On all continents individuals and their families are forced to flee their homes on account of their sexual orientation or gender identity. While all refugees are vulnerable, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) refugees face particular challenges in accessing assistance and asylum procedures. They also experience instances of violence as a cause of flight or while in countries of first asylum. Human Rights First (HRF) highlighted many of these challenges earlier this month in a policy paper presented at a Roundtable discussion convened by the UN Refugee Agency - UNHCR - on Asylum Seekers and Refugees Seeking Protection on Account of their Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. HRF's paper includes a comprehensive set of recommendations directed at UNHCR and States.
Human Rights First welcomes the statements issued after the Roundtable by the U.S. Department of State and UNHCR on the need to improve protection of LGBTI refugees.
In its statement, UNHCR recognized that laws which criminalize same-sex relations in many countries - whether they are enforced or not - pose difficulties for LGBTI refugees, and that these refugees face heightened risks of discrimination in urban settings and refugee camps. In response to these concerns, UNHCR stated it will revise its policies to recognize the particular vulnerabilities of LGBTI refugees, dangers that exist at every stage of the displacement cycle. UNHCR's Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Ms. Erika Feller, also reiterated UNHCR's commitment to undertake this task during the Agency's Executive Committee meeting held last week in Geneva. Similarly, UNHCR called upon states to recognize the needs of people persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
The United States welcomed UNHCR's efforts in this area and acknowledged that LGBT individuals "face serious threats in countries of asylum, where they may be isolated and reluctant to seek help." The U.S. went on to positively affirm that "ensuring LGBT refugees receive the protection and assistance to which all refugees are entitled is a priority." In addition, it stated its commitment to support UNHCR as it integrates LGBT issues into its protection policies and tools, including the Age, Gender and Diversity Framework. This is used by UNHCR and its partners to identify priority needs and corresponding responses.
These statements are consistent with a number of recommendations put forward by HRF in its policy paper presented at the UNHCR Roundtable. The paper, and Human Rights First's related press release, urges that LGBTI refugees be recognized by UNHCR as persons with specific needs, and that UNHCR issue practical guidance to ensure LGBTI refugees are able to access services, support and asylum procedures on the basis of equality and with dignity. Many of these points also follow recommendations presented by a number of refugee protection and gay rights groups to the U.S. Secretary of State in March.
What happened in Geneva this month was a significant step forward in the effort to better protect and serve the needs of LGBTI refugees, but more work is needed to ensure implementation of reforms on the ground. In the coming months, HRF will continue to both monitor progress toward this end and will continue to advocate for safeguards to protect LGBTI refugees.
(This is virtually the same sort of Bush-Administration type of move by the Obama DOJ I described yesterday with respect to undermining progress on the greeenhouse gas front. Again, this is a situation in which there is NO GOP obstructionism that one can point your finger at. This all a matter of internal Obama Administration decisionmaking. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
A two-year battle in the courts concluded this week when the Department of Justice approved Georgia's controversial voter verification system that was originally struck down in 2009 as inaccurate, unreliable, and worst of all, discriminatory against people of color and naturalized citizens. The decision leaves voting rights advocates dismayed as to why the DOJ would allow the state to implement this arguably overzealous and potentially disenfranchising procedure.
"America treasures the relationship we have with our many Muslim friends, and we respect the vibrant faith of Islam which inspires countless individuals to lead lives of honesty, integrity, and morality. This year, may Eid also be a time in which we recognize the values of progress, pluralism, and acceptance that bind us together as a Nation and a global community. By working together to advance mutual understanding, we point the way to a brighter future for all."
When President George W. Bush said those words to mark 2002's Eid al-Fitr, I agreed with him. I still do. But as the controversy surrounding the plan to build a mosque in Lower Manhattan continues to intensify along political and religious lines, our national discussion increasingly points the way to a much dimmer future.
I have spent my career fighting for religious freedom and combating discrimination at home and abroad, first at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and now at Human Rights First. Over the years, I've sat in the same room with countless foreign government officials and religious leaders and asked them to condemn violence and other human rights abuses fueled by discrimination and hatred. And no matter where I was-in Saudi Arabia or Russia or Pakistan or France-the American example of religious freedom, tolerance and inclusion-while not perfect-strengthened my belief that those values are universal and promoting them benefits all of us.
