Antiabortion activists see a racial conspiracyBy Robin AbcarianMarch 2, 2010It's a campaign designed to shock: Dozens of newly installed billboards in Atlanta feature the cherubic face of a black baby and a stark claim: "Black children are an endangered species."

A joint effort of Georgia Right to Life and the pro-adoption, pro-abstinence Radiance Foundation, the campaign ostensibly calls attention to the fact that black women have a disproportionately high number of abortions. But there is a deeper, more disturbing claim at work as well.

An increasingly vocal segment of the antiabortion community has embraced the idea that black women are targeted for abortion in an effort to keep the black population down.

The billboards direct people to a website called toomanyaborted.com, which claims that "Under the false liberty of 'reproductive freedom' we are killing our very future."

Some black antiabortion activists call the phenomenon "womb lynching." One prominent black cleric, the Rev. Clenard Childress Jr. of New Jersey, often says the most dangerous place for a black child is the womb.

No one disputes that black women have more abortions, proportionately, than women of other races. Nationally, African Americans make up about 13% of the population and have about 37% of all abortions, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But abortion rights advocates say that is because African American women have a disproportionate number of unplanned pregnancies, an enduring problem with complex socioeconomic roots, including inadequate insurance coverage.

"The notion that abortion providers are targeting certain groups of people is absurd," said Vanessa Cullins, an African American physician who is vice president for medical affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "It's using race to undermine decisions that responsible black women are making about whether to terminate a pregnancy or not."

Radiance Foundation founder Ryan Bomberger, a 38-year-old former ad man, came up with the idea for the billboards. Adopted as a baby, he said he was conceived when his white biological mother was raped by a black man.

"I am definitely not a white Southern bigot," he said, alluding to an accusation hurled his way since the ads went up. "I am as black as President Obama."

He has also been accused of shaming black women who seek abortions. Not so, Bomberger said: "It's about exposing an industry that is stealing potential from our community."

Many African American women who support abortion rights find that message patronizing and offensive.

"Ryan is a young advertising executive who has stepped into a food fight that he doesn't quite understand," said Loretta Ross, 56, national coordinator of SisterSong, an Atlanta-based coalition of 80 women's groups that work on reproductive health issues for minorities.

"To be honest, black women aren't fooled by zealots or the church or even the individual men in our lives," Ross said. "We know that the bottom line is you don't…

 The fake feminism of Sarah Palin
By Jessica Valenti
Sunday, May 30, 2010
 Sarah Palin sure is dropping the f-bomb a lot lately. In a widely noted speech this month to the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion-rights group, Palin invoked the words "feminism" and "feminist" no less than a dozen times. She called for a "pro-woman sisterhood" and addressed the "sisters" in the audience. If it weren't for the regular references to gun rights, you might have thought you were listening to Gloria Steinem. If this rhetoric seems uncharacteristic of the former governor of Alaska, that's because it is. When running for vice president in 2008, Palin flip-flopped on the feminist question, telling CBS's Katie Couric that she is one, but later telling NBC's Brian Williams, "I'm not going to label myself anything." Today, however, Palin is happily adopting the feminist label. She's throwing support behind "mama grizzly" candidates, describing the large number of women in the "tea party" as evidence of a "mom awakening" and preaching girl power on her Facebook page. It's not a realization of the importance of women's rights that's inspired the change. It's strategy. Palin's sisterly speechifying is part of a larger conservative move to woo women by appropriating feminist language. Just as consumer culture tries to sell "Girls Gone Wild"-style sexism as "empowerment," conservatives are trying to sell anti-women policies shrouded in pro-women rhetoric. Several years ago, when antiabortion protesters realized that screaming "Murderer!" at women wasn't winning hearts and minds, they launched more palatable campaigns claiming that abortion hurts women -- their new protest signs read "Women Deserve Better." (Not surprisingly, this message is much more effective than spitting invective at emotionally vulnerable women.) When members of the conservative Independent Women's Forum argue against efforts to address pay inequity, they say the salary gap is a result of women's informed choices -- motherhood, for example -- and that claims of discrimination turn women into victims. Conservatives have realized that women respond to seemingly feminist arguments. But, of course, Palin isn't a feminist -- not in the slightest. What she calls "the emerging conservative feminist identity" isn't the product of a political movement or a fight for social justice. It isn't a structural analysis of patriarchal norms, power dynamics or systemic inequities. It's an empty rallying call to other women who are as disdainful of or apathetic to women's rights as Palin herself: women who want to make abortion and emergency contraception illegal and who fight same-sex marriage rights. As Kate Harding wrote on Jezebel.com: "What comes next? 'Phyllis Schlafly feminism?' 'Patriarchal feminism?' 'He-Man Woman Hater Feminism?' " Given that so-called conservative feminists don't support women's rights, how can they paint their movement as pro-woman? Why are they not being laughed out of the room? Easy: They preempt criticism of their lack of bona fides by aligning themselves with a history that most women are proud of -- the fight for suffrage. They claim they're the…

