How Far Have We Come Since Bloody Sunday?

On Sunday March 7^th. 1965 hun­dreds of peace­ful Civil Right marchers were attacked by armed Troopers as they attempt­ed to march across the Edmund Pettus bridge from Selma to the State cap­i­tal of Montgomery. Voting rolls in the south were 99% White and 1% African-American. Many African-Americans suf­fered immense hard­ships sim­ply because they dared to want to vote . Today many African-Americans sim­ply do not both­er, or does­n’t even reg­is­ter to vote.

I am par­tic­u­lar­ly incensed by this because of the abuse that gen­er­a­tion suf­fered to give our gen­er­a­tion the right to vote, yet we treat that pre­cious gift with impuni­ty, dis­re­gard­ing the sac­ri­fices that were made so we can have that right. In that march was the rev­erend Dr. Martin Luther King, John Lewis , and many oth­er stal­warts of the civ­il rights move­ment. On that sun­day which we now refer to as bloody sun­day no one was spared the dogs, water hoses and blud­geon­ing, as the full force of south­ern racism came down on inno­cent peace­ful marchers who just want­ed to vote.

Edmund Pettus Bridge where peace­ful marchers were attacked by Alabama state troop­ers as they made their way from Selma to Montgomery.

Fast for­ward to 2012 there is a black pres­i­dent in the White House and there are moves afoot in many south­ern and mid-west­ern states to sup­press the votes of minori­ties through dra­con­ian vot­er ID laws that dis­en­fran­chis­es large­ly African-American and lati­no voters.

Just how far has blacks come in their own coun­try, when a sit­ting senior Federal Judge in the state of Montana can for­ward a despi­ca­ble email which sug­gests that the moth­er of the pres­i­dent of the United States had sex with a dog?

Federal judge Richard Cebull.

The repub­li­can par­ty has become a haven for some of the most vile racist peo­ple . Many liv­ing in this coun­try, includ­ing Democrats refuse to call it what it is. After the vot­ing rights bill was signed into law by pres­i­dent Lyndon Johnson many whites sought refuge in the repub­li­can par­ty, feel­ing betrayed by the demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty they felt was tak­en over by lib­er­als from the North. I would like to point out that lit­er­al­ly every­one involved at the high­er lev­els of the strug­gle has ben assassinated.

President John F Kennedy, his broth­er the for­mer attor­ney gen­er­al of the United States Bobby Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and the list goes on and on all have been mur­dered. Today Republicans in an effort to ensure there will not be anoth­er black pres­i­dent no time soon, in many states are turn­ing back the clock on vot­ing rights.

ARE BLACK AMERICANS GOING TO STAND BY AND ALLOW OTHERS WHO HAVE NO MORE RIGHT TO THIS COUNTRY THAN THEY DO TAKE THEIR RIGHTS AWAY FROM THEM AGAIN?

This year, more than a dozen states enact­ed new vot­ing restric­tions. For exam­ple, eight — Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin — imposed new laws requir­ing vot­ers to present state-issued pho­to iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards. Previously vot­ers were able to use oth­er forms of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, like bank state­ments, util­i­ty bills and Social Security cards. (new york time .com) 

ThE Reverend Al Sharpton has planned a march for Alabama on Sunday, not to com­mem­o­rate the vot­ing rights Act, but to high­light the seri­ous threat that repub­li­cans pose to the vot­ing rights of minori­ties in this coun­try. Republicans argue that the new laws are designed to erad­i­cate vot­er fraud. However the num­bers do not sup­port their argu­ments. In fact in most case where vot­er fraud are alleged, an elec­tion com­mis­sions are oblig­ed to inves­ti­gate, the find­ings revealed thus: Bad data match­ing , which revealed motor vehi­cle was wrong in assum­ing the vot­ers were dead, cas­es where vot­ers were alleged to have vot­ed , but nev­er did. A few cas­es of absen­tee bal­lots were cast by vot­ers who died before the elec­tions. The few votes left were cas­es where sig­na­tures were not rec­og­niz­able. This sug­gest the laws are a solu­tion look­ing for a prob­lem.(the new york times)

Why then are repub­li­cans look­ing to turn back the clock?

The elec­tion of Barack Obama to the pres­i­den­cy has exposed the dirty under­bel­ly of racism in America, many fool­ish­ly thought was a thing of the past. President Obama was elect­ed to the pres­i­den­cy with­out win­ning the major­i­ty of white votes. This real­i­ty scared the hell out of the wing nuts on the right and as soon as Obama was inau­gu­rat­ed they con­spired to destroy his pres­i­den­cy. Senate Minority Mitch McConnell stat­ed quote “Making Obama A One-Term President Is My Single Most Important Political Goal”(medi​aite​.com) They have attacked his pres­i­den­cy with a fer­vor not seen in mod­ern times. Their attack has sev­er­al fronts. In the con­gress he is not allowed any leg­isla­tive accom­plish­ments because of repub­li­can obstruc­tion­ism. They have launched all out wars on immi­grants from Alabama to Florida, and from Georgia to Arizona immi­grants are under assault from overzeal­ous state law enforce­ment to include rene­gade Arizona sher­iff Joe Arpaio, a mod­ern-day Bull O’Connor whom have been accused of seri­ous abuse of minori­ties. Joe Arpaio sher­iff of Maricopa coun­ty Arizona has been under fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tions by the Obama jus­tice depart­ment for Human rights vio­la­tions. For his part Arpaio has alleged­ly launched his own inves­ti­ga­tions into the non­sen­si­cal birth cer­tifi­cate drib­ble , he has since announced that his inves­ti­ga­tions have con­clud­ed that the pres­i­den­t’s birth cer­tifi­cate is a forgery. This has fur­ther cement­ed what many believed that this old geezer is a loose can­non with a racist tinge.

