A DAMN SHAME.

Today February 27^th President Obama, America’s 44^th President unveiled a statue of the mother of the Civil Rights struggle Rosa Parks in Washington DC.

Mrs Rosa Parks

As the President unveiled the statute of the slightly built woman on whose shoulders he now stands, The United States Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments in Shelby County Vs Holder, Holder being the United States Attorney General, who also stands on her shoulders.

At the cen­ter of the case before the Supreme Court, is the con­tention by Shelby County in the Southern State of Alabama that the law is no longer rel­e­vant. They are par­tic­u­lar­ly opposed to sec­tion 5 of the Voting Rights Act which forces cer­tain States that have been bla­tant offend­ers to get Federal per­mis­sion before they change their vot­ing laws.

Shelby County Alabama, as it con­tends that it should be removed from sec­tion 5 of the law, was vis­cer­al­ly engaged in pre­vent­ing the sole African-American elect­ed offi­cial in that very locale a fair shot at get­ting elect­ed. That attempt was thwart­ed by the courts and the offi­cial was over­whelm­ing­ly elected.

How a lawyer could straight faced make the case for removal in light of those facts is stun­ning. How a Supreme Court could enter­tain argu­ments in this case in light of the facts is indeed stunning.

There are indi­ca­tions that the right lean­ing Supreme Court, may actu­al­ly accede to the request of Shelby County Alabama, to strike down, or at least seri­ous­ly weak­en the law. Clarence Thomas an asso­ciate jus­tice on that Body, whose very pres­ence there is as a result of the sac­ri­fices and pain of the civ­il rights strug­gle, has been a dis­as­ter for the black com­mu­ni­ty in America.

Thomas is the quin­tes­sen­tial house negro who loathes him­self and as result has turned his back on every­thing which made him who he is and what he has been able to achieve. Thomas as vot­ed lock step with the oth­er right-wing reac­tionary Associate Justice Antonin Scalia , who yes­ter­day argues that the law per­pet­u­ates Racial entitlements.

That state­ment is not the first out­ra­geous state­ment that Scalia has made, but it cer­tain­ly shows that Scalia is not very smart , in fact it places him in the cat­e­go­ry of a racial big­ot with a moron­ic mind. The right to vote is a fun­da­men­tal right, Scalia seem to believe, as he inti­mat­ed that those things can­not be left up to the con­gress, that he has the right to sup­plant the author­i­ty of elect­ed offi­cials with his own right wing views.

Antonin Scalia fan­cies him­self a con­sti­tu­tion­al­ist and a strict believ­er in the con­sti­tu­tion, it appears how­ev­er that on the issue of Blacks peo­ple in America, he wants to be King Scalia and force us back to the cot­ton plantations.

Clearly Scalia, based on his con­tin­ued out­ra­geous utter­ances from the bench, is not there to inter­pret the laws, as is his func­tion, he has shown time and again that he is an activist Judge who believes in leg­is­lat­ing from the bench.

Scalia Thomas and Scalia

This is an out­ra­geous state­ment even if it was com­ing from an elect­ed mem­ber of the Congress, what makes it more chill­ing, is that it comes from a sit­ting mem­ber of the Supreme Court. It is one thing for one to argue that Food-Stamps, or Medicaid is an enti­tle­ment, but how can any­one in their right mind, equate the right to vote with entitlement.

This is a fright­en­ing devel­op­ment that must wake up the sleep­ing Giant which is the African Nation in America, if you ever thought you could trust the high­est court in the land to pro­tect your fun­da­men­tal and exis­ten­tial right as a human being , maybe you real­ly need to think twice about (Plessy VS Ferguson) , maybe you need to con­sid­er the words com­ing out of Antonin Scalia today.

It is an insult to all 37 mil­lion Africa-Americans, and tru­ly all well mean­ing Americans, that Scalia would deval­ue the work and sac­ri­fice of every­one who worked and fought and died, includ­ing those who were arrest­ed then released into the arms of the (KLU KLUX KLAN) only to be murdered.

This is an affront to the dig­ni­ty of every decent human being on this planet.

This is vin­tage Scalia mak­ing reck­less state­ments, sug­gest­ing that the una­nim­i­ty with which the Act was renewed, must be thrown out and sup­plant­ed with his views.

In the last General Elections under so-called nor­mal cir­cum­stances, blacks stood in line 20 min­utes to a com­pa­ra­ble 12 min­utes for whites to cast their votes. In States like Florida and oth­ers where there have been bla­tant attempts to sup­press the Africa-American vote, American cit­i­zens stood in line over 8 hours to vote.

