's the stuff hip hop videos are made of, along with a disproportionate number of advertisements African-American youth are exposed to, a new study shows.

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health are shedding new light on a longstanding concern that alcohol marketers are honing in (and cashing in) on African-American youth and that this population is more exposed to the pervasive messages than any other group.

According to the report:

African-American youth receive substantially more exposure to alcohol advertising in magazines and on television, and more exposure to distilled spirits advertising on radio, than youth in general. This appears to result from two phenomena: brands that are targeting African-Americans generally expose the entire group (including youth) to more advertising per capita than the general population; and African-American media habits (including those of youth) make this population more vulnerable to alcohol advertising because of higher levels of media consumption in general.

Speaking of hip hop, this is a music form which started in the Bronx among African American youths. This was their music created by and for them.  But when it began to spread and become popular, it was taken over by white men. From an article found on Notesfromtheundergroundtv.com:

So, lets get this straight, White people been running hip-hop. Need facts, lets start here. Why do think the word “nigger,” is radio and tv friendly, while the word “bitch” gets bleeped? Understand, you can say “nigger,” nigga,” nicca,” in all kinds of ways and you will get no kind of backlash. Remember, Jadakiss said, “Stack chips like Hebrews,” on “All ABout the Benjamins,” but that Hebrews line was blurred and cut out of every TV and radio version of that song. I wonder, if he would’ve said, “I’m a nigger with an attitude,” if that line would’ve been blurred out? I’m leaning towards no, it wouldn't have been cut out. Matter of fact, it might’ve been the title of the song.

Why do you think drug dealers, pimps and thugs have been propped up to be role models for so long? Why do you think the image of the Black women has gone from being a pillar of our community to someone who twerks in the background and only looks good when they’re bent over or on their knees? Open your eyes. White people have been running this. Do you think if a African-American was running hip-hop we would’ve ever had a group called, “Niggers With Attitudes?” My father used to say, “No Black man with any understanding of where he came from would ever openly call himself a nigger.” White people were handed over the keys to the hip-hop world early. We sold it to them for some magic beans and big gold chains.

We hear over and over about how terrible crime is among the Black community.  The following is from a 2005 report the New Century Foundation entitled, "The Color of Crime":

Crime Rates

• Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery.
• When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife.
• Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate.
• The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.

What is the real cause of the explosion in crime in the African American community?  I think it can be traced directly to the destruction of the Black family, which was spurred on by the Welfare State.  The Welfare State, created by the Federal Government in the 1960's, took the place of the father in the home.  When fathers were displaced the family fell apart, and our entire society has been feeling the repercussions ever since.  From discoverthenetworks.org:

The rise of the welfare state in the 1960s contributed greatly to the demise of the black family as a stable institution. The out-of-wedlock birth rate among African Americans today is 73%, three times higher than it was prior to the War on Poverty. Children raised in fatherless homes are far more likely to grow up poor and to eventually engage in criminal behavior, than their peers who are raised in two-parent homes. In 2010, blacks (approximately 13% of the U.S. population) accounted for 48.7% of all arrests for homicide, 31.8% of arrests for forcible rape, 33.5% of arrests for aggravated assault, and 55% of arrests for robbery. Also as of 2010, the black poverty rate was 27.4% (about 3 times higher than the white rate), meaning that 11.5 million blacks in the U.S. were living in poverty.

Read the entire article here.   The family is the building block of any society, and when the family is destroyed, the society and the people in that society are destroyed.

But the most destructive force in destroying the Black family and community, and the most evident form of racism in the United States is, without any question, abortion.

The Federal Government gave $542 million to Planned Parenthood in fiscal 2012. That is over one-half billion dollars to the largest abortion provider in this country.  And where are the vast majority of these clinics located?  In inner cities and/or near major public transportation, giving easy access to inner city residents. Why is that?

La Verne Tolbert, Ph.D. wrote a fascinating report entitled, "Over 20 Million Aborted: WHY PLANNED PARENTHOOD TARGETS THE INNER-CITY." You can read her report here She starts out with the facts about the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger:

In her autobiography, [Margaret Sanger] expresses disdain for the poor whom she calls the wretched of humanity. Eugenics—the improvement of the race through controlled breeding—identifies certain ethnic groups as dysgenic, meaning they are biologically defective or deficient and therefore unworthy of procreation.

Sanger’s mission was to “stop the multiplication of the unfit…[for] race betterment” to guarantee “a cleaner race.” “Birth-control,” said Sanger in 1920, “is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, or preventing the birth of defectives, or of those who will become defectives.”

Sanger’s 1939 Negro Project may provide further rationale for the proliferation of Planned Parenthood clinics throughout inner-cities. The proposal, which called for hiring Colored ministers and selecting a Negro Advisory Council who would appear to run a family planning campaign, was to popularize family planning in southern black communities using community people as spokespersons. Although Sanger decried the fact that blacks believed “that God sends them children,” she believed that the best educational approach was through religion. “We do not want the word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the Minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

So we know that  Planned Parenthood's founder was an avowed racist who wanted to destroy the Black community because she saw them as the "wretched of humanity."  But as the author of this article points out, Margaret Sanger could never have accomplished the task of wiping out the Black community by herself.

