Jim Crow isn't dead, he just got lawyers

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/22/new-jim-crow-laws-at-supreme-court


Florida voters waited in long lines last November, after the state reduced early voting and polling places. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

When a black man won the White House in 2008, many in the commentariat declared the United States a "post-racial" society, no longer hamstrung by old hatreds, freed at last from the embarrassments of segregation – finally and triumphantly color blind.

Conservatives have been telling themselves some version of this pretty lie ever since Robert E Lee surrendered at Appomattox. On 27 February, we'll hear it again when the supreme court takes up a challenge to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The case, Shelby County v Holder, centers on Section 5 of the VRA, which requires that nine states with histories of discrimination (Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Alaska and Arizona), and parts of seven more states must seek permission from the justice department to change election laws. The Alabama county argues that Section 5 is an unconstitutional infringement on "state sovereignty", and a relic from the bygone days of poll taxes and literacy tests.

Granted, citizens in the old Confederacy are no longer forced to say how many bubbles are in a bar of soap before they can cast a ballot. But the last national election provides plenty of examples of voter suppression. Florida (five counties of which are included in Section 5) enacted a largely inaccurate purge of its electoral rolls. The people whose right to vote was challenged were predominantly (the state says coincidentally) minorities.

The state's Republican leadership cut back the number of polling places and reduced early voting, including the Sunday before election day, when African American churches would traditionally organize trips to the polls. Many, like Desaline Victor, the 102-year-old President Obama featured in his state of the union address, had to wait in line for hours. More than 200,000 others were unable to vote.

[uponit7771]

1. We'll see in the USSC this Wednesday, the facts are on the side of the VRA

[marmar]

2. The Right hates the 20th century.

nt

[ProfessionalLeftist]

3. Recommend. n/t

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

[Greybnk48]

5. Rev. Al calls it "James Crow, Esquire.

Al Sharpton has said this many times, Jim Crow's not dead, they just got lawyers.