I have found that the vast majority of Americans cherish these values. On many occasions, leaders from all denominations have worked hand in hand to strengthen religious freedom at home and advance it abroad. Today's challenges present yet another opportunity for these leaders to come together and demonstrate that the values that unite us are far more powerful than the fears that divide us.
It won't be easy. Just this week, a cab driver in New York City was stabbed after the perpetrator asked if he was a Muslim. A Florida church is sponsoring a national "Burn a Koran Day" on September 11. Mosques planned for construction in Tennessee, Wisconsin, California and Florida have been challenged by Americans claiming that Islam is not a religion or that Muslims are inherently violent and at odds with U.S. values. Sponsors of the Park51 project are being asked to forego their constitutional rights because many believe an Islamic center has no place in the same neighborhood as the site of the 9/11 tragedy.
Genuine discourse about the propriety of the mosque is not unexpected. After all, open discussion and honest disagreement are part of the American fabric. But at this critical moment in time, all of us need to speak up and speak out to reject stereotypes and prejudices that lead to exclusion and even violence if we are serious about securing religious freedom and confronting hatred at home and abroad. We must defend that principle because it is what makes us different than our enemies.
This week at Gracie Mansion, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it eloquently. He noted, "(I)f we say that a mosque and community center should not be built near the perimeter of the World Trade Center site, we would compromise our commitment to fighting terror with freedom. We would undercut the values and principles that so many heroes died protecting. We would feed the false impressions that some Americans have about Muslims. We would send a signal around the world that Muslim Americans may be equal in the eyes of the law, but separate in the eyes of their countrymen. And we would hand a valuable propaganda tool to terrorist recruiters, who spread the fallacy that America is at war with Islam. Islam did not attack the World Trade Center - Al-Qaeda did. To implicate all of Islam for the actions of a few who twisted a great religion is unfair and un-American."
Mayor Bloomberg's predictions are not rhetoric. They are reality. National Public Radio reported earlier this week that extremists are using the mosque debate and other events targeting Muslims as evidence of America's "war on Islam"-evidence they are hoping will help them recruit young Muslims who visit jihadi chat rooms or frequent radical Islamic Web sites.
Vilification of Islam and Muslims harms our security efforts. Local and national law enforcement need to work together with all communities-including American Muslims-to protect the homeland. Our men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan need to work with local authorities and Muslim populations to form a more peaceful path forward, one in which conflict is addressed through a rule of law grounded in equality and protection of fundamental freedoms.
To date, the decision makers with power to influence the construction of the mosque in Lower Manhattan have done their best to uphold these ideas. They have stood up for religious freedom, inclusion and tolerance. They have upheld the Constitutional rights that make our nation great.
Now it's our turn.
It's time to put this debate back on course and recognize that hate-filled rhetoric, violence and intolerance hurt nobody but us. It does not keep us safe. It does not reflect our values. It does nothing but weaken our resilience as a nation and our position as an international example in the fight to defend the rights of all people - regardless of their race, religion, nationality, sexuality or political opinion.
Earlier this month as he appeared on WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show, former Bush and Reagan Administration advisor Ken Adelman noted that "the United States should stick with its values of tolerance and understanding ...." He then added that the he was "a little disappointed" that former President George W. Bush - whose remarks I quoted at the beginning of this piece - has not come out to give voice to the same ideals he so eloquently outlined in 2002. I agree. More of that kind of leadership from those who haven't spoken out already is what the nation needs now to put us back on the right track.
A disturbing and growing hysteria over immigration—most evident in Arizona’s horrifyingly oppressive new law—has now spread into election administration legislation in at least one state. On the same day that the Maine Republican Party adopted a blatantly xenophobic Tea Party platform, the Tennessee Senate injected anti-immigrant sentiment into a draconian bill to require proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
(This ties in directly to my diary last weekend about voter suppression as justified by the use of bogus "voter fraud" narratives. Tom Tancredo's recent remarks are another reminder of just how crucial this is. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
In observance of Black History month, it is fitting to revisit America's less than stellar record in the ongoing effort to move toward true equality. The key to equality was recognized more than 100 years ago when newly freed African Americans were given the basic rights of citizenship and voting under the 14th and 15th Amendments, though it was not until the 1960s that equality for African Americans and other disadvantaged groups was finally acknowledged on both a legal and cultural scale with the passage of the cornerstone Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. Yet citizens of color continue to be underrepresented in U.S. electorate, and as recently as 2008 have been the target of thinly veiled voter intimidation and suppression efforts.
