Racism at Idaho Planned Parenthood
March 17, 2008 - 6:44am
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Wow, was this ever disgusting.
http://www.idahostatesman.com/newsupdates/story/308723.html
"Planned Parenthood of Idaho officials apologized Wednesday for what they called an employee's "serious mistake" in encouraging a donation aimed at aborting black babies.
They also criticized The Advocate, a right-to-life student magazine at the University of California-Los Angeles, for trying to discredit Planned Parenthood employees in seven states in a series of tape-recorded phone calls last summer.
The call to Idaho came in July to Autumn Kersey, vice president of development and marketing for Planned Parenthood of Idaho.
On the recording provided by The Advocate, an actor portraying a donor said he wanted his money used to eliminate black unborn children because "the less black kids out there the better."
Kersey laughed nervously and said: "Understandable, understandable. ... Excuse my hesitation, this is the first time I've had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I'm excited and want to make sure I don't leave anything out."
This is a transcript...
Autumn Kersey of Planned Parenthood in Boise: Good afternoon, this is Autumn.
Donor: Hello, Autumn, I'm interested in making a donation today.
Kersey: Fantastic!
Donor: What about abortions for the underprivileged minority groups?
Kersey: Oh, absolutely. We have, um, in fact, uh wonderful, fantastic news. We just received a very generous donation to our women in need fund.
Donor: Wonderful. I want to specify that abortion to help a minority group - would that be possible?
Kersey: Absolutely.
Donor: Like the black community for example?
Kersey: Certainly.
Donor: OK, so the abortionI can give money specifically for a black baby, that would be the purpose.
Kersey: Absolutely. If you wanted to designate that you wanted your gift to be used to help (an) African-American woman in need, then we would certainly make sure that that gift was earmarked specifically for that purpose.
Donor: Great. Because I really face trouble with affirmative action, and I don't want my kids being disadvantaged, you know, against black kids. I just had a baby; I want to put it in his name, you know.
Kersey: Mmhmm, absolutely.
Donor: So that's definitely possible.
Kersey: Oh, always, always.
Donor: So I just wanna - can I put this in the name of my son?
Kersey: Absolutely.
Donor: Yeah, he's trying to get into colleges, and he's going to be applying, you know, he's justwe're just really bighe's really faced troubles with affirmative action.
Kersey: Mmhmm.
Donor: And we don't, you know, we just think, you know, the less black kids out there the better.
Kersey: (Laughs) Understandable, understandable. ... Um David, let me, if I may, just get some sort of specific general information so we can set this up the right way. You said you wanted to put it in your son's name, and you would like this designated specifically to assist (an) African-American woman who's looking to terminate a pregnancy.
Donor: Exactly, and yeah, I wanna protect my son, so he can get into college.
Kersey: All right. Excuse my hesitation, um, um, this is the first time I've had a donor call and make this kind of request, so I'm excited, and I wanna make sure I don't leave anything out.
Moderators advised.
For what, exactly?
For quoting a story where some anti-women anti-choice provocateurs called Planned Parenthood with the tape going (who the fuck knows how many they called across the U.S.), manage to get a stupid comment from the other end of the line, then print it as proof that pro-choice people are racists.
And you, provocateur and misogynist and Israel apologist and troll that you are, reprint that here as an example of racism.
I figure it was you that did the original phone call to Idaho Planned Parenthood. You do hop around from continent to continent stirring up trouble, don't you?
You deserve to be banned for this latest disgusting provocation, but that's up to the moderators.
I think the person at Planned Parenthood was clearly blindsided by this call. It sounded legit at first with the caller wanting to help support traditionally marginalized women in getting the health services they need. Then after sucking the person in, they incrementally added some insidious racist remarks, and judging from the transcript, the PP person clearly didn't know how to handle it and was trying to take down the information and get off the phone, while being polite.
The PP person should have handled it differently and should have recognized that it was a prank call sooner than she did. But it was the first call she'd taken where someone requested earmarking to a specific fund, and didn't know how to deal with it. The fact that she was laughing nervously shows that she recognized the call was going badly.
It looks like Planned Parenthood addressed the situation and apologized for her inappropriate reaction. Looks like some anti-choice asshole took advantage of a scared newbie who had never taken that kind of call before and didn't know how to deal with being tricked, or how to navigate a call that starts out sounding progressive and turns into something completely different all of a sudden.
Why am I not surprised that Indiana Jones is posting in favour of that anti-choice asshole here?
[ 17 March 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]
I think it's interesting that whatever anti-choice group that perpetrated this was savvy enough to understand the tensions between white liberal feminists and feminist women of colour on the issue of reproductive choice, and to try to exploit that.
The issue being that white liberal feminism has mostly focused on the right to have abortions, whereas many women of colour have fought for the right to bear children (instead of being forced to undergo sterilization in exchange for benefits, and facing discrimination and scorn when they choose to have children).
So, the anti-choice asshole who did this was actually pretty smart. They were trying to drive a wedge into this historically touchy area. I sincerely hope that the woman who answered the phone will be educated about the significance of this tactic and this historical issue within the reproductive rights movement. And I hope that Planned Parenthood will use this incident to educate all their staff and volunteers on this issue. Because unfortunately, I don't think enough "mainstream" (read: white-dominated) feminist organizations are conscious enough about this.
quote: So, the anti-choice asshole who did this was actually pretty smart. They were trying to drive a wedge into this historically touchy area.
I'm not sure on that Michelle... It's true whomever the donor was did hit that touchy issue, but unsure if that was purposeful.
Look at the tactics used... The donor repeats several times the 'issue with affirmative action' or 'the less black kids out there the better'. Spew a whole bunch of racist shit at someone (who's trying to get your donation regardless) and once they agree with you to get your donation, post the conversation and call them racist. Shame Kersey didn't recognize the bait for what it was.
So I'm not sure if it was intended as 'driving the wedge between pro-choice / anti-racism', or if it was just the pro-life crowd baiting someone who had good intentions.
Indiana, can you recognize the trolling tactics used here... Both in the article and in your 'this is disgusting' post? Kinda sad really.