No Time to Go Backwards

By now, everyone knows that seven states have passed laws that compromise the ability of some people to vote; the feeling is that the laws unfairly impact minority voters.

Seven states, including Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin and Maine, have passed laws that prevent early voting, and at least 15 states have passed laws that require voters to have a photo ID. States requiring photo identification include Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, Floria, Wisconsin, Rhode Island,Mississippi and Kansas.(The states with new voter ID laws include Kansas, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Wisconsin.)

Civil rights organizations are concerned that these new laws, which have been adopted in so-called “battleground” states, will unfairly impact minority voters. It is estimated that about 5 million voters will be negatively impacted by the new laws. A study by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, states that about 18 percent of seniors and 35 percent of African Americans do not have the proper photo identification.

This, after so much blood was shed by black and white people, during the 60s, to give African Americans the right to vote.

In October of 2011, a 96-year-old Tennessee woman, having learned of the new photo ID requirement of her state, was denied a photo ID because, in spite of having an envelope full of documents which affirmed her identification, including her birth certificate, she didn’t have her marriage license.

That was a problem, said the clerk, because the name on her birth certificate and on her old voter registration card was different from the name she currently has.

That sounds like something from the days of poll taxes, where clerks denied African Americans the right to vote for all sorts of contrived and dastardly reasons.

GOP presidential candidates, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich say the new laws are necessary to prevent voter fraud.

That is GOP-speak for “we-didn’t-like-the-huge-voter-turn-out-in-2008-that-helped-put-Barack-Obama-in-the-White-House.

The United States Justice Department is looking into these laws, but the slowness of “the system” is a tad worrisome. It is January, sure, but before we know it, we will have gotten through what is sure to be a lurid election campaign season and November will be upon us.

I am sure there are nice, compact “directions” on what people should do in order to make sure they have the correct identification come November, but folks who make laws know how people work. They know that a great number of people will either remain uninformed about the new laws, or will wait until it’s too late to get the needed photo identification, and then, come voting day, tear-tear…they will not be able to vote.

The Justice Department has locked horns with South Carolina over their new law. Some Republicans say that its “intrusion” into South Carolina’s business is just another example of “big government,” and is proof of why President Obama, dubbed by some as “the most liberal president in United States history” needs to be out of the White House.

But, no. I would have to disagree. In its history, the United States government has been either slow or absent in matters pertaining to protecting or ensuring the rights of African Americans far too often. A government that said nothing about what’s going on to compromise the right to vote for African Americans and others would be a government that would not be worthy of respect.

This is not the time to go backwards.

A candid observation…

Disrespect Shown President and his Wife is Regrettable

Is it just me or does it appear that this family, specifically this First Lady, has been “joked” about more than any other First Lady, and in the most degrading way?

The most recent affront to the First Lady of this country came just last week, when the Kansas House Speaker, Republican Mike O’Neal, emailed a cartoon which referred to Mrs. Obama as “Mrs. Yomama.” It compared the First Lady to the Grinch, a Dr. Seuss character, because in the photo, Mrs. Obama’s hair was windblown.

The text of the cartoon read, “I’m sure you’ll join me in wishing Mrs. YoMama a wonderful, long, Hawaii Christmas vacation – at our expense, of course.”

O’Neal later apologized, but it rang hollow. The disrespect shown to this President and his family, much with racist undertones, has been despicable. This event came just a couple of weeks after a Wisconsin Republican, Jim Sensenbrenner, commented on the size of Mrs. Obama’s behind, saying that she was a hypocrite for waging a war against obesity.

What the comments show, some of which the originators say are supposed to be “jokes,” is the underlying racism which leads to this horribly disrespectful attitude toward our president and his family. I am not sure how Mrs. Laura Bush or Mrs. Barbara Bush were joked about or commented upon when their husbands were in office. I don’t remember any jokes about them, but the larger fact is, there seemed to be sacred, protective veil around them which kept them insulated against such indignity. No matter their foils, imperfections or foibles, they were off limits.

Not so with Michelle Obama. From the beginning both she and the President have been the focus of some of the most demeaning, stereotypical images that seem to come from a racist American core that is full of virulence, hatred, fear, and resentment. These references and images also speak to an overlying arrogance that suggests that it is OK to disrespect this President and First Lady; after all, they are just (the “n”) word.

Is this blatant disrespect of President and Mrs. Obama as alive and as common as it is because they are African American? One cannot help but think so. Why didn’t anyone spew “jokes” about the physical characteristics of either of the Bush wives? Why didn’t we hear legislators joke about Nancy Reagan (although, to be fair, they did talk about Nancy Reagan’s presence in the White House; still, they were not disrespectful!), or about Betty Ford?

