Margaret Sanger a Racist or Not?

Challenge to [MENTION=52503]Albert Di Salvo[/MENTION] to support his assertion that Margaret Sanger was a racist whose intention was to decimate the black population of the US, using verifiable evidence.

this challenge has been issued as a means to "put to bed" the erroneous claims that Sanger was a racist whose intention was to decimate the black race.

I will show that all the 'evidence' asserting such is based on numerous fallacies, misrepresentation and out of context quotations and that even though Sanger supported and promoted Eugenics she was not racist and neither did she have intentions to decimate the black population of the US.

As my part in this debate is to refute the assertions, it is up to the person challenged to go first and put forward their best case.

I would also like to put a call our for judges.

 

Margret Sanger was an Eugenicist, which is far worse than being "racist". From the link 1 below and have a look on link 2 as well.


Margaret Sanger's birth control movement and quest for the Pill intersected the rise of the eugenics movement in America. At a time when birth control was still not publicly accepted in American society, some eugenicists believed birth control was a useful tool for curbing procreation among the "weak." In the 1920s and 30s, Sanger calculated that the success of the eugenics idea gave her own movement legitimacy, and tried to ally her cause with the movement. Eugenics was a dominant theme at her birth control conferences, and Sanger spoke publicly of the need to put an end to breeding by the unfit. In 1920 Sanger publicly stated that "birth control is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit [and] of preventing the birth of defectives."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/e_eugenics.html
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the-Nazis-the-California-2549771.php

 

No argument from me that she was a supporter of Eugenics, however that is not what this debate is about, it is about the dishonesty of pro-lifers (and others) who try to insist that Sanger was racist when there is no real evidence to support that assertion. A Debate that not one of them is willing to go one-to-one, under proper rules, with me on.

BTW, The quote from Sanger is incorrect.

Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives. - http://www.bartleby.com/1013/18.html

I wonder have you read the full transcript of "Woman and the New Race.- The Goal", a lot of it makes sense though I do not agree with her ideology of using eugenic methods to accomplish them.

I assume you also know that Sanger denounced Nazi Germany and was appalled at racism.

 

Racism and Eugenism were just selling tools to her. Eugenics was huge and a popular idea in those days.

However, her real goal was to achieve the opposite of Eugenics, what we could imagine the cultural marxists terming "positive eugenics". It was always her goal to kill off the "better" people.

 

and of course you have ample evidence to support this .. please do provide it.

 

What, are you setting me homework now?

 

Nah just asking you to provide anything you have to back up your statement or is it nothing more than a naked claim?

 

MARGARET SANGER QUOTES, Founder of the Birth Control League (which later became Planned Parenthood)

"No woman shall have the legal right to bear a child… without a permit for parenthood."
- Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) in her proposed The American Baby Code, intended to become law.

"The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."
- Margaret Sanger (editor). The Woman Rebel, Volume I, Number 1. Reprinted in Woman and the New Race. New York: Brentanos Publishers, 1922.

"Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race."
- Margaret Sanger. Woman, Morality, and Birth Control. New York: New York Publishing Company, 1922. Page 12.

"We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go 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."
-Margaret Sanger's December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, 255 Adams Street, Milton, Massachusetts. Original source: Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Also described in Linda Gordon's Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976.

 

I'd vote you win this debate.

Thirty6BelowZero 1,

Fugazi, 0

 

and when quoted in full and in context

Article 3. A marriage license shall in itself give husband and wife only the right to a common household and not the right to parenthood.

Article 4. No woman shall have the legal right to bear a child, and no man shall have the right to become a father, without a permit for parenthood.

Article 5. Permits for parenthood shall be issued upon application by city, county, or state authorities to married couples, providing they are financially able to support the expected child, have the qualifications needed for proper rearing of the child, have no transmissible diseases, and, on the woman’s part, no medical indication that maternity is likely to result in death or permanent injury to health.

Article 6. No permit for parenthood shall be valid for more than one birth.

Do you disagree with the items highlighted, if so why?

again in context and with the full quote -

The direct relationship between the size of the wage-earner’s family and the death of children less than one year old has been revealed by a number of studies of the infant death rate. One of the clearest of these was that made by Arthur Geissler among miners and cited by Dr. Alfred Ploetz before the First International Eugenic Congress. 1 Taking 26,000 births from unselected marriages, and omitting families having one and two children, Geissler got this result:

Deaths During First Year

1st born children 23%
2nd " " 20%
3rd " " 21%
4th " " 23%
5th " " 26%
6th " " 29%
7th " " 31%
8th " " 33%
9th " " 36%
10th " " 41%
11th " " 51%
12th " " 60%

