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I apologize ahead of time for the length of this post; as you\u2019ll see, a good half of it is just quotes from a transcript of a sickening video that was posted publicly to YouTube<\/a> and Twitter then quickly made private this evening. The video, entitled \u201cMy Biracial Boy,\u201d\u00a0 is a fifteen-minute diatribe by none other than Abby Johnson, the darling of the pro-life movement, a former abortion clinic worker whose conversion story has been questioned by investigative reporters<\/a>. Johnson now runs \u201cAnd Then There Were None,\u201d a charity that purports to help abortion clinic workers leave their places of work and get work elsewhere. She is a speaker in great demand in the pro-life movement. And it so happens that she has adopted a biracial son named Jude.<\/p>\n Abby recorded herself talking and posted to her Twitter feed to thousands of followers; I don\u2019t know if she or somebody else made the video private, but you can watch it yourself here<\/a>. It\u2019s also been posted to Youtube again by somebody else<\/a>. I hope this video stays available to watch, because we all need to face how horrific this woman\u2019s declarations are. The pro-life movement needs to take responsibility.<\/p>\n I was also given a transcript of the video, which is useful because Abby tends to mutter. I have never heard a woman \u201cum\u201d and \u201cuh\u201d so much through a video she was staging herself. Abby could have turned it off and tried another take when she realized she was not speaking very clearly, but she published it anyway. And in addition, she keeps gesturing at the camera with one wagging finger, giving the whole thing an even more unpleasant schoolmarm feel than I can convey just by quoting it. I\u2019m going to quote large portions of the video here, so that I can dialogue with them.<\/p>\n Abby kicks off the story by talking about her \u201clittle brown son\u201d named Jude. She keeps referring to him as her \u201clittle brown son\u201d in kind of a singsongy way, and joking about how he \u201clooks like he has a tan,\u201d she loves his brown skin and unique hair and thinks he\u2019s beautiful. Meanwhile she refers to herself not only as a white person but a \u201cvery white person\u201d and complains that \u201cI\u2019ve sort of felt like my voice isn\u2019t wanted in this conversation.\u201d Not that that\u2019s a reason for her to keep quiet, of course.<\/p>\n Abby continues, \u201cAnd as a mom of 5 boys, and one of those boys being biracial, I recognize that I\u2019m gonna have to have a different conversation with Jude than I do with my brown-haired, little Irish, very, very pale-skinned white sons as they grow up. Because right now Jude is an adorable, perpetually tan-looking little brown boy. But one day he\u2019s gonna grow up and he\u2019s going to be a tall, probably sort of large, intimidating-looking maybe, brown man.\u00a0And my other boys are probably gonna look like nerdy white guys. And so I realize that I\u2019m gonna have to have a different conversation with Jude than I do with my nerdy white kids. <\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Intimidating-looking? I thought he was beautiful. I thought he was a beautiful tan person with hair his mother loves. What\u2019s intimidating about that? And why doesn\u2019t she expect her pale white Irish sons to be intimidating?\u00a0 Can\u2019t an Irish person be intimidating? And why can\u2019t a Black man look nerdy?<\/p>\n Is Abby Johnson scared of Black men?<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you know, that doesn\u2019t make me angry. And many of you would say, \u201cThat should make you angry, Abby!\u201d But it doesn\u2019t make me angry. You know why? Because I look at statistics over emotion, okay?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Abby Johnson boasts elsewhere in this video about nearly completing a doctorate in clinical counseling. I am extremely disturbed that somebody with almost an entire doctorate in clinical counseling can say something like \u201cI look at statistics over emotion, okay?\u201d Don\u2019t go to a therapist who looks at statistics over emotion. Therapists are supposed to be able to look, with a rational eye but not with condemnation, at emotions. People have emotions that they sometimes need the gentle and professional help of a therapist to cope with. No person has a statistic.