As I read Tonyaa Weathersbee “Putting blacks in prison is latest legacy of slavery” from Black Voices in Commentary, I couldn’t help but think of another tragedy that is nothing more the minority genocide. It is true that the amount of balck people, especially balck males, incarcerated is dangerous and warrants our attention. However, what about the number one killer of balck men in America? No, I am not talking about bullets, gangs, marijuana, crack cocaine, white women, or fried chicken. I am talking about abortions, and as a read Ms. Weatherbee’s story I thought to myself that, rather than jail this is the next big problem black people will face.
Now, I am as liberal as anyone who is willing to call themselves liberal but when there is a problem out that affects a race of people ideology should go out the window. I consider myself pro-choice, I fully support gay marriage, and I believe in universal health care. So please don’t revoke my Democratic Party Plus card when I say that I think that abortion was one of just the many things produced by the feminist movement of the 1970’s that destroyed the Black American family. More than any of our brother and sisters locked up behind bars, abortion as it is used today has robbed the black race of opportunity and future. Now, I could tell you that about 1,200 African-American babies are killed by abortion in the United States every day. I could tell you that since abortion was legalized in 1973, more than 14 million African-American babies have been killed. I could tell you that something like 35% of all abortions in the United States are performed on African-American women, while they represent only 13% of the female population of this country. However, I rather tell you that abortion is a crutch we no longer can afford to use as contraception. Unlike jail that simple disenfranchises African Americans, the Black American use and abuse of abortions eradicates any chance of that potential African American child becoming a functional citizen at all. In a democratic society in which numbers equal power, jail is a stumbling stone while abortion has turned into the wall of Jericho. Young Black males need to stay out of jail, but once out of jail if they don’t become more productive citizens, if they don’t take responsibility for the lives they produce and affect, if they don’t stop killing their dreams before they have a chance to blossom, they might as well stay in jail because they will never be free. Slavery was designed not just to enslave the body, but the mind and the soul of the African. Slave masters beat the biggest Negro to death in front of the rest to prove they could. They raped the black women in front of her husband and her son’s to prove that the men were powerless to do anything about it. Now as we enter the 21st century, if we as black males continue to perpetuate a situation in which makes abortion more instead of less necessary, we may as well be giving our women to slave master and we are still powerless to do anything about it.