Thus we see that the second and third children have a very good chance to live through the first year. Children arriving later have less and less chance, until the twelfth has hardly any chance at all to live twelve months. 8
This does not complete the case, however, for those who care to go farther into the subject will find that many of those who live for a year die before they reach the age of five. 9
Many, perhaps, will think it idle to go farther in demonstrating the immorality of large families, but since there is still an abundance of proof at hand, it may be offered for the sake of those who find difficulty in adjusting old-fashioned ideas to the facts. The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it. The same factors which create the terrible infant mortality rate, and which swell the death rate of children between the ages of one and five, operate even more extensively to lower the health rate of the surviving members. Moreover, the overcrowded homes of large families reared in poverty further contribute to this condition. Lack of medical attention is still another factor, so that the child who must struggle for health in competition with other members of a closely packed family has still great difficulties to meet after its poor constitution and malnutrition have been accounted for.

Sanger was making an ironic comment — not a prescriptive one — about the horrifying rate of infant mortality among large families of early 20th-century urban America. The statement, as grim as the conditions that prompted Sanger to make it, accompanied a chart, illustrating the infant death rate in 1920:

Which race would that be, please do point out where Sanger singles out ANY race, furthermore it is a mis-quote, the correct quote is - Knowledge of birth control is essentially moral. Its general, though prudent, practice must lead to a higher individuality and ultimately to a cleaner race. - https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=213391.xml

I've highlighted the cherry picked portions of the quote you have used, makes very different reading when seen in full.

Ah yes the often used and often discredited favourite of pro-lifers, when read in full and in context it simply shows that Sanger was aware of African-American concerns, passionately argued by Marcus Garvey in the 1920s, that birth control was a threat to the survival of the black race. This statement, which acknowledges those fears, is taken from a letter to Clarence J. Gamble, M.D., a champion of the birth control movement. In that letter, Sanger describes her strategy to allay such apprehensions. A larger portion of the letter makes Sanger's meaning clear:

"It seems to me from my experience . . . in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Texas, that while the colored Negroes have great respect for white doctors, they can get closer to their own members and more or less lay their cards on the table. . . . They do not do this with the white people, and if we can train the Negro doctor at the clinic, he can go among them with enthusiasm and with knowledge, which, I believe, will have far-reaching results. . . . His work, in my
opinion, should be entirely with the Negro profession and the nurses, hospital, social workers, as well as the County's white doctors. His success will depend upon his personality and his training by us. The minister's work is also important, and also he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation, as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go 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 (Sanger, 1939, December).

so as it can be seen the only way that people can attempt to discredit Sanger is to cherry pick her comments to suit, quote out of context and misrepresent

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Well colour me surprised on that.

 

He says with egg on face.

 

You have work to do. There's a new thread on Margaret Sanger that cries out for your presence. Check it out:

http://www.politicalforum.com/curre...mithsonian-museum-remove-bust-pp-founder.html

 

Margaret Sanger appointed Lothrap Stoddard to the board of directors for the organisation that she founded the American Birth Control League. Stoddard was a nationally published and well know racist who wrote extensively about the superiority of some races over others. If Margaret Sanger wasn't a racist then why was he one of the founding directors?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothrop_Stoddard

Once again I will ask. If Margaret Sanger was not a racist then why was Stoddard appointed to the board of directors?

 

What's the difference in goals between "controlled breeding" to improve the race - which if anything slavery and agriculture have taught us actually can work - and neo=natal gene therapy to overcome "breeding" problems?

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guilt by association. Classic.

 

So basically you can't defend against that charge. This isn't guild by association, this is guild by actively hiring, paying and supporting a nationally published racist. Tell me how exactly does a non-racist appoint a nationally published racist to the board of an organization that she started?

 

Margaret Sanger supported the use of sterilization under some circumstances. No one can defend that.

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There would be no association between Lothrap Stoddard and Margaret Sanger if Sanger hadn't appointed him to her board of directors.

 

I do under certain circumstances.

Yes, that is why its classic guilt by association. did he contribute a chunk of money to the organization? did he have an "in" to a particular demographic? Perhaps he was simply a fellow eugenicist, since many ******** racists loved the concept. (probably a nostalgic remnant of slavery).

 

Please provide evidence that Sanger appointed him, because the only references I can find that say that ALL come from places with obvious bias. Even the reference on the Wiki article you cited leads only to a naked claim with no evidence to support it.

You are guilty of producing two fallacies.

1. Guilt by association
2. Assuming the premise

1. You are asserting that Sanger was racist based on her association with known racists, by your logic someone who has dealings with a known rapist must also be a rapist.
2. You are assuming that because Stoddard was a racist that Sanger was as well, where as Sanger may very well not have been a racist and so far I have seen nothing that confirms she was. In fact there is a wealth of evidence to show she was certainly not a racist.