  The ObamaCare Crossroads The vote is really about who commands the country's medical resources."Eventually, quality and choice—the best attributes of American medicine in spite of its dysfunctions—will severely decline."Read Article   

  Hispanic paper attacks CNN presenterComments (2) The largest Spanish-language newspaper in the US, the Los Angeles-based La Opinión, has launched a broadside against the CNN journalist Lou Dobbs, accusing him of retailing anti-immigrant opinions that are based on falsehoods.An editorial states that "in Dobbs's universe, there is a secret Mexican conspiracy to take over the country's southwest". He also argues that Hispanic immigrants "are responsible for many of the country's murders and drunk drivers", that "millions of jobs have been stolen by immigrants", and that "they are responsible for the mortgage crisis and for bringing diseases [including leprosy] into the country."The paper calls on CNN to investigate "Dobbs's falsehoods" if it wants to maintain its journalistic credibility. Dobbs, a veteran CNN presenter, has made no secret of his opposition to illegal immigration. In his programme, Lou Dobbs Tonight, he frequently refers to immigration as an "invasion". He is deeply offended by claims that he is guilty of Hispanophobia, pointing out that his wife, Debi Segura, is a Mexican-American. Sources: New America Media/La Opinión/Wikipedia   

  The missing Obama
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
In my set, I am known as the guy who always had some reservations about Barack Obama. Sure, I supported him in the primaries against Hillary Clinton and I voted for him, with both glee and enthusiasm, especially after John McCain uttered the most shocking words in American politics -- "Sarah Palin." But I had such qualms about Obama that I even disparaged his famous speech on race, which almost everyone else thought was just about the greatest ever given on the subject. I just reread it -- and I was a bit chastened (I was too severe), but mostly I was saddened. Where is the man who once gave that speech? The speech, delivered in Philadelphia in March 2008, was compelled by the rantings of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who had been Obama's pastor and spiritual adviser. Wright, a man of a certain age with the emotional scar tissue that comes from a life in a harshly racist society, had let loose his anger -- and it had been caught on tape and YouTubed around the world. A sermon that had a context and an appreciative audience looked like sheer demagoguery and madness on the small screen. Obama had to kiss off Wright. He did so with style and with dignity. But more than that, to reread the speech is to be impressed once again with the fluidity of Obama's mind -- his logic, his reasoning and his immense writing talent, which made a great impression on the impressionable people in my profession. But to reread the speech is also to come face to face with an Obama of keen moral clarity. Here was a man who knew why he was running for president and knew, also precisely, what he personified. He could talk to America as a black man and a white man -- having lived in both worlds. He could -- and he did -- explain to America what it is like to have been a black man of Wright's age and what it is like even now to be a black man of any age. Somehow, though, that moral clarity has dissipated. The Obama who was leading a movement of professed political purity is the very same person who as president would not meet with the Dalai Lama, lest he annoy the very sensitive Chinese. He is the same man who bowed to the emperor of Japan when, in my estimation, the president of the United States should bow to no man. He is the same president who in China played the mannequin for the Chinese government, appearing at stage-managed news conferences and events -- and having his remarks sometimes censored. When I saw him in that picture alone on the Great Wall, he seemed to be thinking, "What the hell am I doing here?" If so, it was a good question. The Barack Obama of that Philadelphia speech would not have let his…