Used to be that Fox talkers wanted entertainers to “shut up and sing.” But since Ye donned his MAGA hat and proclaimed fealty to Trump, Fox has changed its tune and considers the artist formerly known as Kanye West a true font of wisdom!
While Fox News Primetime is shown on Fox, during primetime, it’s not even remotely close to being “news.” Such was the case on last Friday’s show during which anti-abortion zealot Rachel Campos-Duffy and her anti-choice soulmate, Candace Owens, joined up for quite the propaganda fest.
Campos-Duffy, a mother of nine who is married to Sean Duffy, a former GOP member of Congress and current co-head of financial services at the lobbying and PR firm, the BGR group, got us off to a good start. She informed us that we need to listen to Yeezy’s commentary about “the real genocide.” Video was shown from the YouTube show “Drink Champs” during which he claimed that “50% of all Black deaths a year is abortion.” (Actually, it’s heart disease. Also the CDC doesn’t consider abortions as a cause of death.) Worth noting that white supremacist fan boy Tucker Carlson has also praised Kanye as a “compelling voice” on abortion.
Looking so sad, Campos-Duffy asked what guest Candace Owens, now married to George Farmer, the son of a member of the very pro-Brexit British House of Lords, Sir Michael Farmer, thought about this “genocide.” Owens solemnly declared that West is “very correct.” She chided those evil liberals who chant “Black Lives Matter” but when abortion is mentioned, “they suddenly get very shy…because the statistics are staggering.”
Without any supportive demographic data, Duchess of Dishonesty Owens proclaimed, as truth, that the “Black population would be double what it is today if it wasn’t for abortion.” She also claimed, as truth, that Planned Parenthood was founded “by a eugenicist who did not want Black people to procreate." Reality informs us that while Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger supported eugenics, she was more concerned about women, all women, being able to control their fertility – an idea supported by Black women and famous Black sociologist W.E.B. DuBois.
Lady Lie continued to rant: “Quite frankly, Margaret Sanger, she was a success story. She created Planned Parenthood and she wanted to target people that she saw as not wanting to be reproduced in this society and Black people were targeted and had been successful so Kanye West is right to continue to beat the drum and to draw attention to this issue. Reality informs us that “there is no evidence that Sanger... coerced or intended to coerce black women into using birth control.”
Campos-Duffy closed the discussion with an endorsement: “Candace and Kanye, truth tellers for sure on this topic."
Wow, if Candace Owns is hoping to bring Black women into the conservative GOP fold, I don’t think that it’s wise to say that Black women who have abortions are committing genocide. Being high up in her ivory tower, I guess she doesn't realize that poverty isn't exactly an inducement to bring a pregnancy to term. There are many reasons why women have abortions, but the Princess of Poutrage doesn't seem to care. In her kingdom of lies and distortions, Black women have no agency, Handmaids if you will, and should be listening to Kanye West. Again, wow.
Watch the fun from Fox News Primetime, Friday, November 5th, 2021.
Thanks to Kevin for the background on Planned Parenthood and the right of women to choose.
Misrepresentation #1 – that anti-choice laws have long been common in the USA and that therefore, the USA has always been an anti-choice nation. Reality: Before the Civil War, there were common practices regarding the management of early pregnancies, usually bounded by the moment of “quickening”. After the Civil War, however, with the rise of the suffragette movement and the moves of affluent White women toward independence from their husbands and fathers, it became clear that those women were managing their pregnancies a little too well. Birth rates for wealthier white women were dropping off, while the birth rates for Irish, Jewish, and Asian immigrants, along with former slaves, were skyrocketing. White men responded by passing multiple anti-choice ordinances, meant to force women back into obedience. So yes, we’ve had a good 150 years of angry Right Wingers trying to inflict anti-choice laws – and for the same reasons that they continue to do so today: they resent their inability to control the women choosing for themselves.
Misrepresentation #2 – that Margaret Sanger was a racist Eugenist who just wanted to sterilize African Americans. Reality: Sanger was a long proponent of birth control, particularly in poorer communities where there were regularly very large families that could not afford to feed their many children. Sanger’s intention was to help poorer families manage their family size, and to help younger people to keep from constantly getting pregnant. Angry Right Wingers saw that work as allowing younger people to engage in intercourse without punishment, so they naturally hated both Sanger and the group that would eventually become Planned Parenthood. Sanger reached out for any group that would support her goal. One such group was the Eugenist Movement, which in the 1920s was a popular “scientific” idea, even if a close look shows it to be both snide and frankly sinister. Sanger appears to have signed on with them because of their popularity, in the hope that it would raise support for her birth control programs. In later years, Sanger spoke out against Nazism and bigotry, and she remained consistent in her beliefs that responsible birth control would help families rise above poverty. But for the Right Wing, the fact that she foolishly associated herself with that movement means her entire life’s work should be tossed out. Interesting that Right Wingers are okay with cancelling Sanger. Also interesting that Right Wingers want to throw stones at Sanger for aligning with what had been a popular movement in the 1920s when it’s the Right Wingers who knowingly allied with Nazism and Fascism even after they knew who what Hitler was.
It’s also interesting that angry Right Wingers so desperately reach to Kanye West now that he sings their song. In the same way that they want to embrace Aaron Rodgers since he’s saying what they want to hear about vaccines and masks. Perhaps they’re still being consistent. Angry Right Wingers don’t want all musicians and athletes to shut up – they just want the ones who aren’t Right Wingers to shut up.