Eugenics is a scientific process, how that process is implemented is what can make it racist. Sanger did nothing to target her Eugenics ideology at a specific race, in fact the majority of her articles etc very plainly show she targeted the human race as a whole.

 

What charges, those of guilt by association and assuming the premise, those are not charges they are fallacies.

 

the ideology behind Eugenics is racist in its self
Eugenics
Eugenics (/juːˈdʒɛnɪks/; from Greek εὐγενής eugenes "well-born" from εὖ eu, "good, well" and γένος genos, "race, stock, kin")[2][3] is a set of beliefs and practices which aims at improving the genetic quality of the human population.[4][5] It is a social philosophy advocating the improvement of human genetic traits through the promotion of higher rates of sexual reproduction for people with desired traits (positive eugenics), or reduced rates of sexual reproduction and sterilization of people with less-desired or undesired traits (negative eugenics), or both
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

Racism
Racism consists of ideologies and practices that seek to justify, or cause, the unequal distribution of privileges, rights, or goods amongst, or otherwise exhibit hatred or prejudice towards, different racial groups. It is often based on a desire to dominate or a belief in the inferiority of another race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism

now try to explain how the ideology behind Eugenics isn't racist

 

Just as the government of that time did - Between 1907 and 1939, more than 30,000 people in twenty-nine states were sterilized, many of them unknowingly or against their will, while they were incarcerated in prisons or institutions for the mentally ill ... what has this got to do with the assertion that Sanger was a racist .. off topic again I see. Her support of sterilization is not in dispute, asserting her to be a racist is.

Absolute rubbish, she published his articles before he was appointed to the board, and even so you are still guilty of guilt by association and assuming the premise.

 

Eugenics is a process.

Eugenics - The science of improving a population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. - http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/eugenics - how that process is used is what can be racist.

What you need to do is to show where Sanger implemented her Eugenics ideology against a specific race, which is what racism is

Racism - Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior: - http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/racism

There is no correlation between what you have cited, except the one you are making to fit your bias.

Sanger did not believe that the white race was superior to any others, a fact that is easily seen when researching what she said and did, she believed that ALL people deemed "unfit" should be stopped from breeding, and as is plainly obvious from her words, her idea of "unfit" did not include race. In fact she was one of the few who warned about Nazi Germany -

The first thing I want to say in relation to my attitude regarding the present War and World Peace is that before Hitler came into power in Germany I was one of the few Americans who joined the Anti-Nazi Committee and gave money, my name and any influence I had with writers and others, to combat Hitler's rise to power in Germany.

↑My attitude was open & above board as↓ my name was on the stationery and periodicals and leaflets which were distributed ↑by this Comm↓ over Germany, Scandinavia, England, and Italy and the United States.

By every means available this Committee tried to arouse the interest of England's Prime Minister and Press, to combat the advance of Nazism. They refused to print the warnings or to listen to the facts given until the Jewish bankers in Europe began to realize that Nazism was a twin sister to Communism as far as private property was concerned. - https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=240246.xml

and she completely discredited any suggestion that Eugenics should be based on race in a 1945 interview with Earl Conrad (one ignored by people such as yourself) - published in Chicago Defender, Sep 22, 1945 - https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/webedition/app/documents/show.php?sangerDoc=320145.xml

 

What if those 'certain circumstances' included your mother? [/QUOTE]

 

human traits the ones controlled by genes the desirable and the undesirable are exclusive to race so when you are talking about the elimination of undesirable traits in the human genome it is referring to the elimination of certain races so not to pass on those undesirable traits

also Sanger criticism of the Nazi ideology of Eugenics was the method they was using to accomplish their goal not the goal in its self

 

Highlighted part utter rubbish.

name one thing Sanger mentions that is specific to a single race please.

not correct, and I have another quote from her to show you are not correct .. one I kept back as I knew what you would attempt to suggest.

Sanger was aware of the dangers of the Nazi eugenics program well before the end of World War II and in 1934 answered Sidney Lasell’s specific question:

Lasell - "What are your views on the German program of sterilizing the unfit?"

Sanger - "My views on the German program of sterilizing the unfit: I admire the courage of a government that takes a stand on sterilization of the unfit and second, my admiration is subject to the interpretation of the word ‘unfit.’ If by ‘unfit’ is meant the physical or mental defects of a human being, that is an admirable gesture, but if ‘unfit’ refers to races or religions, then that is another matter which I frankly deplore.” - Sanger to Sidney Lasell, Feb. 13, 1934, Selected Papers, Vol. 2, p. 278.