Right-Wing Co-Opts Civil Rights Movement History, p. 3 TheA PUBLICATION OF POLITICAL R PublicEyeESEARCH ASSOCIATES Summer 2010 • Volume XXV, No.2 Basta Dobbs! Last year, a coalition of Latino/a groups suc - cessfully fought to remove anti-immigrant pundit Lou Dobbs from CNN. Political Research Associates Executive DirectorTarso Luís Ramos spoke to Presente.org co-founder Roberto Lovato to find out how they did it. Tarso Luís Ramos: Tell me about your organization, Presente.org. Roberto Lovato: Presente.org, founded in MaY 2009, is the preeminent online Latino adVocacY organiZation. It’s kind of like a MoVeOn.org for Latinos: its goal is to build Latino poWer through online and offline organiZing. Presente started With a campaign to persuade GoVernor EdWard Rendell of PennsYlVania to take a stand against the Verdict in the case of Luis RamíreZ, an undocumented immigrant t t e Who Was killed in Shenandoah, PennsYl - k n u l Vania, and Whose assailants Were acquitted P k c a J bY an all-White jurY. We also ran a campaign / o t o to support the nomination of Sonia h P P SotomaYor to the Supreme Court—We A Students rally at a State Board of Education meeting, Austin, Texas, March 10, 2010 produced an “I Stand With SotomaYor” logo and poster that people could displaY at Work or in their neighborhoods and post on their Facebook pages—and a feW addi - From Schoolhouse to Statehouse tional, smaller campaigns, but reallY the Curriculum from a Christian Nationalist Worldview Basta Dobbs! continues on page 12 By Rachel Tabachnick TheTexas Curriculum IN THIS ISSUE Controversy objectiVe is present—a Christian land goV - 1 Editorial . 2 n MaY 21,TeXas School Board mem - erned bY Christian principles.” The board then Voted nine to fiVe, along partY lines, Ober CYnthia Dunbar opened the Is Abortion “Black Genocide”? . 3 board’s meeting With an inVocation: to adopt neW standards that Will be used to Book ReVieW . 23 “Whether We look to the first charter of Vir - teach the state’s 4.8 million students— ginia, or the charter of NeW England, or the resisting the pleas of educators, historians, Reports in ReVieW . 26 and eVen Rod Paige, a former U.S. secre - charter of Massachusetts BaY, or the Fun - EYes Right . 27 damental Orders of Connecticut, the same From Schoolhouse to Statehouse continues on page 17 THE PUBLIC EYE 1 SUMMER 2010 The Public Eye EDITORIAL ThePublicEye ’Ve been luckY in mY career. For most of mY adult life I’Ve Worked both for paY and as Publisher Tarso Luís Ramos Ia Volunteer at Vital if underfunded publications, Where I’Ve done meaningful jobs and Editor been surrounded bY smart, politicallY committed colleagues, manY of Whom haVe been AmY Hoffman quite eccentric, and manY of Whom haVe become life-long friends. I haVen’t gotten rich, Design/layout but I’Ve learned a lot. So, When I heard that the position of editor of The Public Eye Was Hird Graphic Design open, I could not resist applYing. Printing The Public Eye has been on mY regular reading list for Years. As a source of informa - Red Sun Press tion about the actiVities, ideas, and influence of the Right, it’s sometimes been VerY scarY— Editorial Board not bedtime readin g—but it is also a source of hope, a link With the manY like-minded Chip Berlet • Pam Chamberlain people courageouslY doing good, progressiVe Work, persisting in eVen the bleakest of times. Thomas Cincotta • Frederick Clarkson AmY Hoffman • Gillian Kane It’s an honor to join the knoWledgeable, eXperienced staff of PRA. PreserVing the legacY Surina Khan • Jean HardistY and high qualitY of The Public Eye , and the unique serVice it proVides bY reporting With Tarso Luís Ramos • HollY Sklar accuracY and sophistication on the Right, is a great responsibilitY —especiallY since The Public Ey e is in a transitional period.The potential of the Internet combined With finan - PRA Political Research Associates cial pressures are forcing us to eValuate Whether printing and mailing the magaZine still Founder and President Emerita makes sense; or Whether online publication Would be more timelY, energY-efficient, and Jean V. HardistY, Ph.D ineXpensiVe.The optimism manY of us felt at the election of the countrY’s first Black pres - ident has dissipated in the ensuing toXic political enVironment.TheTea PartY moVement Staff Tarso Luís Ramos, Executive Director has people on both the Left and the Right flummoXed. Anti-immigrant organiZing has Chip Berlet, Senior Analyst reViVed traditional American racism and Xenophobia. Pam Chamberlain, Senior Researcher But no matter What the daY’s headlines, and Whether it’s in this format or another, The Thomas Cincotta, Project Director Public Ey e Will continue to publish Vital, original research and analYsis of the Right: in AmY Hoffman, Editorial Director future issues, You can look for articles about NeW Orleans fiVe Years after Hurricanes Kat - CindY SaVage-King, Operations Manager Charles Ocitti, Finance Director rina and Rita; hoW the U.S. Christian Right promotes