<\/p>\n \u201cStatistically, I look at our prison population and I see that there is a disproportionately high number of African American males in our prison population for crimes, particularly for violent crimes. So, statistically, when a police officer sees a brown man like my Jude walking down the road, as opposed to my white nerdy kids, my white nerdy men, walking down the road \u2013 because of the statistics that he knows in his head, that these police officers know in their head, they\u2019re going to know that statistically, my brown son is more likely to commit a violent offense over my white sons. Okay? So the fact that, in his head, he would be more careful around my brown son than my white son, that doesn\u2019t actually make me angry; that makes that police officer smart, because of statistics. There\u2019s that comparison between a \u201cbrown man\u201d and a \u201cwhite nerdy man\u201d again. Why can\u2019t a person of color be a nerd? Christian Cooper, the bird watcher who was the victim of the Central Park racist incident back in late May, is a science writer who also writes comics; he\u2019s avid and geeky about his bird watching and he has cute spectacles. Every time I see him, the adjective that comes to mind is \u201cnerdy\u201d and I wish I could go bird watching and talk about science and comic books with him. I\u2019d a thousand times rather go bird watching with Christian Cooper than listen to Abby Johnson. But anyway, Abby thinks only white kids are nerdy; the adjective for a person with black or brown skin is \u201cintimidating maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n And there\u2019s a doctoral student who assumes that a larger number of Black people in prison automatically certainly means that Black people are \u201cmore likely to commit violent crimes\u201d as if that\u2019s given from the statistic. That\u2019s not how an educated person should interpret statistics; it\u2019s not good logic.<\/p>\n But anyway, Abby Johnson just said that she\u2019d think a police officer who treated her biracial, adopted son with more suspicion than her white ones was a smart police officer. \u201cStatistically, my brown son is more likely to commit a violent offense over my white sons.\u201d<\/p>\n Yes.<\/p>\n A pro-life icon said that.<\/p>\n The rest of the video, the other two-thirds, is more or less in the realm of conspiracy theory. Abby says \u201cI started doing a little digging because I\u2019m a researcher by Nature, and part of my education is to be a researcher. I\u2019m almost done with my doctorate in clinical counseling, and so part of that degree (my Masters is in clinical counseling), so part of that is doing a lot of research, so I\u2019m just sort of a research nerd, so I look at a lot of research.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>But she doesn\u2019t provide any citation or notes for her claims whatsoever. She doesn\u2019t say where she got her \u201cstatistics\u201d or who made the claims she\u2019s about to make next. I\u2019ve never heard a person who nearly has a doctorate speak so sloppily, and I went to Franciscan University.<\/p>\n Abby quotes that old statistic that \u201cseventy percent of black homes are without fathers,\u201d over and over again, a look of pure revulsion on her face, and notes that that number has been steady for years. She doesn\u2019t cite her source for that statistic. The CDC reports that actually, the majority of Black homes do have fathers\u2013 2.5 million fathers who do live with their children versus 1.7 million who don\u2019t<\/a>, in fact. And Abby does not at all go into the reasons why a Black family might have trouble keeping both parents under the same roof. She doesn\u2019t talk about the generational poverty caused by redlining<\/a> and how that can impact the family. She doesn\u2019t talk about the disparity in the number of Black men versus white men in prisons across America, even though she mentioned it earlier. And she certainly doesn\u2019t attribute that disparity to a racist disparity in sentencing<\/a> for the same crimes, even though that\u2019s well documented.\u00a0 She seems to take for granted that the reason there are more Black men in prison than white is because Black men actually are just naturally more violent; that\u2019s the implication. And she seems to think that the absence of Black fathers, insofar as it exists in the first place, is not due to any kind of misfortune or deliberate abuse of Black people but because of the selfishness of Black fathers themselves, as if Black men are all out behind the gymnasium smoking pot when they ought to be at home with their children.<\/p>\n Abby goes on to say that she researched this mystery, even though she obviously didn\u2019t research redlining, the prison industrial complex or the history of the unique challenges to the Black family in America throughout history. And if you\u2019d like to read a really good article that touches on some of those issues, my facebook friend Shannon Brinkley Portillo wrote about it in a facebook post which I was honored to publish as a guest post awhile ago<\/a>. Please do give it a look. It\u2019s one of the most informative pieces I\u2019ve ever read.<\/p>\n Abby has a different notion. She declares \u201cSo I continued to research, I continued to look at what was going on, and I found out what happened. There are these activists in the Black community who are trying to redefine what Black fatherhood is. Now, this is what makes me angry. And this is what should make you angry. This is what should make the Black community angry. Okay?