ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Essence magazine claims to have a “motivating message” for black women, and to “speak directly to a black woman’s spirit, her heart and her unique concerns.”
“Every month black women rely on Essence for editorial content designed to help them move their lives forward personally, professionally, intellectually and spiritually.”
The magazine must think that black women will be moved forward spiritually by Planned Parenthood, because the largest abortion provider in the United States, one that kills 300,000 American babies annually, is sponsoring the 2012 Essence Music Festival in New Orleans.
According to Planned Parenthood Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens, one of organization’s goals in sponsoring this event is “to educate festival attendees about health disparities in the African-American community.” I’m guessing one of those disparities isn’t the shocking, shocking, shocking abortion rate.
According to the Guttmacher Institute — spun off from Planned Parenthood — African-Americans, roughly 13 percent of the population, have 30 percent of all abortions in the United States, the highest rate of any racial group. Statistics from 2010 show that in New York City, blacks, who make up roughly one-quarter of the population, get 45 percent of the abortions.
No, that disparity doesn’t bother anyone at Planned Parenthood. The organization probably sees it as a good thing. Not only is it more business and more money for the organization, but to it, abortion is not only healthy, but empowering. If it is right, then blacks have a higher empowerment rate than whites, the highest among any group.
Dr. Vanessa Cullins, vice president of Planned Parenthood, says that “African-Americans have higher rates of many preventable diseases, including cancers, diabetes, heart disease and sexually transmitted infections.”
Pregnancy is not a disease, despite black U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, Wisconsin Democrat, calling it “a danger to women’s health and safety of their families.” Neither is a baby a “punishment,” as our black president of the United States called it, in reference to the idea of killing his own grandchild.
Let’s not forget who founded Planned Parenthood: Margaret Sanger, a thoroughgoing racist who openly thought that whites were genetically superior to blacks. As Herman Cain and others such as Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King Jr., have pointed out, Planned Parenthood centers are most often located in urban areas, especially in black neighborhoods. They know who their top customers are.
Martin Luther King once said, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.” What could more apply to this than abortion?
Planned Parenthood staff and volunteers have been handing out shirts, water bottles and tote bags all weekend. In other words, they’ve been propagandizing. They want their message and their brand name to spread even further among the black community.
Even a man of God such as the Rev. Al Sharpton is said to have stopped by the Planned Parenthood booth at the event. The prophet Isaiah says, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” To call abortion anything at all positive is to do precisely this, to call good what God calls evil and call evil what God calls good. The church must be united against abortion, and therefore against the servants of Moloch at Planned Parenthood.
Sanger once said, “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” Sanger exploited black religious leaders to sell murder to their congregations, to persuade people that it is OK to sacrifice the future to the convenience of the present.
I do want the word to get out that that is exactly what Sanger wanted, and, that, consciously or not, the black community is eliminating its own future by turning a blind eye to abortion and the breakdown of the family.
I encourage all black women who respect life, and all black women of faith, to boycott Essence until they live up to their own words and give us a real motivating message.
• Armstrong Williams, author of the 2010 book, “Reawakening Virtues,” is on Sirius Power 128, 7-8 p.m. and 4-5 a.m., Monday through Friday. Become a fan on Facebook- www.facebook.com/arightside, and follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/arightside. Read his content on RightSideWire.com.
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