[Update: Joe Killian has now cited sources for the "human weeds" comment on his blog: "The Pivot of Civilization" and "My Plan for Peace." Neither contains the phrase in question. I have asked Joe and his editor, John Robinson, on what page we can find the quotation. Joe has not answered yet. Robinson's reply in its entirety: "Got me."]
[Update II: Joe edited his blog post to say that "The specific 'human weed' language cited by Randall isn't to be found there..." It isn't to be found anywhere. Randall burped up a fable--an urban legend--a tired fantasy of right wing kooks to which Randall added a racial spin.]
Greensboro, NC -- In a candidates' forum Wednesday night, congressional candidate Bill Randall (R) asked what the parents of his incumbent challenger, Brad Miller (D), would think of Miller being endorsed by an organization that called "black people 'human weeds.'"
News & Record reporter Joe Killian gave his reporter's stamp of approval to the accuracy of the statement by writing:
Randall was referring to Planned Parenthood and comments by Margaret Sanger, the founder of the organization that preceded it in the 1920s.One problem: Sanger never called black people "human weeds." I've asked Joe what was his source for reporting that she had (no reply yet), but it appears as if he just took Randall at his word.
There are plenty of conservative blogs and right wing websites that claim Sanger referred to black people as "human weeds." Most are unsourced. The few that are attribute the quote to Sanger's book "The Pivot of Civilization." But, thanks to Google Books, that tombe is online in searchable form, and "human weeds" just isn't in it. What Randall said was not true. Killian was wrong not to check it out. A correction is in order.
[Yes! Weekly's Jordan Green also reported Randall's claim, but he limited it to reporting Randall's words. Green did not assert, as Killian did, that Randall's claim was founded in fact. Still, there's room for clarification from Yes! too -- that what Randall said is make believe.]
On page 265 of "The Pivot of Civilization" Sanger refers to the "human undergrowth".
ReplyDeleteJoe's statement is accurate in that Randall WAS referring to "statements" made by Margaret Sanger. This isn't "giving the stamp of accuracy" to the statement of Randall, it is merely describing it.
You owe Joe the apology and correction. He did nothing wrong and your argument to the contrary is creative and entirely lacking in reason.
The problem is that while there is a lot of kind of creepy references by Sanger to "human undergrowth" or other gardening metaphors and yes, in some cases she's making some disturbing eugenics arguments, she doesn't seem to have been talking specifically about black people (she's not in the undergrowth case) and does not seem, as Randall suggested, to have founded the organization that much later turned into Planned Parenthood for the purposes he described.
ReplyDeleteThat should read "are a lot of"...
ReplyDeleteBefore Roch or anyone else asks for a source for my assertion about Sanger's purposes in founding the ABCL...
ReplyDeleteThey were laid out in "The Pivot of Civilization" (in the appendix, starting on page 281) and enumerated at the first American Birth Control Conference in 1921. They were as follows:
* Research: To collect the findings of scientists, concerning the relation of reckless breeding to the evils of delinquency, defect and dependence;
* Investigation: To derive from these scientifically ascertained facts and figures, conclusions which may aid all public health and social agencies in the study of problems of maternal and infant mortality, child-labor, mental and physical defects and delinquence in relation to the practice of reckless parentage.
* Hygienic and Physiological instruction by the Medical profession to mothers and potential mothers in harmless and reliable methods of Birth Control in answer to their requests for such knowledge.
* Sterilization of the insane and mentally retarded and the encouragement of this operation upon those afflicted with inherited or transmissible diseases, with the understanding that sterilization does not deprive the individual of his or her sex expression, but merely renders him incapable of producing children.
* Education: The program of education includes: The enlightenment of the public at large, mainly through the education of leaders of thought and opinion--teachers, ministers, editors and writers to the moral and scientific soundness of the principles of Birth Control and the imperative necessity of its adoption as the basis of national and racial progress.
* Political and Legislative: To enlist the support and cooperation of legal advisers, statesmen and legislators in effecting the removal of state and federal statutes which encourage dysgenic breeding, increase the sum total of disease, misery and poverty and prevent the establishment of a policy of national health and strength.
* Organization: To send into the various States of the Union field workers to enlist the support and arouse the interest of the masses, to the importance of Birth Control so that laws may be changed and the establishment of clinics made possible in every State.
* International: This department aims to cooperate with similar organizations in other countries to study Birth Control in its relations to the world population problem, food supplies, national and racial conflicts, and to urge upon all international bodies organized to promote world peace, the consideration of these aspects of international amity.
However otherwise disturbing, I don't read anything in that that seems specifically racist or anti-black.
Sam, Joe and I are in agreement, but if you will cite the source for claiming that Sanger made the statement about black people Randall says she made, Joe and I would both find it helpful and I'd apologize. So please, proceed to educate us.
ReplyDeleteYour post was about what Joe said, not Randall's argument.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that Planned Parenthood never said "blacks are human weeds", but Sanger did refer to blacks (among other minorities) as "human undergrowth" which seems to be what Joe correctly pointed out that Randall was referring to.
Sam, on the page you cite in which Sanger writes of "undergrowth," she writes that she is referring to the "mentally passive." If you take that to mean black people, so be it. I don't read it that way.
ReplyDelete