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And no, she never says who\u2019s trying to redefine what Black fatherhood is. It\u2019s just some shadowy \u201cthem.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere are studies out there that are trying to redefine Black fatherhood. They are essentially saying that the 70% number is a lie. Because Black fatherhood looks different than white fatherhood. That Black fatherhood actually does look like a Black man coming in and out of the home, and not being a consistent presence in the home. And that that version of fatherhood is equivalent to a white father being consistently in the home. Okay, I don\u2019t wanna cuss on here, but that is BS.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m not censoring there. She actually says \u201cI don\u2019t wanna cuss on here, but that is BS.\u201d She\u2019s willing to throw her son under the police car because of his skin color, she makes massive generalizations about other people\u2019s vices without trying to understand the sufferings they face, but she draws the line at saying the s-word. Wholesome.<\/p>\n \u201cBlack fathers do not get a pass just because it is culturally different. Just because Black fathers don\u2019t want to be in the home. And culturally, it has been acceptable for them to be with multiple women. First of all: Women, Black women, you deserve better than that. You deserve a man who is going to father a child with you and be with you in the home, with you and your child. Number one. Second of all, your children deserve to have a father who is going to consistently be with your child in the home. Period. \u201d\u00a0<\/em>A person nearly done with her doctorate should know better than to just randomly presume that something is part of another person\u2019s culture. And there\u2019s the future therapist wagging her finger at the camera, lecturing a hypothetical Black woman who might be watching for being a hussy.<\/p>\n \u201cBlack children do not deserve a lesser father simply because they are Black. White children do not deserve a more consistent presence in the home just because they are white. That is racism. But that\u2019s what\u2019s happening. That\u2019s what\u2019s happening in \u201cresearch\u201d institutions right now. They are trying to redefine Black fatherhood, because they don\u2019t like that 70% stat, so instead of setting the bar higher, for Black fathers, they\u2019re simply redefining fatherhood in the Black community. That\u2019s crap. If Black America wants to start writing and talking about something, this is it. This is it.\u201d<\/em> Still with the wagging finger. Still without any citation.<\/p>\n And she gives \u201cBlack America,\u201d who is surely waiting eagerly for her permission, the go-ahead to talk and write as long as it\u2019s about this single topic. Nothing else is permitted. A white woman in a t-shirt with a Vanilla Ice quote on it said so.<\/p>\n \u201cOur prisons are disproportionately filled with Black men because of this 70% statistic. Mark my words. It\u2019s not because of bad cops. It\u2019s because of bad dads. You want to jump on board with something? Jump on board with that.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Never once does this doctoral student consider that maybe, just maybe, Black families are lacking fathers BECAUSE their fathers are imprisoned. She just presumes that all Black men in prisons are messed up because of \u201cbad dads\u201d that weren\u2019t there for them and so forth.\u00a0 Bad black men create more bad black men; it\u2019s a closed cycle, according to Abby Johnson. Nobody\u2019s fault but theirs.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201c70% of these dads are walking out on their babies. I\u2019m not making an excuse for bad cops, there are bad cops out there. But not 70% of them. You wanna end what\u2019s happening in these Black communities? Don\u2019t try to redefine Black fatherhood. That\u2019s not what\u2019s gonna fix this. Redefining Black fatherhood will not fix what\u2019s happening right now. Defining it in the first place is what will fix this. Getting fathers back in the homes is what\u2019s going to fix this. Redefining the Black culture in general, empowering women to make the decision that they deserve better than to be with a man who\u2019s going to run around on her, and that that be culturally acceptable, that changes the culture. All of the horror and violence being committed in Black communities, all of this violence we\u2019ve seen the past month, all of the violence we ought to have seen for years and years. George Floyd suffocated by a police officer kneeling on his neck for almost nine minutes. Breonna Taylor shot to death in her bed. Philando Castile murdered for reaching for his wallet. Tamir Rice shot to death for playing with a toy. All of this actually because Black fathers are bad people, according to Abby\u2019s rant.