Sound unlikely? That's because the news comes from the state of Washington, where the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals essentially struck down the state's felon disenfranchisement law because it's racially discriminatory and violates the federal Voting Rights Act.
A currently challenged provision of the Voting Rights Act requires several states with a history of discriminatory election practices to seek federal approval before changing election rules. Under this provision, the Department of Justice this week rejected a Georgia voter list maintenance procedure that it deemed both discriminatory and inaccurate, according to the Associated Press.
For most of our history, our businesses, government, and laws have all discriminated in favor of privileged white men and against everyone else. In particular, the discrimination favors white men with money, or born into privileged families, over everybody else. The boys taking the golf and tennis lessons at the country clubs this summer will be smiling for good reason, because they know that our country has things set up so that they will get way more than their fair share regardless of how lazy, stupid, and corrupt they are. The fix is in.
The best jobs in our country are almost exclusively held by white men. White men only represent around 35% of the population, but they hold about 98% of the best jobs, the jobs with the big paychecks and the life-long titles. Notice that men give themselves lifelong titles, like King, Prince. Senators (for life), Judge, Ambassador, Professor: even if they only held the job for a few years, they use the title forever. It's so silly. So pretentious. Women, who are over 50% of the population, are not only excluded from the better jobs, but they are viciously attacked when they try to move up in their professions. Blacks are excluded. Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans, all excluded.
So white men get the best paying jobs. They also get the jobs with the most power. They get to control everything in our society, and they use their positions to enrich and protect themselves and other white men. For example, Congress (mostly white men) pass laws saying that Wall Street (mostly white males) cannot be sued or held liable for stealing money from the public. Cops (mostly white men) are never held liable for wrongful death of a citizen, even if they walked up to an unarmed, blind, 90-year-old grandma and shot her in the face, the media and the courts immediately label it a "Suicide-By-Cop." What a stupid term. It's like when women get raped, and the media says she asked for it. Same thing. Automatically blame the victim and excuse the (usually) white male.
And we now know that even when the white men engage in international war crimes, start wars of aggression, lie the nation into war, torture and murder people, loot and pillage and plunder the nation, even then they are not held accountable for their actions. They have permanent immunity. Privileges and immunities, like Princes or King. How creepy is that? Even when they kill people, they get away with it.
Certainly our entire nation and its laws have always given preference to whites and to males. For example, after the country gained its independence, it was decided that there should be some law saying how a new person can become a citizen. So a law was passed in 1790, and it said that any person who had lived in the U.S. for at least 2 years, and was free and white, could become a citizen.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/...
Note that non-whites were excluded. Many blacks in this country were slaves and, even after they were freed, they were denied status as citizens by the southern states. Regardless of how many laws are passed, the Republican Party to this day continues to have an official organized policy dedicated to preventing black people from voting in our elections.
Of course voting was always reserved based on gender and race and class. Originally, only white male property owners could vote. At the time George Washington was elected our first President, in 1789, only 6% of the population of this country was allowed to vote -- white, male, property owners only. In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was executed at the end of the U.S. War Against Mexico, and provided that Mexicans residing within the then-claimed land of the United States would be citizens, although they were routinely denied civil rights based on a variety of tactics. In 1856, all states in the country had finally removed the requirement of property ownership for voting, but voting was still generally limited to white males. In 1870, blacks were given the right to vote, but were prevented from doing so by local vigilantes. In 1872, Susan B. Anthony decided to test the exclusion of women, so she tried to vote, and was arrested and tried for her "crime." Women were not legally given the right to vote nationwide until 1920, with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. Our actual history doesn't quite live up to those patriotic songs. A little shoddy on closer examination. http://www.kqed.org/assets/pdf...
I saw three stories today that made me think of this national, institutional, legal and historical bias in favor of white men and against everyone else in our society. The first, of course, was about Pat Buchanan and the drug addict from the radio, as well as their hangers-on, trying to incite hatred and violence among the population by hysterically screaming that Sonia Sotomayor was out to destroy white men, and that white men need to join together to defend themselves against their enemies -- I guess women? Hispanics?