Whether it is Joe Wilson a con­gress­man shout­ing “you lie” at the pres­i­dent as he deliv­ers the state of the union address, or an asso­ciate Justice of the Supreme court Samuel Alito shak­ing his head and mouthing “not true”,or it’s Arizona’s class­less gov­er­nor Jan Brewer wag­ging her fin­ger at the pres­i­dent on the tar­mac as he dis­em­barked from his plane, or that despi­ca­ble life form parad­ing as a fed­er­al judge, who for­ward­ed that email , or the count­less oth­er instances that has come to light we have seen these instances of the most vile form of racism that many seri­ous­ly believed they had left behind in the 60’s. 

Republican assault have not spared groups like Acorn, a group which has tra­di­tion­al­ly reg­is­tered minori­ties to vote. They have launched attacks on planned par­ent­hood, using sur­ro­gates like the Susan G Komen to do their dirty work. Komen is a can­cer char­i­ty which receives most of its funds from reg­u­lar donors, received a shock when it announced it would cut fund­ing for planned par­ent­hood. This was def­i­nite­ly a repub­li­can attack on planned par­ent­hood which to Komen’s sur­prised ini­ti­at­ed a tremen­dous blow-back which forced them to reverse that deci­sion. Komen is still reel­ing from that blow-back and has since hired a con­sult­ing firm to ass­es the dam­age done to their rep­u­ta­tion.(huff­in­g­ton post .com)

The jury is out on what this will all mean by the time the next elec­tion comes around, to my mind the next elec­tion is the least of our wor­ries. Republicans have sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly elect­ed  right-wing oper­a­tives to coun­ty leg­is­la­tures state leg­is­la­tures, gov­er­nor­ships, con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts and to the US Senate. They have passed rad­i­cal new laws that looks fright­en­ing­ly like laws that were around dur­ing jim crow. Have you ever won­dered why peo­ple who com­mit crimes and paid their debt to soci­ety are still not allowed to vote? Well dur­ing the six­ties African-Americans would be giv­en things like a jar of jel­ly beans when they turn up to vote, if they failed to guess how many beans were in the Jar they were turned away with­out being able to vote. Potential vot­ers were giv­en writ­ten tests that asked about archa­ic ordi­nances that the ques­tion­ers them­selves did not know the answers to. Today vot­er sup­pres­sion laws are being insti­tut­ed broad­ly through­out the south and mid­west as fears over the brown­ing of America grows. Architects and sup­port­ers of these laws will tell you they are about the rule of law, they will tell you they are for the integri­ty of the process. But as I told you before they are about not see­ing anoth­er black man in the White House.

In many cas­es these bills are being signed into law with the sup­port of democ­rats, some of whom are not hap­py about Barack Obama’s pres­i­den­cy. The Roy Blount Amendment which was recent­ly vot­ed down in the United States Senate had the sup­port of sev­er­al Democratic sen­a­tors whom have demon­strat­ed a cow­ard­ly craven inter­est for their own polit­i­cal sur­vival over principle.

Rich com­pa­nies pay lob­by­ists to wine and dine law makers,they get what they want. Every per­son, every group must demand that gov­ern­ment work for them. Blacks are tak­ing this assault on their very exis­tence rather light­ly it seem. Our peo­ple are being arrest­ed and incar­cer­at­ed at a rate that is way above oth­er eth­nic groups, over ²⁄₃ of our chil­dren are being born out-of-wed­lock, and I am yet to fig­ure out what it is that we are focused on as a peo­ple. Did African-Americans think the elec­tion of Barack Obama was going to mean a post racial America? It seem to me that his ascen­den­cy will actu­al­ly mean that the caus­es that are impor­tant to black peo­ple will be set back and made worse because of his rise. Some are unfair­ly blam­ing pres­i­dent Obama for some of the ills plagu­ing the black com­mu­ni­ty. They mean well, but they also lack a basic under­stand­ing of what a pres­i­dent can do, they also lack an under­stand­ing of what a first term black pres­i­dent, hat­ed by his ene­mies can accomplish.

There are about 40 mil­lion black peo­ple liv­ing in these United States. That is a very large coun­try with­in an even larg­er coun­try. There are between 5 and 6 mil­lion Jewish adher­ents liv­ing in the United States, not all of whom are reli­gious . However with the Jewish pop­u­la­tion a mere ¹⁄₈ of the black pop­u­la­tion, Jews in this coun­try wield sig­nif­i­cant clout and pow­er in get­ting their agen­da addressed both here and in the inter­est of the state of Israel. No politi­cian run­ning for office dare bad mouth Jews or their caus­es and hope to get elect­ed dog catch­er. Conversely any­one want­i­ng trac­tion in con­ser­v­a­tive cir­cles mere­ly have to dis­re­spect black Americans to become an instant hit.

As Netanyahu comes to the White House to tell Obama what he expects for the state of Israel, I won­der who speak for African-Americans in their own country?