Monday, October 18, 2010

Is Planned Parenthood Racist?

I have supported Planned Parenthood for years and have yet to encounter a racist.  I'm sure there are some in their ranks, just as there are in any large organization, but nothing in their literature, philosophy, or life-saving work has ever struck me as racist in fact or intent. 
Planned Parenthood does fantastic work keeping government bureaucrats and religious extremists from harming our mothers, sisters, and daughters.  It would take an awful lot of "gotcha" statements or secretly recorded phone calls to offset that good. 
I know Planned Parenthood has never launched a racist push poll campaign in South Carolina to torpedo a front-running candidate, as George W. Bush's campaign did in 2000.
I know they have never used the "n" word repeatedly and in a degrading manner to a caller as a conservative anti-choice radio host recently did, leading to her firing (but not before she could spit "don't NAACP me!").  
I know they never spoke wistfully of all those problems over all those years that we could have avoided had a certain segregationist platform prevailed as Trent Lott  remarked a few years ago at Thurmond's birthday party. 
I know they never ran a major campaign using the face of an African American male to scare white voters, as Bush's father did with Willy Horton. 
I know they never talked about nudge-nudge-wink-wink welfare queens as Ronald catsup-is-a-vegetable Reagan did.
I know they never systematically targeted programs that try to help or are staffed by African Americans, such as Acorn, the NAACP, or a poor Department of Agriculture employee.   
I know they never dropped defeatist hints about why universal healthcare could never work in the United States because we have - you know - different demographics.  
I know they have never accused our first African American president of being a racist harboring a "deep hatred of white people" as Tea Party darling Glenn Beck recently charged.  
If racism were a reason for abandoning an organization and everything it stood for, then surely no one would support the Republican Party or its even more severely bleached offshoot the Tea Party, would they?  
Forget for a moment about all these racist words; what about actions?  You know, by their fruits you shall know them?   How is giving massive tax cuts to the extremely wealthy 1% of this country who are disproportionately white going to help people of color who are overrepresented among the ranks of the poor?   More than a quarter of all blacks and a similar percentage of Hispanics are poor; cutting off or defunding services to help the poor (getting government off "our" backs as Palin would call it) disproportionately hurts them as does trying to abort universal healthcare before it is even viable.   If someone can name as many Republican-initiated programs that have helped minorities as I can name books Sarah Palin tried to ban from the Wasilla, Alaska, library, then I will buy them a coffee. 
One may oppose giving women access to the full range of legal, scientifically validated family planning services for religious reasons, but it is unfair to characterize that access as racist.  I do not understand how performing pap smears and cervical cancer screening in poor black neighborhoods is racist, but do understand how well-to-do white evangelicals trying to cut off such services for religious reasons is. 
Fox News has been targeting Planned Parenthood almost as vigorously as they have the NAACP.  Bill O'Reilly has already incited the murder of one healthcare provider he repeatedly smeared on his show; I am frankly not interested in anything he has to say about an organization he wants so much to silence. 
One thing is hopeful about the right wing in this country finally deciding it is shocked, shocked to discover racism in an organization it viscerally dislikes.  Now if they could just apply that level of critical inquiry to themselves.  Who know?  Our discourse as a country would get a lot more civilized and we might actually be able to get things done. 

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