January 16th we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. and Civil Rights. As I reflected on this holiday and the current Presidential race of 2012, the 15th Amendment (Race No Bar to Vote), 19th Amendment (Women's Sufferage), and the 26th Amendment (Voting Age Set to 18).
Currently at hand, I read an article Holder Vows to Protect Voting Rights at MLK event in South Carolina, where Attorney General Eric Holder promised the "aggressively protect" the voting rights of minorities." South Carolina recently proposed a bill that when an individual goes to poll they will be required to show government issued photo id. The bill was denied when judicial refused to grant approval to require the photo id at the polls. Holder stated, "After a thorough and fair review, we concluded that the state had failed to meet its burden of proving that the voting change would not have a racially discriminatory effect."
Okay now, this to me seems a bit dramatic. Where did race even come into the picture? Just cause it was MLK day? How does it apply to the bill?
I would think this bill only protected the rights of citizens who through the three previously stated rights have the right to vote. The bill would control and verify the identity's of these citizens who have the right to vote, not referring to race and minority. What do you think?
Concerning race and racism, here's some early American writings on the immorality and absurdity of enslaving people because of their outward appearances.
ReplyDeleteThis first one is written by James Otis, Jr., a lawyer and early American Radical of the 1760s from Massachusetts Colony. He was the one John Adams accredited with giving birth to the "child Independence" when he (Otis) went on a court room tirade about the unconstitutionality and injustice of Writs of Assistance way back in 1761.
Here's a bio of him:
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Otis,_Jr.
Here's his quote:
"The colonists [Americans] are by the law of nature freeborn, as indeed all men are, white or black. No better reasons can be given for enslaving those of any color than such as Baron Montesquieu has humorously given as the foundation of that cruel slavery exercised over the poor Ethiopians, which threatens one day to reduce both Europe and America to the ignorance and barbarity of the darkest ages. Does it follow that 'tis right to enslave a man because he is black? Will short curled hair like wool instead of Christian hair, as 'tis called by those whose hearts are as hard as the nether millstone, help the argument? Can any logical inference in favor of slavery be drawn from a flat nose, a long or a short face? Nothing better can be said in favor of a trade that is the most shocking violation of the law of nature, has a direct tendency to diminish the idea of the inestimable value of liberty, and makes every dealer in it a tyrant, from the director of an African company to the petty chapman in needles and pins on the unhappy coast. It is a clear truth that those who every day barter away other men's liberty will soon care little for their own. . . ."
The 2nd writing is by Thomas Paine, written in 1774, called "African Slavery in America", which can be found and read for free at the following link:
http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=343&chapter=16993&layout=html&Itemid=27
Here's yet another, dating to 1773 by the founding father Benjamin Rush, a Pennsylvania physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, called "A Pennsylvanian: An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America Upon Slave-Keeping:"
http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2066&chapter=188611&layout=html&Itemid=27
It's quite ironic that the nation that gave birth to the first anti-chattel slave society in the world would continue chattel slavery longer than any other nation, longer than the British no less, who we, the Americans were accusing of trying to enslave America during the colonial disputes of the 1760s and the Revolution.
I don't think it's a race thing, but a poor thing. The majority are poor blacks, so it takes on the race thing instead of being poor thing and most don't have a picture license, because they don't drive or have needed a picture ID. A ID should be fine without a picture. Making people buy a picture ID to Vote is like bringing back the Poll Tax.
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