Has her tactic of working in communities and through churches been so successful that clinics abound in our neighborhoods?

Although these combined reasons may provide a backdrop for discussion, the answer is No. Sanger’s personal mission alone did not propel Planned Parenthood to such national status. To do so involves a shared goal, multiple committed partnerships, and the sustained dedication of financial resources—a monumental strategy that only the United States government could achieve.

As Dr. Tolbert says in her report:

As an organization, Planned Parenthood met opportunity. What began with Sanger’s Birth Control Federation in 1916 had, by 1960, become a national movement. Renamed Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), popularizing birth-control for the poor had a three-fold purpose—controlling the growth of the population to preserve a quality of life; (2) producing children of higher intelligence in keeping with the ideals of the Eugenics philosophy; and (3) controlling population growth through the Malthusian strategy of monitoring one’s own fertility.

The organization in place, opportunity surfaced when African American women, who were perceived to be particularly fecund or fertile, became the focus of the government’s national family planning efforts. Reducing the size of traditionally large black families was a priority that eventually would impact other minorities as well.

Dr. Tolbert notes that the government felt that people, and most specifically inner city people, were the enemies of prosperity.  The government felt it had to step in and regulate these people and save them from themselves.  In 1969, the Director of the Health Services and Mental Health Administration (HSMHA) of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (DHEW) (try saying that three times fast) said the following:

In a country of 200 million, a growth rate of one percent per year produces enough additional people to populate a new Washington metropolitan area every year. And we are feeling the impact—in the crowding of cities, the sprawl of suburbia, the vanishing wilderness, the trespass of pollution. Every one of us feels it where it hurts most—in the quality of our lives….

And what is most tragic and most ironic is that we, who need it least, have readily accessible to us and to our wives the means of deciding how many children shall share our large and well-spaced houses and our trips to the beach. Those who lack our ways of buffering the pressure of population on their lives also lack the means to decide how many shall share their lot.

Dr. Tolbert's report then says that these birth control clinics were strategically placed in "high risk communities"  As Dr. Tolbert writes,

“Equal opportunities for the poor” became the catch-phrase for Planned Parenthood’s services to minority women. It was acknowledged that “skill, tact, and innovation” were necessary to make services appealing and non-threatening

Dr. Tolbert says that this "social planning" was moved right into the schools, where "Sex education went hand-in-hand with providing contraceptive and birth-control services for teenagers."  School-based clinics were started.

The SBC was seen as “the best hope of reducing the incidence of the ‘unwed mother syndrome’ among inner-city children.” Schools were encouraged to “prevent unwanted births” by publicizing the “location of contraceptive services for teenagers.”

The first clinic opened in Dallas in 1973.  These clinics, which supplied contraception to teens had the exact opposite effect of preventing teen pregnancies:  there were even more teen pregnancies:

By 1986, there were 60 SBCs throughout the United States. By 1988, there were over 150 SBCs, which is surprising since researchers recognize that SBCs are unsuccessful in impacting pregnancy rates. Additionally, where there are clinics, there is an increase of 120 pregnancies per 1,000 among 15- to-19 year olds. But this did not stop their expansion. By 1991, there were 239 SBCs and SLCs—school-linked clinics (clinics located near school grounds). By 1995, there were 607.

Dr. Tolbert concludes her report:

Abortion—an enterprise that targets minority communities where blacks reside—is big business in America. School administrators lack funds to procure lab equipment or computers or fix crumbling buildings but there’s ample tax and foundation dollars for SBCs. Perhaps it’s time that the government takes another look.

Margaret Sanger, who was beloved by Adolph Hitler, would be very proud of the results of all the "efforts" of the United States government. Here in New York City, three out of every five pregnancies among Black women ends in abortion. A July 17, 2012 International Business Times  article entitled "Black Abortions:  Necessary Health Care or Genocide?" tells us the following:

As of 2006, 50 out of 1,000 black women underwent abortions, according to the Census Bureau, versus 14 for white women and 22 for women of other races.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black women account for only 13 percent of the total U.S. female population, but undergo more than one-third of all abortions.

In Mississippi, usually ranked the poorest state in the nation, blacks represent about 37 percent of the population, but comprise 75 percent of abortion patients.

A website with the inflammatory name of “BlackGenocide.com” declared that almost 1,800 black babies are aborted on average every day and that black women have had 16 million abortions since 1973 (when the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion nationwide).

That figure would represent almost half of the total black population of about 36 million currently living in the U.S.

To put that number of deaths in perspective, consider that since 1973, the number of black Americans who have died from heart disease (2.26 million), cancer (1.64 million), accidents (307,723), violent crimes (306,313) and AIDS (203,649) combined do not equal the number of lives lost to abortions.

All of those protesting about the Zimmerman trial are 100% correct when they say that racism is alive and well in America.   What they don't realize is that they are victims of a shell game.  They are looking in the wrong place.  Abortion, not the George Zimmerman trial, is the true racism of our time.