#BlackLivesSadder: Victim Mentality, Abortion, and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The Beginning of the End?
It has been argued that the American political system is in a state of flux and a social conscious awakening is transpiring. Segments of the black community are going through a sort of reckoning pertaining to their allegiances to the so called “plantation” of the Democrat party. Some blacks have found that the Democratic Party may have taken their vote for granted and have not engaged the black community as they should or once did.
In my view, this (black awakening) is long over do. More specifically, it is my contention that black Americans have all too often wanted white people to esteem black lives and value the humanity of black people when the black community themselves can’t reprove and express moral outrage at those who incapacitate and kill black kids during senseless violence, and abortion procedures (Hill, 2018).
Moreover, groups such as Black Lives Matter attach themselves to the black community as an organization that “organize and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes”. If we were to compare the recent incidences of cops killing unarmed black males, black on black crime is virtually a national security catastrophe. This moral hysteria raised by a few occurrences of police irresponsibility in the face of this larger national calamity is reckless rhetoric. What’s more troubling is the idea that this hides from America an idea of a deep seeded self-loathing attitude within the black community which manifests itself in a homicidal rage not necessarily against white people, but against other blacks (Hill, 2018).
The Choice Is Yours: Abortion and the Victim Mentality
I was recently reading an article from the Wall Street Journal titled “Let’s Talk about the Racial Disparity in Abortions”. Jason Riley, a conservative Black journalist, criticizes leftist for being hypocritical by advocating for Black Lives Matter while at the same time, failing to address the racial inequalities in the United States abortion rates. Riley provides hard core facts in his critique of the black community and their willingness to terminate their pregnancy,
“In New York City, thousands more black babies are aborted than born alive each year, and the abortion rate among black mothers is more than three times higher than it is for white mothers. According to a city Health Department report released in May, between 2012 and 2016 black mothers terminated 136,426 pregnancies and gave birth to 118,127 babies. By contrast, births far surpassed abortions among whites, Asians and Hispanics” (Riley, 2018).
Moreover, Riley admits that racism, poverty and the lack of access to health care are the typical excuses for these racial disparities in abortion. However, even after you control for income, black women still have much higher abortion rates. Indeed, other low-income ethnic minorities who experience discrimination, such as Latinos, abort at rates much closer to white women than black women (Riley, 2018).
Furthermore, Riley provides his own explanations pertaining to why black women have higher rates of abortion, including, the lack of marriages in the black community, and a more favorable attitude toward abortion in general over the past few decades from blacks.
Nevertheless, Kate Castle of Rewire.News wrote a rebuttal article titled, “Looking at the Racial Disparity in Abortion Rates Completely Misses the Point”. In this article, Castle spends most of her ink bemoaning Riley’s take on why black women have higher abortion rates in the United States. She scoffs at the idea that people should be held accountable for their actions and not just blame racism, and the lack of access to healthcare as an excuse to have unprotected sex at will. Castle argues Riley is “attempting to depoliticize poverty by focusing on a very narrow and conservative view of morality (Castle, 2018). Moreover, Castle refers to Monica Simpson’s article titled, We Trust Black Women to Stand Up, Speak out, and Lead, where Simpson argues that there is a health crisis for black women in the United States regarding their comparatively high rates of death during childbirth, which is statistical true and concerning. However, the notion that this phenomenon is (only) “exacerbated by an organized attempt to strip us (black women) of our (their) rights and bodily autonomy” is absurd. Simpson continues, “People should not be forced to be pregnant when they are not ready”. Are you kidding me? What does this line of thinking have to do with racism, or the lack of access to healthcare? People are sovereign beings with free will and the ability to make choices.
Again, I am not denying the fact that black women are at a higher risk of dying during childbirth. What I am denying is this notion of having a victim mentality. Both Castle and Simpson provide plenty of excuses for the black community. In my estimation, this does nothing to stop the cycle of (pregnancy termination). By no means do I think that Castle and Simpson have nefarious motives when they depict these black women as victims, by far they are not the only ones justifying black women and the black community as it pertains to “reproductive rights” and promoting a victim mentality.
Avoiding Oedipus and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The story of a self-fulfilling prophecy appears in a variety of literary works, perhaps the most famous is the story of Oedipus. Oedipus is told by an oracle that he will murder his father and marry his mother. In going out of his way to avoid his fate, Oedipus unintentionally fulfills it.
Although the story of Oedipus is one of Greek mythology, the core tenet of the self-fulfilling prophecy can be paralleled to the black community, in this regard; a self-fulfilling prophecy is essentially a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior. Therefore, if black women continue to hear that they are victims of structural racism, victims of an oppressed society that stems back from slavery, and that black women are being stripped of their rights and bodily autonomy then it’s a possibility they will ultimately believe this and continue to use this thought process as a crutch and excuse. When groups such as Black Lives Matter propagate a narrative that police officers are brutalizing the black community while refusing to address the abortion disparity pertaining to black women, that just doesn’t sit well with me, especially with the understanding that Black Lives Matter was founded by two African American women.
Furthermore, the diagrams below depict a feedback loop. In this context they represent a psychological “stampede” in the minds of black women. In other words, alarm and panic can spread (from a mental and social standpoint) concerning black women’s lack of access to healthcare putting them at risk of death during childbirth, thus having an abortion is the answer, at least in their minds. Nevertheless, the same circumstance(s) that black women try to avoid (single parenthood, unwanted pregnancy, STI (sexual transmitted infections) continue within a vicious cycle.
Indeed, Merton’s concept of the self-fulfilling prophecy is an offshoot of W.I. Thomas’ Thomas theorem, which states that “if men define their situations as real they are real in their consequences”. Likewise, according to Robert K. Merton (1948) self-fulfilling prophecy is defined in the following terms:
The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning. (p.195).
A Mindset of Love
Ultimately, my message as a writer is one of love. I don’t like seeing my black women terminating their unborn offspring at higher rates than any other ethnic group. There are alternatives to abortion. First and foremost, condom usage is a cost-effective way to practice safe sex. The Condom Access Project is a program supported by funds provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for sexually transmitted disease prevention and control. This program will mail you free condoms. You will receive a padded yellow envelope with 10 condoms, 10 packets of lube, information about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and information on who to contact if there is a problem.
Furthermore, deciding to put your child up for adoption instead of abortion has many benefits. Above all, prospective birth mothers can get financial help during their pregnancy and adoption process. Depending on your situation, you may receive living expenses for things like rent, groceries, gas and more if you choose adoption.
In the end, as it stands now in the United States, a woman has the (right) to terminate (or kill depending on your worldview) their baby (or products of conception). My hope is that soon love will overcome the hearts of men (and women) and realize the sacrifices and blood that has been shed within this country have not only been the men and women of our armed forces, but the innocent ones who have yet to be born.
References
Arkin, J. and Thompson, A. (2018, October 30). You want our vote, come get our vote. Retrieved from https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/30/democrats-black-voters-midterm-elections-2018-947757
Hill, J. D. (2018, May). My ‘Black Lives Matter’ Problem: Wrong on crime, wrong on Israel, and wrong on education. Commentary Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/black-lives-matter-problem/
Merton, R. K. (1948), “The Self Fulfilling Prophecy”, Antioch Review, 8 (2 (Summer)): 195, doi:10.2307/4609267, ISSN 0003–5769, JSTOR 4609267
Riley, J. L. (2018, July 10). Let’s Talk about the Black Abortion Rate. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/lets-talk-about-the-black-abortion-rate-1531263697
About The Author
Ron is an Associate Professor of Sociology at a college outside of Houston,Texas. You can connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
