News behind the news. This picture is me (white spot) standing on the bridge connecting European and North American tectonic plates. It is located in the Reykjanes area of Iceland. By-the-way, this is a color picture.
Tag Archives: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Herman Cain posted an article on his website about a recent protest march in Raleigh, North Carolina. North Carolina is in the process of implementing a requirement to show some form of valid picture identification in order to vote. In a 2011 poll, 75 percent of North Carolina supported the voter identification requirement. However, that hasn’t stopped the protests.
The article reports:
Each year the civil rights watchdogs hold a so-called “Moral March on Raleigh.” The annual event is designed to protest any laws that Republicans may have passed during the preceding 12 months. This year’s march took place this weekend, and it focused extensively on the Voter ID regs.
So, what did you need if you wanted to attend?
Note the last item–you have to bring a photo id to protest having to have a photo id when you vote. Makes perfect sense?!?!?!?
“Most of the findings focused on a group called Houston Votes, a voter registration group headed by Sean Caddle, who formerly worked for the Service Employees International Union. Among the findings were that only 1,793 of the 25,000 registrations the group submitted appeared to be valid. The other registrations included one of a woman who registered six times in the same day; registrations of non-citizens; so many applications from one Houston Voters collector in one day that it was deemed to be beyond human capability; and 1,597 registrations that named the same person multiple times, often with different signatures.”
That is just one example. I actually think 24,000 voters in one city could make a difference in the election results. That is why I believe in voter identification.
There seem to be a number of people in North Carolina protesting the new voter identification laws. Protest is their right, but one has to wonder why they would not want to be sure that only voters legally entitled to vote do so.
Yesterday ABC News (Channel 11) posted a story about the protest. It seems that many of the protesters were not from North Carolina. One man interviewed was from Boston. These are paid protesters!
However, the movement’s de facto leader, NAACP head Rev. William Barber says the GOP video shows no such thing. He points out that the NAACP invited anyone who wanted to support the cause to go to Winston-Salem for that voting rights rally and says he’s not at all surprised people in other states took them up on it.
As for the GOP’s broader charge that out-of-state unions are both footing the bill and providing the foot soldiers for Moral Mondays, Barber told us he “won’t dignify the accusation.” His only comment: “I’m going to pray for them and their shameful attempt to change the subject away from voter suppression. Our fight is in the courts and with the legislature.”
The protester in the video just admitted that the unions were paying the protesters. I guess the Reverend may have missed that. As far as voter suppression goes, anytime a person who is not legally entitled to vote casts a ballot in an election, he suppresses the vote of someone who is legally entitled to vote. The voter identification law will end the current voter suppression–it will not create voter suppression.
I feel obligated to write about this story because it has been all over the news lately, but to be honest, I really don’t understand it.
CBS News in Seattle, Washington, is reporting that Rachel Dolezal is resigning as the leader of the NAACP in Spokane after it was discovered that she had lied about her racial heritage for the past 37 years.
The article reports:
Meanwhile, Spokane is investigating whether she lied about her ethnicity when she landed an appointment to the city’s police oversight board. On her application, she said her ethnic origins included white, black and American Indian.
Dolezal, a 37-year-old woman with a light brown complexion and dark curly hair, attended historically black Howard University, teaches African studies at a local university and was married to a black man. For years, she has publicly complained of being the victim of racial harassment in the heavily white region.
The uproar over racial authenticity and professional honesty unfolded last week after Dolezal’s parents told the media their daughter is white with a trace of Native American heritage. They produced photos of her as girl with a pale complexion and straight blond hair.
Her mother, Ruthanne Dolezal of Troy, Montana, told reporters she has had no contact with her daughter in years. She said Rachel began to “disguise herself” after her parents adopted four African-American children more than a decade ago.
Although I do not think it was right for her to lie about her background, I really don’t understand the issue. She wanted to work for civil rights. She obviously felt that she could do a better job of that as a member of the minority she was interested in helping. I have a problem with her lying, I don’t have a problem with her working for the NAACP. I do, however, wonder if she would have been elected to head the local NAACP chapter if she had been white. That is what we should be thinking about. Do you have to be the same race as another person to understand the struggles of that race and to want to help? Maybe we all need to look at the unintentional segregation we put on ourselves and instead start thinking about which people want to make things better, not who is what color.