Racism, the American kind, is all over the world, because Americans have spread it. People in Europe have been “taught,” if you will, or “coached” in how to think about African Americans from white Americans themselves. It is galling to think that legislators are not stopping to think how their disrespect of the most powerful man in the world and his family is affecting the way people all over the world will think of them and refer to them as well.

To those who write and say such disparaging things, calling those statements “jokes,” understand something: there is nothing funny about what you are doing and saying. You are feeding the shame of America, which is its racism.

Our president and his family deserve the same respect that has been afforded all other presidents. Anything less than that is unacceptable, and legislators who engage in helping to spread or feed racist attitudes and feelings are agents of infection in a country where the infection has been rampant for far too long.

A candid observation…

Paul, Santorum Need Come to Jesus Meeting

I keep thinking that somebody ought to tell Mr. Paul and Mr. Santorum that racism is…not presidential.

Both gentlemen fared well in the Iowa caucuses, and both seem to have a hunger for the nation’s highest office.

But Mr. Paul and Mr. Santorum, can we talk?

Just a couple of days ago, Rick Santorum said that he “didn’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money.” He was speaking to a group of white people, and I guess…well, I guess he was comfortable and he knew what they’d want to hear.

In the name of God, some white folks just think black folks ought to just …shape up, right?

He later on said that he didn’t recall making the statement, but that’s only after he said, in an earlier statement, that he had probably been thinking about what he saw in the movie “Waiting for Superman,” which focuses on black kids trying to get into charter schools…

Santorum said to Sean Hannity on the latter’s television program that, well, he doesn’t make racial distinctions, and, by golly, he has some black friends! Yep, sure does. Michael Steele and J.C. Watts, both black, are his friends.

Never mind that neither of those gentlemen seem to relate to the real plight of many African Americans.

And then there’s Mr. Paul, who, back in the day, had newsletters written under his name. Now, he says he didn’t read any of “that stuff,” but the fact is that “that stuff” appeared in these newsletters and he did not disavow any of it.

What didn’t he disavow, you ask? Well, for one, his statement, “If you’ve ever been robbed by a teen-aged male, you know how fleet-footed they can be.” (italics mine) In that same newsletter, published in 1992, he said that “we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males (in Washington D.C.) are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.” He was the only member of Congress that opposed giving a Medal of Honor to Rosa Parks and opposed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Mr. Paul said he is not a racist; in a 2008 CNN interview, he said that he’s the one who protects blacks in the inner city. He says that the statements show the tendency of the media to take things out of context.

That’s fair. The media does have a tendency to take things out of context.

He said in the 2008 interview that he repudiates all of the statements in the newsletters, and that is good. He said he has never read the stuff written under his name.

He said that the real issue is the drug laws that so unfairly impact black people, and he’s right on that.

But it’s the little things, the little tongue-in-cheek things that are said that help keep racial tensions alive, and keep marginalized people feeling, well, marginalized. It is a myth that most of the people on welfare are African American; though proportionately, the poverty rate for African Americans is higher than that for whites, statistics show that more white than black people are on welfare.

One of these presidential politicians ought to say that, don’t you think?

I know it is the job of a politician to get elected, and politicians will say anything to get elected. Ironically, I think of the words of the Apostle Paul, who said in 1 Cor. 9: “Though I am free, and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.” (9:19) Later he says, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way to get the prize.” (9:24) I chuckled as I read that entire passage of scripture and wondered if Paul, in addition to fiercely loving Jesus the Christ was not also a politician?

It seems to me, though, that a good politician ought to have the adjectives “honest” and “sensitive” somewhere in his or her resume. Mr. Santorum and Mr. Paul need to “fess up” to saying, or allowing to be said in their names, some pretty racist stuff. It happens. This is America, and it is no secret that many to most white people have grown up with disparaging views and opinions about black people. How great it would be to hear a white politician just “own up” and admit they’d said some things that reflected how they grew up and were taught?

When we admit our goofs, we can begin to fix them.

And fixing their apparently racist ways of looking at black people is a must, in my view, for anyone who is striving to get to the White House. The American government has not been a friend to black (or brown) people, or to women or other oppressed groups. The American government turned its head to the injustices suffered by black people and would not, did not, protect its black citizens.

The country has suffered as a result of that.

Mr. Paul and Mr. Santorum would do themselves and their campaigns a favor if they would just have a “come to Jesus” meeting with Jesus, and ask Jesus to change their thoughts and beliefs when it comes to black people, black life and black culture.

Because the country is not a lily-white place, gentlemen, and the country cannot be as great as it has the potential for, if all of its people are not treated having been created equal.

A candid observation.

