Maafa 21 (2009)

Original title

Maafa 21: Black Genocide in the 21st Century

Directed by

Mark Crutcher

Genre

documentary film

Country

United States

Rated

PG-13

Rating

10.0 of 10 from 2 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary argues that high abortion rates among African Americans are part of a deliberate genocidal plot. It traces this alleged conspiracy from the eugenics movement through Planned Parenthood's founding to the present day. The film uses historical claims and statistics to make its case.

polemicalfearfulaccusatoryconspiratorialseriouspersuasivehistoricalargumentative

What happens

Maafa 21: Black Genocide in 21st Century America is an anti-abortion documentary film produced by anti-abortion activist Mark Crutcher in 2009. The film, which has been enthusiastically received by anti-abortion activists, argues that the modern-day prevalence of abortion among African Americans is rooted in an attempted genocide or the maafa of black people. The film is part of an anti-abortion, anti-birth control campaign aimed at African Americans. The film repeats elements of an American conspiracy theory called black genocide, using many of the same arguments previously used by the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam in the early 1970s. It uses questionable statistics and facts to induce in the viewer a fear of birth control and abortion. The film alleges that the eugenics movement targeted African Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries, that this was the basis for the creation of the American Birth Control League (now Planned Parenthood) by Margaret Sanger, and that this kind of race genocide continued in the form of the abortion-rights movement of the 20th and 21st centuries. The film puts forward the idea that Sanger was a racist who worked to reduce the population of blacks, and that Planned Parenthood is continuing this program. Sanger is accused of being an ally of Nazism and Adolf Hitler. Critics have countered many of the film's points, arguing that Sanger was not a racist, that the eugenics movement was not especially focused on African Americans, that black women were largely in favor of birth control and were having abortions long before it became legal, and that instead of being a plot by Planned Parenthood, the high rate of abortion among African Americans comes from a correspondingly high rate of unplanned pregnancies. Esther Katz, director of NYU's Margaret Sanger Papers Project, has stated that the film presents a false depiction of Sanger's views and works. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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