Whites Account For Under Half Of Births In U.S.

After years of spec­u­la­tion, esti­mates and pro­jec­tions, the Census Bureau has made it offi­cial: White births are no longer a major­i­ty in the United States. www​.nytimes​.com

That was the first para­graph, title cap­tioned above, in Thursday May 17^th New York Times publication.

I ask read­ers to harken to blog post titled Obama’s race prob­lem post­ed May 16^th a day before this NY Times report was pub­lished. In that blog I com­ment­ed on the chang­ing face of America and the need for those who tra­di­tion­al­ly wield­ed pow­er to now appre­ci­ate the need for a more con­cil­ia­to­ry approach,based on those very dynamics.

That blog was in no way shaped by any of the infor­ma­tion with­in the NY Times report, and could­n’t have, as it was writ­ten and pre­pared and pub­lished a day before the Times report.

All over the United States in state after state there are laws being enact­ed in state leg­is­la­tures to sup­press votes. Republican major­i­ty in States like Florida, North Carolina have launched all out assault on a prob­lem which does not exist, vot­er fraud.

One state leg­is­la­tor, when con­front­ed by the Reverend Al Sharpton, civ­il rights activist, head of the National Action net­work, TV, and Radio host stat­ed that the laws were designed to stamp out mas­sive vot­er fraud. The mas­sive vot­er fraud he allud­ed turned out to be three cas­es alleged over a peri­od of three years, a grand total of one alle­ga­tion per year out of mil­lions and mil­lions of votes cast.

The rev­erend Al Sharpton.

What that and oth­er instances of deceit revealed was that the laws were a solu­tion look­ing for a prob­lem. Which leads us to ask what is the rea­son why any­one would want to enact laws which would invari­ably lead to vot­er suppression?

Republican rage at an intel­lec­tu­al savvy African-American in the White House has gal­va­nized mas­sive grass-roots efforts in the Tea-Party and oth­er non-tra­di­tion­al move­ments as well as repub­li­can state leg­is­la­tures, to come up with a slew of anti-immi­grant, anti-vot­ing rights bills that are being passed with alarm­ing alacrity and fright­en­ing feroc­i­ty, in states all over America.

Make no mis­take about it, old­er white Americans were used to see­ing things run by whites, now they go to the gas sta­tion they see peo­ple of mid­dle-east­ern ances­try, they look all over their neigh­bor­hoods they see Hispanics all around them. And most fright­en­ing of all, in their White House is a black family.

They are scared stiff, and under­stand­ably so, but how effec­tive a pol­i­cy will it be to dou­ble down on racial poli­cies that exclud­ed and assault­ed racial minori­ties in the past?

Rep. Paul Broun (R‑Ga.) intro­duced an amend­ment to cut all fund­ing for enforce­ment of a part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 intend­ed to pre­vent racial dis­crim­i­na­tion. The pro­vi­sion, Section 5, requires a num­ber of states and coun­ties, most­ly in the South, to receive fed­er­al approval before chang­ing their elec­tion laws.(Huffington post .com)

Long time civ­il rights activist and Georgia con­gress­man stepped up and launched a broad­side against Broun’s dis­gust­ing amend­ment. In that broad­side Congressman Lewis had this to say.

Congressman John Lewis Democrat. Georgia.

“It is hard and dif­fi­cult and almost unbe­liev­able that any mem­ber, but espe­cial­ly a mem­ber from the state of Georgia, would come and offer such an amend­ment,” Lewis said, recount­ing the his­to­ry of strug­gles over vot­ers’ rights. “It’s shame­ful that you would come here tonight and say to the Department of Justice that you must not use one pen­ny, one cent, one dime, one dol­lar to car­ry out the man­date of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.” “People died for the right to vote — friends of mine, col­leagues of mine,” Lewis said. “I speak out against this amendment.”

It seem that in the annals of his­to­ry, the repub­li­can par­ty is con­tent to be cast as irrel­e­vant, out­dat­ed racist, and uncom­pro­mis­ing. Forever rel­e­gat­ing itself to a dis­card­ed rel­ic on the dust heap of time. It appears that like wound­ed prey, the repub­li­can par­ty will retreat into out­dat­ed irrel­e­vant poli­cies lit­i­gat­ed and lost decades ago. Content to be the par­ty of south­ern white men, angry, bit­ter, and afraid.

America is great, not despite fresh infu­sion of ener­gy, dynamism, intel­lect, and dri­ve, but because of it.

Cynics and hate mon­gers will try to con­vince you that America’s best days are behind her, not true, the dynam­ic unen­cum­bered free­dom of peo­ple from all over the world , comimg here striv­ing , reach­ing , claw­ing for that brass ring at the top will for­ev­er cast America as the shin­ing city on the hill Ronald Reagan spoke about. The more “United” States of America Dr. King dreamt about.

Like a roar­ing riv­er, fed by hun­dreds of trib­u­taries and streams, so too is this great land made great as a result of the fresh waves of immi­grants who come, bright-eyes, cal­loused hands , ready to work, to dream, to achieve.

Yes America’s best days are ahead of her, for all, black , white, brown, yel­low, for everyone.