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Cause? Meet Effect: Dr. King's Niece Needs a Brain to go Along With that Doctorate

Here we have a perfect example of what religion, or anyone with a hard-core, reality-be-damned agenda, can do to the discourse. Or maybe the problem here is simple nepotism. Dr. King's niece blames the undeniably high rates of abortion among blacks for their hopelessness. No, not the other way around, that the hopelessness causes a severe, cultural case of the 'fuck its', characterized by, among other disfunctions, unprotected sex and unplanned pregnancy. The abortions, and more importantly, the unprotected sex (i.e. "fuck my future. I ain't got one") just exascerbate all the other problems, but not if you're a King and untouchable black royalty. Check this logic out:

A recent Pew Research poll reported high levels of 'hopelessness' in African-American communities across the United States, a characteristic pro-life activists are linking to high abortion rates among black women.

"Children are the future. When you destroy your children, you destroy hope," Dr. Alveda King, pastoral associate of Priests for Life and the niece of the late civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said in a statement.

"The incredibly high number of abortions performed on black women in this country has to take a toll not just on the women involved, but also on their families, friends, and communities," King said. "If African-Americans feel that life will not get better, I have to believe that abortion is feeding into that hopelessness."

King was referring to a study released Nov. 13 by the Pew Research Center, which reported that only 44 percent of blacks say they think life will be better for African-Americans in the future. One in five said they think life is better for blacks now than it was in 2002.

"I know from personal experience that abortion causes depression, regret, and despair," King said. "If we love and welcome our children, optimism for the future can only increase."

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health think tank named in honor of one of the former presidents of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, black women see higher rates of unintended pregnancy than the general population.

You can read the whole piece to relearn what you already know — sky high rates of back abortion; pro-choice as I fervently am, I, too, think that a needless tragedy. But it's a symptom, not the cause. There are many, but one major cause is an anti-intellectual, head in the sand, demonizing black religiosity. Another would be unqualified blacks assigned leadership roles based on pedigree. King should be asking why blacks are having loveless, possibly exploitative, unprotected sex at rates so much higher than other groups. That's where the hopelessness comes in, the grasping at a moment's fleeting, unprotected pleasure even while AIDS, herpes and all the other STDs ravage the black community. But that doesn't fit on a bumper sticker, does it?

There's a lot of stupidity out there these days, but nonsense like this makes me want to slap somebody. Condemnation and holier-than-thou prancing from her exalted position, while pretending to just ooze with sympathy, makes a mockery of life on the ground for dispossessed blacks. That last name may fool some, Rev. King. But not all. Go sell your mediocrity someplace else and leave the black poor alone.

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Posted by Debra Dickerson on 11/20/07 at 3:34 PM | E-mail | Print | Digg | de.licio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Yahoo! MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Netscape | Google |

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