Then I saw a story that Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia was back in the hospital again. He was just there a few weeks ago. He's 91 years old. White, male, and 91 years old, yet he's still allowed to hold one of only 100 seats in the Senate. God forbid anybody should tell this guy to go home, he's old enough to retire. Let somebody else have a chance. We see this same thing in judges -- sometimes suffering from dementia, peeing their pants on the bench, drooling, falling asleep, yet nobody will remove them from the position. See http://www.metnews.com/article... (rarely, the judicial commissions will remove a judge when they are completely disabled. Example: Justice Marshall McComb of the California Supreme Court was only removed from the bench when the state finally intervened. He was totally disabled by senile dementia, yet the other privileged white men on the California Supreme Court just turned his chair around during the hearings, and let him keep the job). So it is special treatment and privileges for the wealthy white men, and unemployment, no healthcare, no rights for anybody else. White men not only get all the good jobs, but they get to keep them long after they no longer are able to properly acquit their responsibilities.
Finally, I saw a story about a basketball player who allegedly cheated on his SAT exam. Apparently this young man is a terrific basketball player who is good enough to go pro right now. But the monopoly professional basketball team owners in this country, for some bizarre reasons, want to keep kids out of the profession until they are at least 19. That means that a kid gets out of high school, and has to get into college to play basketball there, for one year, in order to get picked up by the pros when they turn 19. I see no legitimate reason for this. None. Supposedly the white males who own the teams and run professional basketball don't want to have to pay these young men at 18, and can save a lot of money by blacklisting these young men for a year. Which is all it is -- blacklisting without any rational basis. The person who wrote the article noted that in effect (regardless of intent) this rule mostly discriminates against young black men. It seems like a really stupid rule to me. There's certainly no rule that prevents young people from getting professional contracts as singers, or actors, when they are under 19 years of age. What's the difference? See "The NBA's uncool rule - College Basketball - Rivals.com" http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaab/...
But again, when I put these together, it makes me think of how much things remain the same in our society. Most young black men are completely excluded from any opportunity in our society, which is why sports is such an attractive option. Many black families live in poor neighborhoods and their kids are sent to crumbling, unsafe, poorly staffed schools where they do not receive a decent education. Many of them, like most poor people in our country, are fed only high-starch low-protein and low-nutrition food which makes them fat, sluggish, unhealthy, and destined for diabetes and heart disease at a young age. These kids are screwed from the time they are born. But once in awhile, a sports star comes along, and he has a big ticket out. And the white-male professional basketball owners of America, who have a monopoly control of the sport, decide to park these kids somewhere for one year out of high school and prevent them from earning a living. How is that fair?
At the same time that these 18 year old kids are denied opportunity, we have a 91-year-old white man who's had way more than his fair share, but he will not let go.
And we have a woman who has done exactly what our society said she should do: work hard, go to school, get an education. Yet when she asked for the well-deserved promotion, she's attacked by a bunch of vile, threatening, racist old white men who seem dedicated to inciting violence among their followers -- "Defend The White Men Of America." They're crazy. And dangerous.
That's the thing about the privileged. It does not matter how much money they have, how many times they get to go to the "insider" dinners and bars and get-togethers and resorts, doesn't matter how many homes they have, how much art or stocks or shoes, doesn't matter that they will never live long enough to spend even a big chunk of what they already have -- they won't let go of a penny. I know quite a few people who are extremely wealthy by most people's standards, and they are cheap. The worst tippers, most resentful at having to fund public schools, nastiest about the unemployed (why don't they get a job), strongest opponents to public healthcare (that's socialism), least likely to pay a bonus to their employees.
I know a guy who is very wealthy, mostly because he's a privileged white country-club male, upper class, private schools, an insider from birth. Every year when a group of us go out for a holiday lunch, and invite all the office staff as well as the professionals -- he will not pay for his secretary's lunch. That's how cheap he is. I don't think there's a person in the world who likes him, and doubt he'll live long enough to spend all the money he has accumulated like a miser. But it doesn't matter -- he will not buy his secretary a sandwich at the Christmas/holiday lunch.
He's typical of people I know with money. There is no reason to try to appeal to them based on fairness or justice, because they don't believe in either. And, needless to say, most of these people are white men who use their accumulated wealth to try to get control over the people around them -- employees, wives, kids. They don't care if everyone hates them, as long as they feel like they have control. If they'd gone into politics, they would be starting wars to make themselves feel strong and powerful. It's a sickness.
