Nancy Brinker Leadership Change Probably Won't Do Much To Improve Komen's Reputation [Disgrace For The Cure]

Fallout continues from the Susan B. Komen Foundation for the Cure's major PR fuckup six months ago, when it was announced that the organization would be cutting funds for breast cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood. The decision, rescinded within three days after the public outcry, was criticized for its possible right-wing political influence (and, in fact, led to the almost-immediate February resignation of former Komen VP and policymaker Karen Handel, a 2010 Georgia GOP candidate who had campaigned against Planned Parenthood during her run and was supposedly the driving force behind the decision).

They've been scrambling to regain the trust of individual donors, whose contribution fell from 5% to 30% nationwide, and are now defending the most recent development in Komen's recovery: Nancy Brinker's resignation from her post as CEO of Komen (she'll be heading up a more fundraising-focused role), as well as the departure of president Liz Thompson and two board members. Despite the clamoring from critics that Brinker step down, a spokeswoman says that the decision was unrelated to the Planned Parenthood snafu and Thompson had informed Komen officials that she wanted to leave in April but would stay on to do damage control.

However, breast cancer activists and former Komen employees have spoken out about the bureaucratic motives behind the decision to shift Brinker to "revenue creation" and leave the hiring of a new CEO in her hands. The Planned Parenthood incident was hardly the first that raised questions of Komen's level of commitment to the cause, just the loudest. Under Brinker's reign, the organization was accused of "pink marketing," wanton ribbon-branding by the organization without the efforts to back it up. One of the trickledown effects of this is less money donated to other valuable breast cancer organizations, according to Brenda Coffee, a breast cancer survivor and filmmaker at Breastcancersisterhood.org. Coffee further speculates that Brinker will still be "pulling the strings" from her new position.

And Eve Ellis, a Komen New York board member from 2004 to 2010, says:

That makes me think this is a public relations stunt. [Brinker] will be in a position to fire and hire and politicize women's health care. I understand that she will no longer be chief executive officer. But she will be the decision maker on who the C.E.O. is. This is problematic.

There's no word yet on who Brinker will be appointing, but Lisa Wolter, a Komen executive director in California who counts herself among the affiliate directors who voiced their concerned about the Planned Parenthood decision, seems determined to find the silver lining in all this. It sounds eerily familiar to Brinker's cheerful, oblivious press releases: "In a lot of ways, this whole spotlight on what we do has motivated people who care about breast health."

Um. OTAY.

'Komen's Leadership Changes Are Met With Skepticism' [The New York Times]

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Black Couple Forced to Change Wedding Venue Thanks to Some Racist Churchgoers [Racism]

After setting a date and printing invitations for their July 21 wedding at the predominately white First Baptist Church in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, Charles and Te'Andrea Wilson from nearby Jackson had what was probably a pretty awkward conversation with Pastor Stan Weatherford, who told the couple that some members of the congregation objected to their getting married in the church. In an effort to ensure that the Wilsons' wedding day wasn't ruined by a few racist ruiners, Weatherford performed the ceremony at another church.

"I didn't want to have a controversy within the church," Weatherford told local WLBT, "and I didn't want a controversy to affect the wedding of Charles and Te'Andrea. I wanted to make sure their wedding day was a special day." According to the Clarion-Ledger, the Wilsons would have been the first black couple to be married in the First Baptist Church's 150-year history, which would have been a really cool thing to boast about to grandkids, but who needs that kind of controversy on an already super-stressful day?

Churchgoer Casey Kitchens was pretty embarrassed by the fact that some members of the congregation don't realize that it's now 2012 and this whole segregation thing is getting to be, quite frankly, a little tacky. "This is a small, small group of people who made a terrible decision," said Kitchens. "I'm just ashamed right now that my church would do that. I can't fathom why. How unfair. How unjust. It's just wrong."

For his part, Charles Wilson thinks someone ought to have stood up to the few recalcitrant bigots at the First Baptist Church, and though he understands that Weatherford was caught in a tough situation, he thinks that the pastor missed a good opportunity to, you know, do whatever it is pastors do when people aren't behaving the way their religion explicitly tells them to behave.

Predominately white baptist church in Mississippi closes door to black couple's wedding [Clarion-Ledger]

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