President Obama spoke to this issue in his recent State Of The Union Address.

In 2009 the Voting Rights Act was re-autho­rized by a strong bi-par­ti­san plu­ral­i­ty, these sen­a­tors are elect­ed by the peo­ple, if the voice of the peo­ple mat­ters then this case should not even be before the Supreme Court.

This Act is impor­tant to the Principles of the American Democracy as it relates to the con­cept of one man one vote, it is in dire risk of being struck down by the right lean­ing Supreme Court.

Ironically, this assault on the vot­ing Rights Act comes after Barack Obama was twice elect­ed by the lion’s share of the minor­i­ty vote. What we wit­nessed lead­ing up to the last Presidential Elections was tan­ta­mount to stir­ring up a Hornet’s nest.

Statue of Rosa Parks Civil Rights Icon.

All across America from Pennsylvanian to Florida to Ohio, through­out the South there has been a sys­tem­at­ic effort by Republican State Majorities in those Legislatures, to make it extreme­ly dif­fi­cult for non-whites to vote. The very same Supreme Court has inter­vened on instances to halt some of these attacks.

How then did we find our­selves in this place? If America believes in the prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy , found­ed on the tenets of one man one vote, why is the Supreme Court even hear­ing this Case? Shouldn’t the fight be to increase vot­er par­tic­i­pa­tion rather than reduc­ing it?

Black Americans have suf­fered immense­ly in their strug­gle for suf­frage, many have been beat­en, water-hosed, bit­ten by dogs and slaugh­tered, all for dar­ing to demand they be treat­ed as human beings. The very notion of a human being hav­ing to seek legit­i­ma­cy, or even val­i­da­tion from anoth­er human is more than enough to engen­der rage, much less hav­ing to demand that anoth­er human rec­og­nize he is human, cre­ates a whole new degree of incredulity.

The issue is that, free­dom is nev­er free, Fifty years after the Civil Rights Struggle African-Americans have allowed them­selves to face the very specter of hav­ing to once again deal with dogs, bil­ly clubs and inevitable death, in their quest for free­dom. The old adage (those who for­get the mis­takes they made are bound to repeat them), is appropriate.

It is incom­pre­hen­si­ble that a Nation which pon­tif­i­cates so much about free­dom and Democracy , could have ele­ments of its Government con­tin­ue to expend ener­gy and cap­i­tal to restrict the rights and free­doms of sec­tions of its citizenry.

And yes, Shelby County Alabama is using the tax­es tak­en from it’s black cit­i­zens to make the case that they ought to be rel­e­gat­ed to sec­ond class citizens.

Signs paid for by the Lunatic Right in the Midwest State of Ohio, in Black Communities.

It is easy to pass off as igno­rant, the views that allowed for Jim Crow, and Bull Oc’Connor’s thugs. It’s easy to ratio­nal­ize away the lynch­ings and the idio­cy of sep­a­rate but equal, one may smirk at the very notion of racial supe­ri­or­i­ty, and we may fool our­selves into think­ing that those 60’s events could­n’t hap­pen again.

If you chose to believe these things can­not hap­pen again , I ask you this “have you been pay­ing atten­tion? In State after State in America there has been a sus­tained attempt by the Republican Party to nul­li­fy the African-American vote through redis­trict­ing, and vot­er sup­pres­sion meth­ods to include, dra­con­ian vot­er ID laws, less vot­ing days lead­ing up to elec­tion day, intim­i­da­tion, threats, con­fus­ing infor­ma­tion to minor­i­ty vot­ers and more sin­is­ter meth­ods all geared at sup­press­ing the African-American vote.

In addi­tion, they have used the pow­ers vest­ed in them in the State Legislatures they con­trol, to enact leg­is­la­tion lit­er­al­ly wip­ing out the rights of some cit­i­zens for all time. This they do by pass­ing arbi­trary and dra­con­ian statutes, which makes it impos­si­ble for any­one who ever find them­selves afoul of the law to ever vote again, even after they have paid their debt to society.

Mitt Romney the Republican Party’s last can­di­date for the pres­i­den­cy, fun­da­men­tal­ly believed that peo­ple who made mis­takes and paid their debt, should lose the right to vote. The right to vote is the right to citizenship.

It is a damn shame that a Nation which wages war over­seas under the pre­text of spread­ing democ­ra­cy is engaged in sup­press­ing it’s racial minorities.