Race-based Disenfranchisement Alive and Kicking

Over 2,000 students at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college in Texas, marched 7 miles from campus to Hempstead, the Waller County seat, where county officials had planned to site the sole polling place for early voting in the March 4 election. According to the University web site, "Waller County had reduced the number of early voting locations from about six around the county to only one at its courthouse [located in the county seat] because county officials said they could not afford to operate multiple early voting locations." The county later added 3 more locations due to pressure from the federal government, and while one will be in Prairie View, "there was not one announced for the Prairie View campus, convenient to students." Still, at least their activism produced results. Prairie View students, I know you're not reading this, but this white girl is proud of your willingness to stand up for all of our rights. If Chicago weren't so far from Texas, I'd be with you.

I am a firm believer in the right of citizens to vote as a core tenet of the process of maintaining a democratic republic. When anyone tries to abridge that right, it pisses me off. When the GOVERNMENT abridges that right, my head feels like it's going to explode!!! How is it that, in an age when a black man has a real chance at becoming our next president, this sort of thing can happen? And this is not an isolated incident. Policies across the country disproportionately disenfranchise black Americans, to the detriment of our democratic process.

Approximately 60% of the population of Washington, DC is black. The District lacks voting representation in Congress. To strike another historical chord of democracy, DC does have "No Taxation Without Representation" license plates. They used to adorn the presidential limo, but one of Bush's first acts as president was to remove them. It is widely believed that the continued refusal of Congress to grant DC voting rights is based on Republican fears that blacks' historical support for the Democratic party would make the District a consistently democratic district; I, however, think that if the Republicans were the ones to push a bill for full representation through, enfranchising the residents of DC, it would greatly improve their image in the city. (Full disclosure: I grew up near DC, hearing my Mom's stories about how excited her parents were when they could vote for president for the first time as residents of the
District, in the 1964 presidential election. They voted for Kennedy.)

As angry as race-based disenfranchisement of a single district makes me, I am truly horrified at the laws that disenfranchise ex-felons who have paid their debt to society. Simple ethical issues aside, racial profiling, biased laws (particularly drug laws), selective enforcement, and other issues mean that these laws disproportionately affect blacks. I also find it fascinating (in that car-accident, can't-help-but-look way) that of the 14 states that disenfranchise ex-felons in one way or another, 7 of them had poll taxes or educational requirements in the Jim Crow era. Coincidence? I think not.

Come on America. We are better than this!