RuneScape Wiki: The Ancient Curses are a set of prayers obtained as a reward after completing The Temple at Senntisten. →

Gingrich a Grinch

I have held off saying anything for as long as I could. I have been …meditating …on how to talk about …Newt.

You know, as in Gingrich. The now-leading GOP presidential candidate hopeful.

I nearly ran off the road when I heard his comments on the radio – something to the effect that poor kids have no work ethic because they don’t see anyone who works, and that they should become janitors in their schools, or maybe junior janitors.

My first thought was, “How arrogant! Has he been in a poor neighborhood, where parents often work 2-3 jobs, usually minimum wage with no benefits – and still can’t make ends meet? Has he been in poor neighborhoods dominated by slum landlords who charge exorbitant rent for habitats that are one step removed from shanties? Has he been in neighborhoods where there is no local supermarket and where many people cannot afford cars, so children are forced to eat horrible food gotten from the local corner store …which also charges too much?

I would bet not.

But then, I thought along a different line. If the children in poor neighborhoods became the janitors, where would the current janitors work – people who are trying to make a living and provide for their families?

Did he think of that? Would he even think to think of that?

The fact is, Gingrich, like so many white and privileged people, relies on stereotypes and generalizations. He, and others like him, speak on what they assume to be true. The “poor people” of whom he speaks (he and people like Limbaugh, Hannity, Bachmann, Coulter and others) are not even worthy of a personal investigation of why they are where they are, and how difficult it has been to get out and move up in a society which spurns them.

The fact is, many kids seldom see their parents because those parents do have a work ethic and they work their fingers to the bones, at the expense of their families. How many poor kids have come up saying that their parents worked two and three jobs, that their mothers were so tired after working that they would sit at the kitchen table and fall asleep? No, everyone doesn’t have the same work ethic, but some of them do not because they have given up. They have tried and tried to get good employment, to no avail and have stopped trying.

All kinds of people these days, who would not call themselves “poor,” or wouldn’t have called themselves “poor” before now, know what it feels like to try to work and get rejected, over and over. After a while, people stop trying.

Gingrich might be an intellectual, but he’s an insensitive and calloused and prejudiced intellectual who has no business wanting to be president of a country where there are more and more people who do not have work. A president is supposed to care for everyone, including “the least of these.” Donald Trump defended Gingrich’s statements, and said Barack Obama had not done anything for “people in the ghetto.”

Oh, how the cries of “socialist” would have been even louder had the president put his focus there!

Michelle Bachmann says that “the American people” are gravitating to the views of Hannity, Limbaugh, and people who, I suppose, think like Gingrich. Clearly, “the American people” of whom she speaks are white, privileged Americans who think the poor – primarily black and brown people – are not worthy of time or respect.

Gingrich was out of line. His arrogance is repugnant …and surely, “the American people” would not want such a divisive character to lead this country, the so-called, “land of the free and home of the brave,” poor people included.

A candid observation …

“Our Blacks?”

Ann Coulter has the ability to get underneath my skin. I admit it.

But she outdid herself this week as she talked about black Conservatives. She was defending Herman Cain, praising him and other blacks who are Conservatives, saying that “our” blacks, meaning black Conservatives, are better than “their” blacks, of course alluding to Liberals.

It sounded horribly crude, racist, ignorant, and vintage Coulter.

“We,” black people, are not owned by any group. The era of us being owned is over, and has been, since the 19th century. We are no longer pieces of property, to be bought, sold or discarded at will. Coulter’s language seems to be ignorant of this reality.

That more African-Americans have been adherents to the Democratic Party since the days of FDR does not mean we are brainwashed, either. African-Americans, as well as working, blue-collar men and women of all races, have tended to gravitate toward the party which has successfully advocated, or seem to have advocated, on their behalf.

The Republicans, again since the days of FDR, have tended not to be so interested in that kind of advocacy.

Make no mistake, African-Americans, as well as working Americans of all races, are not dumb. We recognize that there is “de facto” advocacy and “de jure” advocacy; we know that politicians, whatever their party, will say anything to get elected. They will identify their base, play to it, and then do what they want once elected.

But Coulter, and any other Republican who might be so insensitive to spout such an ignorant statement, is not in the position to 1) refer to any African-American as though he or she are property, and 2) make a judgment call on who is better.

After the election of Barack Obama, there was the hue and cry that racism in America was gone. Most of us knew that was not the truth, but every now and then, someone will say something or do something that brings the reality of our putrid racial reality front and center.

Ann Coulter managed to do that with her outrageously presumptuous, disrespectful statements this week.

Surely, even some Republican will step up and say publicly that she was out of line … because she was.

That would be a candid observation.