Over at Angry Black Beeyotch there is outrage to spare over a putatively racist prolife ad in North City. The latest rant reads like one of those really bad spoken-word poems.
The ad in question declares that "The Most Dangerous Place for an African-American is in the Womb," citing the figure that, though black folks make up 12% of the population, they account for 37% of Missouri's abortions.
In response, any number of fancy terms are deployed at ABB, including my personal favorite, "agency." "The only way this campaign works," she decalres, "is if people accept that black women are the most wretched of creatures." It is an attack on the very "humanity" of black women. (The humanity of black fetuses is entirely another matter and is, of course, not up for debate, since it would constitute ... racism?)
Of course, the terms as used mean nothing and everything. Argue that your "humanity" necessitates you have the prerogative to terminate another human life, and you may as well argue that your "humanity" necessitates you have the prerogative to own another human life. In effect, of course, to terminate another human life is to claim you own it.
Aren't the dusty remains of the slaveholders sorry they didn't have terms like "agency" and "humanity" to use in defense of the prerogatives they claimed over other human lives?
And I fear what it would do to black women's agency if anybody mentioned that Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood with the expressed goal (among others) of causing there to be fewer black people.
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