homophobia in Africa; strategies Jean Smith, Development Associate for the reproductiVe justice moVement since healthcare reform; green jobs and greenWashing; Maria PlananskY, Program Associate and manY others. We also plan more reporting on resistance moVement s—the interVieW Aramis Tirado, Data/Web Master in this issue With Roberto LoVato about the successful Basta Dobbs! campaign to remoVe Interns the anti-immigrant neWscaster Lou Dobbs from CNN is just one eXample of this focus. Aram Boghosian In the face of todaY’s challenges, it’s as important as eVer for progressiVes to understand James Huettig Kate Malone the opposition; but We must also celebrate and learn from our Victories. HilarY McCaunagheY Ilana Rothkopf – Amy Hoffman Board of Directors Janet Jakobsen Surina Khan Pardis MahdaVi Read the best analysis of the Christian Right on SupriYa Pillai Talk2Action.org! Emelia Rallapalli MarcY Westerling Talk2Action is a group blog led by Public Eye writer and The Public Eye is published bY Political Research Associates, 1310 BroadWaY, Suite 201, editorial board member Frederick Clarkson. Read weekly SomerVille, Massachusetts 02144-1837. 617.666.5300 faX: 617.666.6622 contributions from Fred, Political Research Associates PRA is a non-profit, taX-eXempt organiZation. All donations are taX-deductible to the eXtent permitted researcher Chip Berlet, and the rest of the best thinkers bY laW. © Political Research Associates, 2010. about the Christian Right. Website: WWW.publiceYe.org All rights reserVed. ISSN 0275-9322 Visit Talk2Action.org. ISSUE 67 THE PUBLIC EYE 2 SUMMER 2010 The Public Eye Is Abortion “Black Genocide”? By Kathryn Joyce his FebruarY, a highlY proVocatiVe Tseries of 65 billboards Went up around t s e Atlanta, Which featured an African Amer - t a l / s ican infant and the proclamation, “Black d e e f = f Children Are an Endangered Species.”The e r ? 8 signs directed VieWers to a Website, 4 1 7 2 4 TooManYAborted.com, created bY the - C Radiance Foundation—a Vague anti- O D / s c abortion and “personal transformation” o d / m nonprofit founded bY biracial adVertising o c . n n eXecutiVe RYan Bomberger—With funding c . t 1 r o from Georgia Right to Life. p e r i / / At the unVeiling of the billboards, Geor - : p t t gia Right to Life MinoritY Outreach Direc - h tor Catherine DaVis eXplained their One of the Georgia “Black Children Are an Endangered Species” billboards, “corrected” by activists. justification: “Planned Parenthood’s Negro Project,” she said, “is succeeding.” 2 She Was referring to a 1939 project begun bY moVement holds that Black and BroWn and HB1155) into the state’s legislature. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret populations are being targeted bY abortion The bill, Which the Atlanta Journal- Sanger that has inspired decades of claims proViders Who deliberatelY place clinics in Constitution reports 4 Was crafted to pose an that familY planning is a racist plan to inner-citY, loW-income neighborhoods. immediate challenge to Roe v.Wade before Wipe out populations of color. It’s an old the composition of the Supreme Court argument, With roots in the Black PoWer changes, Would criminaliZe race- and seX- and Black Nationalist moVements. But in selectiVe abortions and has been fast- recent Years it has become the proVince of Anti-abortion groups tracked through Georgia’s legislature.The anti-abortion groups Who are selectiVelY co- Senate passed it on March 26, and although opting ciVil rights rhetoric to present abor - are selectively co-opting the original House bill floundered in the tion and eVen contraception as eugenicist House special judiciarY committee, SB529 plots disguised as VoluntarY reproductiVe civil rights rhetoric to quicklY replaced it and is currentlY before choices, Which are leading to a sloW “Black the House JudiciarY Committee. genocide.” present abortion and The bill, Which rests on the assertion that Recent studies bY the Guttmacher Insti - manY Women are coerced into abortions as tute found that abortion rates are indeed even contraception as a result of race or gender biases, goes on to 3 higher among Women of color. African establish “the offense of criminal solicita - Americans, in particular, are thirteen per - eugenicist plots. tion of abortion” and to require doctors to cent of the population but account for 37 proVe patients haVe not been pressured percent of all abortions. HoWeVer, into abortion. On April 15, Georgia Right Guttmacher determined, this is due to For the past seVeral Years Black HistorY to Life launched a series of robocalls that their greater incidence of unWanted preg - Month has brought an onslaught of anti- featured 2008 presidential candidate and nancies, resulting from economic inequal - abortion actiVities related to this “Black FoX talk shoW host Mike Huckabee, stump - itY and poor access to contraception and genocide” strategY.This Year Was no eXcep - ing for the bill on the grounds of its “poW - education.