When Bill Gates claims he's charitable, don't believe it. He, and Warren Buffett, and Bill Clinton, (all white males) all set up and fund private charities as a way to hold onto their money and avoid paying taxes. They can put up to 1/2 of their income into a private charity which they completely control, and keep all that money tax-free. Let's say they earned $200 million in a year, they put $100 million into a separate account, label it "charity," and don't pay $30-40 million in taxes that they otherwise would owe. It's all a tax fraud. As long as they pay out 5%/year of the money, they will never have to pay taxes. So guess how much they pay out every year? 5%. How much of that 5% goes to a kid, or relative, as compensation for them "managing" the charity? And they spend all their time going around telling the rest of us that they don't want the money for themselves -- they just want to help others. Warren Buffett keeps saying he's going to give away all his money when he dies. Don't bet on it. If they wanted to help, they would give their money away now, not hide it in private charity accounts in their own names. What's the problem? They don't think there's enough need, enough starving, enough suffering the world already?
The politicians in Congress are mostly white men. I don't think putting privileged white women, or non-white women, into Congress, will change much. I'm not suggesting that other people are kind and honest, but white men are bad. Just that our society has built in a bias towards white men which is unfair to the great majority of the people in this country. 65% of the people are not white men. We need affirmative action to change that and try to bring about some equality.
And we need a serious change in our taxes to go back to when the tax system made sense. Stop these private charities and start taxing rich people again. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett should never have been allowed to accumulate so much wealth, because it should have been taken in taxes. And Microsoft should have been busted up as a monopoly decades ago. Bill Clinton should never have been allowed to leave office then go out and solicit close to a billion dollars from the corporations he benefitted while in office, and from foreign countries that he helped while he was the president. Politicians should be prohibited from taking so much as a penny from anybody for any reason when they leave office, other than reasonable compensation for an actual job.
A woman should be allowed to move up in her profession without being viciously attacked by an organized group of white men, publicly threatened and humiliated just because she wanted a better job. A 91 year old white man should step down, move out, and let somebody else get a chance, instead of holding onto power just because he can. And an 18 year old black kid should not be prevented from getting a job by a conglomerate of millionaire basketball-team owners who figure they can do whatever they want, because nobody ever listens to young black men in this society.
It finally happened. In case you missed last night's big news, the Nevada Legislature overrode Idiot-in-Chief Jim Gibbons' veto to make comprehensive domestic partnerships into law. Nevada is the first Mountain West state to offer legal recognition for same-sex couples, and is the first non-coastal state to do so by way of the Legislature. Believe me, I'm quite proud of "my other home state" today.
In 1965 the course of American democracy changed when the Voting Rights Act was enacted to ensure proper enforcement of the 15th Amendment of the United States Constitution, which grants equal voting rights to people of color. While many strides have been made since the VRA's enactment, including rising voter participation among the nation's historically underrepresented citizens, voting rights advocates argue that it is still a long road to truly non-discriminatory voting practices and a balanced electorate. Now, the course of American democracy may change again as the U.S. Supreme court is considering a high profile case that challenges the constitutionality of a key provision of the VRA.
The Latino/a community has had ample reason to hope that President Obama would take on immigration reform in a humane manner. While Obama is undeniably centrist in his political approach, and has long been fond of language stressing punitive solutions to the immigration issue, he certainly seems to understand that "America is changing and we can't be threatened by it." Enforcement policies are becoming a threat, not only to immigrants, but the country at large.
Fatemeh Fakraie writes at Racialicious blog: I just finished reading Sherene H. Razack's Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims from Western Law & Politics (2008). And I gotta say, it blew me onto my ass.
Razack is the author of several books, including Looking White People in the Eye: Gender, Race, and Culture in Courtrooms and Classrooms, and her work in race theory definitely shows in Casting Out. She uses plenty of theory and excellent cross-racial examples to illustrate that what's currently happening to Muslims in the West (racialization that results in "the expulsion of Muslims from the political community, a process that takes the form of stigmatization, surveillance, incarceration, torture, and bombing") has happened to other groups before.
She first argues that Muslims are racialized through "race thinking", which "divides up the world between the deserving and the undeserving, according to descent." The racialization of Islam and Muslims is something the editors and I have been wanting to address on Racialicious for awhile, but I haven't quite known how to begin; Razack's book provides the perfect springboard.
Islam is represented in mainstream media as South/West Asian brown-skinned people who are bearded and turbaned or veiled and hidden: this racializes Islam.