Fox News is reporting today that a Wisconsin appeals court has upheld a law requiring voters to show a photo ID when voting.
However, as the article reports, we are not out of the woods yet:
Republican lawmakers passed voter photo ID requirements two years ago, saying the move was needed to combat election fraud. The league wasn’t the only group that challenged the law. The immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera and the Milwaukee branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People also filed a lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court, winning a permanent injunction blocking it. That injunction still stands, although the state Justice Department has asked the 2nd District Court of Appeals to review the case.
One of the chief authors of the voter ID law, Rep. Jeff Stone, R-Greendale, began circulating a new bill last week that would let poor people opt out. That bill is aimed at allaying concerns that requirements in the original bill are too burdensome.
The law requires voters to show either a state-issued ID card, valid driver’s license, U.S. passport, a student ID that expires within two years or a military ID.
I am not impressed by the claim that obtaining a photo ID would be burdensome for some people. You need photo ID for a lot of things today, and a state program to provide photo ID’s for residents would actually help the residents. You can’t buy cigarettes or alcoholic beverages without an ID, you can’t get a book from the library without an ID, you can’t board a plane without an ID, and if you drive, your license is your ID. Having a photo ID is not a bad thing.
Yesterday the Palm Beach Post reported that the NAACP has stated that a campaign ad showing Representative Allen West punching a while woman is not racially offensive.
The article reports:
NAACP Washington Bureau Director Hilary O. Shelton, the organization’s chief federal lobbyist, said he watched the ad three or four times.
“It is a typical campaign ad,” said Shelton. “I don’t see it playing on stereotypes.”
American Sunrise got $250,000 of its initial $350,050 budget from Coastal Construction CEO Thomas Murphy Jr., who is Patrick Murphy’s father. The PAC, which says it aims to “reduce the hostile environment of governing in today’s Congress,” lists Patrick Murphy as the only candidate it supports.
Would the ad be racially offensive if the Representative were punching a black woman? Just a thought.
It really isn’t about racial sensitivity–it’s about Democrat party politics. Any campaign showing anyone being punched should be disallowed.
Ok, let me get this right–media credentials are not enough to get in to hear Attorney General Eric Holder speak–you also need a government-issued photo I.D. in addition to your credentials. All those of us who want honest elections are asking for is one form of I.D. in order to vote–not two–and Eric Holder is fighting that. Does anyone else see the irony?
Same-sex marriage is not a civil rights issue–it is a cultural issue. I have no problem allowing civil unions for same-sex couples to insure they have the same rights as married couples, but as soon as you allow same-sex marriage, you create a problem of discrimination against those of us who believe what the Bible says. If same-sex marriage is legal, is it legal for a Bible-believing Pastor to refuse to marry a gay couple when the Bible tells him that what they are doing is a sin? Is it legal for a wedding photographer to refuse to photograph the wedding because he believes in the Bible, which says that what they are doing is a sin? Yesterday CBN News reported that a Christian photography studio was found guilty of discrimination by a New Mexico’s Court of Appeals because the studio refused to take pictures of a gay commitment ceremony . What about the First Amendment rights of the photography studio?
Yesterday the Quad-City Times reported that the Rev. Keith Ratliff Sr. of the Maple Street Missionary Baptist Church in Des Moines is resigning as branch president of the Iowa/Nebraska branch of the NAACP because of the national organization’s decision to endorse same-sex marriage.
During a Statehouse rally in March 2011, Ratliff said his support for traditional marriage was biblically based, adding, “This isn’t a private interpretation, a Burger King religion, and by that I mean a ‘have it your way’ religion.”
Same-sex marriage is not a civil rights issue–it is a cultural issue. If the Democrats who support same-sex marriage can convince the rest of us that it is a civil rights issue, they will win the argument. If those of us who support civil unions to give equal rights to gay couples but stop short of endorsing same-sex marriage will speak out and protect First Amendment rights, everyone’s rights will be protected.
Note the last item–you have to bring a photo id to protest having to have a photo id when you vote. Makes perfect sense?!?!?!?
