2008 Woodie Awards
Slander and a Students for Choice flyer
Issue date: 11/28/06 Section: Commentary
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To the Editor:
On Tuesday, Nov. 21, a flyer appeared around Hamilton Smith Hall advertising an event sponsored by Students for Choice, the Young America's Foundation and the Student Activity fee. The advertisement featured a picture of Margaret Sanger, the public health worker and Planned Parenthood founder, with a speech bubble proclaiming, "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population; and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
The headline of the flyer is entirely in keeping with an academic environment, inviting all to "Question what you have been told..." Education is certainly about looking beneath the surface of the stories we have been given, and in this case, I hope it's also about looking beyond quotations taken out of context.
Margaret Sanger was motivated to help end poverty, first and foremost. ANY look at her writing reveals how desperately she felt and how fiercely she advocated for people caught in the cycle of low wages and crowded, unsanitary living conditions with little hope of exodus. A group she felt particular concern for was the impoverished black population in the South since they struggled against not just poverty, but racism and discrimination. Sanger notes, "What hangs over the South is that the Negro has been in servitude. The white southerner is slow to forget this. His attitude is the archaic in this age. Supremacist thinking belongs in the museum."
The quote these groups have calculatingly taken out of context is meant to smear the reputation of a woman who did found Planned Parenthood, but who also worked tirelessly to better the living conditions of women and children regardless of race in a time of desperate need and very little education. She actually made the statement in response to the negative publicity many organizations were generating against her to try and stop her work during her lifetime. It was this faulty impression she didn't want 'out.' Sanger actually believed that there was one race, a human race, and that racial betterment involved all of us.
On Tuesday, Nov. 21, a flyer appeared around Hamilton Smith Hall advertising an event sponsored by Students for Choice, the Young America's Foundation and the Student Activity fee. The advertisement featured a picture of Margaret Sanger, the public health worker and Planned Parenthood founder, with a speech bubble proclaiming, "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population; and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
The headline of the flyer is entirely in keeping with an academic environment, inviting all to "Question what you have been told..." Education is certainly about looking beneath the surface of the stories we have been given, and in this case, I hope it's also about looking beyond quotations taken out of context.
Margaret Sanger was motivated to help end poverty, first and foremost. ANY look at her writing reveals how desperately she felt and how fiercely she advocated for people caught in the cycle of low wages and crowded, unsanitary living conditions with little hope of exodus. A group she felt particular concern for was the impoverished black population in the South since they struggled against not just poverty, but racism and discrimination. Sanger notes, "What hangs over the South is that the Negro has been in servitude. The white southerner is slow to forget this. His attitude is the archaic in this age. Supremacist thinking belongs in the museum."
The quote these groups have calculatingly taken out of context is meant to smear the reputation of a woman who did found Planned Parenthood, but who also worked tirelessly to better the living conditions of women and children regardless of race in a time of desperate need and very little education. She actually made the statement in response to the negative publicity many organizations were generating against her to try and stop her work during her lifetime. It was this faulty impression she didn't want 'out.' Sanger actually believed that there was one race, a human race, and that racial betterment involved all of us.
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Emily Todd
posted 11/28/06 @ 9:34 AM EST
I'm sure that the identification of the "Question what you have been told" flier as one from Students for Choice was a typo on the part of the TNH, however I'd still like to point out that it was in fact Students for Life and not Students for Choice who put up those fliers and who are holding the event. (Continued…)
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