Now, before you start typing a response that there are non-West Asian Muslims and that Muslim isn't a race, re-read what I just wrote. There are Muslims in every country in the world, and they are all colors and sizes. But Western media representation of Islam and Muslims simplifies this world-wide group of people into one picture: that of a brown guy with a beard and a keffiyeh. His female counterpart is a brown woman with a veil. Reducing an entire group of people to these static images that have no context or history creates flat attributes (such as the incorrect assertion that West Asia = Muslim) that can be applied to anyone deemed in the "Muslim" category.
Razack argues "the eviction of Muslims from [the Western] political community is a racial process that begins with Muslims being marked as a different level of humanity and being assigned a separate and unequal place in the law." (her emphasis) When Islam is racialized, the presentation of terrorism as Islamic thus racializes terrorism, especially when terrorism is illustrated by brown-skinned bearded South/West Asians. So, if terrorism is equated with Muslims, then we come to "widespread condemnation of bodies marked as 'Muslim,' and heightened support for punitive measures against them."
....
I had a difficulty with her focus on "Arabs and Muslims," which I think is a bit reductive, given the heightened media attention on Iran and Pakistan, two non-Arab but predominately Muslim countries. Though I agree that Islam and Muslims have been racialized into being "brown" and perhaps even "Arab," I still think it would be more beneficial to the argument if Razack had clarified that she was focusing on the treatment of North African and South/West Asian Muslims. Though she posits that all Muslims are racialized, I get caught up in her use of "Muslims" because most of her examples deal with North African and South/West Asian Muslims.
Also, the inclusion of John Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla in her argument about the racialization of Islam and terrorism would be an interesting one; they have been convicted as terrorists, but neither are North African or South/West Asian. Both are American citizens. Lindh is white and Muslim; he was treated just as badly as North African and South/West Asian detainees because he is Muslim. Padilla is Latino and Muslim. He was detained and his habeaus corpus was suspended just like North African and South/West Asian Muslim detainees. They are presented as having their American citizenship and ethnicities taken over by "brown" Islam, which Razack notes is often compared to disease with panicked media allegations that Islam is "spreading."
Jonathan Levine's new film The Wackness is great. It really is. It's depressing. No doubt. But it's a good movie.
Josh Peck, as recently graduated- prep school- drug dealer- hip hop enthusiast- virgin- depressive- bored Luke Shapiro and Sir Ben Kingsley as lost- frustrated- depressive- addicted- bored- tired Dr. Squires are excellent together. Their relationship gives the movie an uncompromising reality that infiltrates every moment of the New York City Hip-Hopped bildungsroman. All the actors have a great understanding for their characters and the director really gets you into the protagonists head. So much so, that your emotions twist and squeeze along with Luke's as he suffers through heartbreak, insecurity and a drugged out emptiness that pervades each frame.
As to the movie's authenticity: A+. I know kids from my New York City high school of whom this movie could very well be a biography. The film stays true to its location, its music and the complexity of each of its characters and the real life teens whose lives this story replicates. So, what about the drugs?
How come, people ask, Luke was never arrested for dealing drugs, even though in the movie he was often doing so in public, out in the open, using a converted Italian Ice cart? Why was there never the slightest fear of repercussions of his actions. Even though 1994 was right when Rudy Giuliani stepped up his anti-drug enforcement? Simple answer: HE'S WHITE.
While the question of whether or not voter ID laws disenfranchise minority, elderly and poor voters is being reviewed by the Supreme Court, John Tanner, chief of the Justice Department's Voting Section, says they do not. In fact, in a jaw-dropping twist of analysis, he told the National Latino Congreso that voter ID laws have "the opposite impact"
(My good friend Donna Brazile posted on the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and the fight that is still going on today to ensure minorities the right to vote. It's a good post, and a good reminder to all of us that the battle for fair voting is not going to end anytime soon, that we have to remain always vigilant. - promoted by Mike Lux)
The United States of America encourages every nation but itself to adopt broad democratic principles and reform. It's time we heed our own call and make a basic policy decision that it is in the best interest of our democratic form of government to encourage all eligible citizens to register and vote.
We know that election laws in some states emphasize voting prevention rather than encouraging the participation of all citizens who have that right. This is one reason why voter participation in the United States is lower than that in many other leading democracies. By contrast, election participation in six states that provide same-day voter registration - Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Wyoming - have reported higher levels of participation with little or no reported election fraud.
An election with integrity is one that includes all eligible and only eligible voters. While it is important to prevent and discourage any fraudulent and deceptive practices, our most urgent call today must be the systematic removal of all structural and political barriers that prevent eligible citizens from participating in their own government.
It's time to act before the next presidential election.
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