<\/p>\n I wonder how far back she thinks this problem goes. I wonder if she thinks that the false accusation and electrocution of George Stinney, and the false accusation and horrific murder of Emmet Till were due to their bad fathers as well.<\/p>\n This woman is raising a biracial child, a child she named after the patron saint of hopeless causes no less, she confesses that his skin is \u201cintimidating maybe,\u201d and this is what she thinks of Black people.<\/p>\n I really don\u2019t know what more there is to say. I was told that Abby Johnson was not racist but merely mistaken when she publicly defended the white nationalist Kristen Hatten<\/a>. I was told we should blame the Black pro-life and civil rights leader Bishop Talbert Swan for not being polite enough to her, when Abby subjected him to a public racist attack<\/a> for no reason. I was pooh-poohed when she libeled my friend<\/a>, a Filipino monk.<\/p>\n Now she\u2019s claiming that her own brown-skinned son is \u201cintimidating maybe,\u201d not like her \u201cnerdy\u201d white ones, and that she\u2019d support a policeman who racially profiled him because he\u2019s more likely to commit a violent crime. And she\u2019s wagging her finger at Black women because of a statistic and a conspiracy for which she provides no evidence.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s go back to my friend Shannon\u2019s post for a moment, the one I told you about earlier<\/a>. Shannon is very blunt about how the history of Black women in America is deeply impacted by eugenics. Listen to what she has to say: \u201cAcross many groups, the focus is on abortion rights\u2013 which are important, I know. But what I have seen is black women mention that isn\u2019t important in our day-to-day reality, and be shouted down and called stupid, short sighted. Well, in American history, the right to abortion HASN\u2019T been a huge problem for black women, our problem has been the opposite, right to want, have, and mother our children.\u00a0Since the end of slavery, when Master no longer profited from a black woman\u2019s ability to be fruitful and multiply, forced sterilization of black women has been common. Of poor black women, petty criminals, single mothers. I\u2019ve seen a lot recently about a raped 11 year old being denied a abortion. It mirrors in my mind a black 11 year old, raped and pregnant who at her c-section was purposefully sterilized against her will and knowledge by a white doctor who not knowing the full story assumed she was promiscuous, unable to control herself, and sterilization was best for her and baby. She didn\u2019t even know until many years later when, as a happily married professional, she visited her doctor to find out why she and her husband couldn\u2019t conceive. This still to this day happens to women in prison, mostly black women in prison. I\u2019ve never seen a white feminist speak on forced sterilization of black women. In fact, when you bring it up, usually they\u2019ll say something about earth overpopulation and adoption being an option.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Black women are victims of coerced abortion and eugenic sterilization at a shocking rate to this day.<\/p>\n This is why it\u2019s so dangerous and such a huge scandal that someone so prominent in the pro-life movement is such an overt, nauseatingly unabashed racist.<\/p>\n Black lives matter. Unborn Black lives matter too. Female and male lives of all ages and the lives of people in prison matter. George Floyd\u2019s life, and the lives of all lynched Black people, matter. Little Jude, whose brown skin both charms and intimidates his mother, matters.<\/p>\n Abby Johnson is not the face the pro-life movement needs.<\/p>\n She needs to be completely shut down.<\/p>\n Image via Pixabay<\/em><\/p>\n Mary Pezzulo is the\u00a0author of\u00a0Meditations on the Way of the Cross<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n
\nNow, if he treats my brown son violently, more violently than my white son, that makes me angry. But if he\u2019s on more high alert with my brown son, than he is my white son, that doesn\u2019t make me angry. Because that\u2019s just smart. Because of statistics. Okay?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\nYeah, we\u2019ve got big issues right now in the Black community, but at the root of it, the root is not with bad cops. The root starts in the home. The root is at the family. If you wanna solve this madness that\u2019s going on right here, right now in our society, that is where you start, because what\u2019s happening right now with police, and criminals, and rioting, and violence \u2013 that is just a symptom of what has been going on for a long time in the homes and the communities of our Black families.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n