Black History Month

Black History Month?  I never thought that almost 50 years after the signing of the civil rights act that the USA would still need this.   When I was young, in my school books I read some things about Africans that are difficult for me to believe now.  Some examples are "Indians were too civilized to become slaves" and "Africans were better off because the English civilized by providing them Christianity". 

It has been reported that last year members of the Tennessee Tea Party had a press conference and stated "an awful lot of made-up criticism about, for instance, the founders intruding on the Indians or having slaves or being hypocrites in one way or another."  Many people are claiming this was last year but in early January 2012 the Tennessee Tea Party announced they were suspending actions to "redirect focus on faith based initiatives and education."  They also said "the current state of affairs in the country calls for a return back to the foundation of faith and morality in which this country was founded."

We as a nation need to tell the true history.  The Bible tells the "sinful" and "saintly" acts and does not try to cover wrongs.  Sorry Tennessee Tea Party our founding fathers were hypocrites, they intruded on the Native Americans and we cannot try to justify those acts.  They were also great men and did “try” to build this country on Judeo-Christian values; but they were just men with flaws just like us.  We will continue to grow if we acknowledge and report our entire history and then there will not be a need for Black history, Women's history or any other history month.

Komen and Planned Parenthood

It was announced that the Susan Komen foundation will discontinue funding for Planned Parenthood breast cancer screening.  This has become a PR nightmare with many donors threatening to pull their funding from the Komen foundation.  Komen should have anticipated the backlash associated with this decision.  They should have developed other alternatives that will allow Planned Parenthood’s clients access to these services, but do not add to the support of Planned Parenthood facilities.

For many lower income people Planned Parenthood is the most accessible source for these services.  My mother had breast cancer. I loved participating in Komen sponsored events like “Race for a Cure”.   I felt that we were doing something to help combat this disease. 

As Christians we must ensure that our efforts to combat abortion do not give the misperception that we do not care about the “least of these”.  What I hope will not happen is that Komen’s principled stance will hurt funding   Komen needs to quickly get to Planned Parenthood and come up with some plan that they can both support and diffuses this PR nightmare.