WND Promotes Anti-Abortion Film for Black History Month
Taking a break from its usual offerings of , , and , Joseph Farahâs online publication WorldNetDaily (WND) is promoting a new film, âGates of Hell,â a propaganda piece supporting the Christian right notion that abortion is a vicious plot to destroy black America.
âGates of Hellâ is a feature-length pseudo-documentary set in a dystopian near future in which a group of âblack power extremistsâ set out to terrorize and murder abortion providers. Its producer, frequent WND contributor Jason âMolotovâ Mitchell, is a former wedding videographer who in 2008 with âVideo Portrait of Barack Hussein Obama,â an online offering that accused then-candidate Obama of being a racist, Marxist and anti-Semite âdiscipledâ in âquasi-Christianity,â and asked â[W]hen we are at war with Islam can Americans elect a man with not one, not two, but three Islamic names?â
If WNDâs staggeringly offensive video teaser is any indication of its contents, âGates of Hellâ will be equally inflammatory. According to its website, the film âis a documentary from the year 2016 that chronicles the crimes of a band of domestic terrorists known as the Zulu 9. Finnish filmmaker Ani Juva travels to the United States to better understand the mysterious black power assassins, the unexpected eugenics conspiracy theory that drove them to commit extreme acts of violence and how Americaâs political landscape was transformed overnight. Blending real history and real public figures with a fictitious (yet plausible) future, it is safe to say that you have never seen a film like âGates of Hell.ââ
In keeping with Mitchellâs self-proclaimed expertise in âreaching the âunder-40â demographic,â the WND teaser is replete with special effects borrowed  from MTV and the âBlair Witch Project.â It begins with a close-up of Mitchell who, clad in a beanie and black jacket and manipulated using computer effects to look like a comic book image of himself, screams âThe Zulus are coming!â â a line that some (particularly the over-40 crowd) are more likely to associate with the 1964 feature film âZulu,â widely criticized for its racist portrayal of blacks. Next, it cuts to documentary-style footage of a black man who traipses through the woods with a âdocumentarianâ and then shoots an âabortionistâ dead who is leaving the home of his mistress.
After that, we return to the computer-enhanced Mitchell, who tells us more about his latest work: âIf you like debating politics, you will love it. If you're pro-life, you'll be mesmerized. If you're pro-choice, you just might crap your pants. If you're black, this is your movie. If youâre not black, buy the film anyway and watch it with your black friends â because first and foremost, Gates of Hell is a black film with a largely black cast, and focuses primarily on black issues.â
Mitchellâs claim that this film is about âblack issuesâ is based on the Christian right meme that abortion is actually a genocidal tactic perpetrated by racist pseudo-liberals against black America. Like most conspiracy theories, it is based on a kernel of evidence: in this case, the fact that Margaret Sanger, who founded Planned Parenthood in 1916, was in favor of eugenics and can be linked to racist organizations. (Planned Parenthood today has entirely divorced itself from this aspect of its history.)
Former presidential candidate Herman Cain did anti-abortion activists a favor by introducing this claim into the mainstream, asserting last fall that abortion clinics are deliberately built in black communities as part of a âplanned genocideâ against black Americans. A 2011 by the , an organization dedicated to sexual and reproductive health, firmly refutes this claim, noting that fewer than one in 10 abortion clinics are located in predominantly black neighborhoods. The fact that black women have higher abortion rates than white women, the institute in 2009, is âdirectly linked to their higher rates of unintended pregnancy, which in turn reflect pervasive health disparities more generally.â
But such facts obviously donât bother Mitchell, who, in keeping with his effort to pretend his film is about âblack issues,â says in the WND teaser that the February release date is timed âto commemorate black history month.â (This isnât the first time Mitchell has invoked civil rights to make a point: In a 2009 video supporting a proposed Ugandan bill that would have made homosexuality punishable by death, he Martin Luther King Jr.)
The WND teaser features praise from some major players on the Christian right, including Matt Barber of the ultraconservative, anti-gay and Troy Newman of Operation Rescue, an anti-abortion group known for descending en masse on small womenâs health clinics to harass workers and women exercising their right to reproductive freedom. It is also endorsed by a supposed former Black Panther who goes by the nickname âTrimelda.â
Though he isnât listed as a fan of Mitchellâs film, another anti-abortion activist to embrace the âblack genocideâ concept is , a longtime anti-black racist with a penchant for among his list of âCurrent News Stories for Christiansâ articles about violent crimes committed by blacks. Spitz, who is best known for his revolting Army of God website, celebrates as âheroes of the faithâ violent criminals who, saying they were called to their work directly by God, have killed abortion providers, their bodyguards, and clinic staffers. As it happens â and contrary to the fantasy of Mitchell & co. â all of these celebrated murderers have been white.