Posted by
Vansword on Saturday, October 31, 2009 6:13:05 PM
Barack Obama should hold another backyard beer summit at the White House- the Post-Racial Conference. Perhaps the President could invite his old friend Attorney General Eric Holder for a good talking to over a couple of Heinekens. The recent actions of Holder's office have cast a heavy doubt as to the efforts of the President's administration to move America past the race issue.
The Department of Justice has decided to meddle in the local government of a small N.C. hamlet by declaring a ballot referendum allowing nonpartisan voting to be null and void. Kinston is located in the Inner Banks region of the state and has a population of an estimated 23000. It is predominantly black and the referendum was passed almost 2-1; but, Holder's team determined nonpartisan voting violated that still-for-some-reason-sacrosanct legislation, The Voters Rights Act of 1965.
This is not the first time that particular law has been used for all the wrong reasons. On the scale of active, important legislation the Voter's Rights Act isn't even up there with new drivers license laws. It's original purpose has been fulfilled-nowadays blacks have no problem registering to vote and voting their own conscience. This is wholly an attempt to fortify the Democratic party. This intrusive move by Holder et al is so partisan in its makeup that the message of rescinsion must have been sent to North Carolina by donkey!
Acting Assistant Attorney General Loretta King annouced to the city of Kinston that, within the bounds of that 1965 law, nonpartisan voting would leave the black population at a disadvantage. They are always far more likely to vote Democrat and without a Democrat candidate would have no one to vote for. The Kinston referendum, she said, was racist. No, ma'am, but your words are terribly condescending! The Department of Justice has some nerve to assume that blacks in Kinston need them to make the voting field level when they are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves and choosing a candidate on his/her own merits. This is the same Loretta King who recommended dropping a case against two Black Panther Party thugs who were obviously trying to intimidate voters at a Philadelphia precinct last year.
More importantly, the reason for the referendum, points to the Justice Department either being woefully uneducated on the matter or else just outright evasive of the facts. Attorney General Holder's office would have you believe that the white community of Kinston was acting out of racial hatred in seeking a nonpartisan voting referendum-that they were trying to keep black voters from being a factor in local elections. Nothing could be further from the truth! The man who started the referendum was a former white city councilman
who did so to assist what he viewed as the worthwhile efforts of a young black woman to place her name on the ballot for a council seat.
This Kinston, North Carolina former councilman has, at this writing, decided to sue Attorney General Eric Holder and the United States Justice Department. He has compiled a mighty contingent of support for his intentions-from national civil rights groups, black liberal and conservative thinkers and, most especially, the citizens of Kinston, black and white, who voted that referendum into law. Everyone queried on the this case is astounded at the utter gall of an unelected official to reach down from his Washington tower and direct the people of small town America like pawns. If our local and city elections can be so easily manipulated by the politically powerful, why are we voting?
None other than the president of the Kinston branch of the NAACP, William Cooke, has expressed skepticism: "To begin with, 'nonpartisan elections' is a misconceived and deceiving statement because even though no party affiliation shows up on a ballot form, candidates still adhere to certain ideologies and people understand that, and are going to identify with who they feel has their best interest at heart". In small towns like Kinston, everybody knows everybody else and they surely know where politicians stand on the issues just by talking to their friends at the Wal-Mart!
Could it be that the majority of Americans are trying to live in peace with their brethren of other colors and cultures but certain still bitter and somewhat vengeful groups are insistent on preventing that? It's so much easier to blame that time-worn epithet of racism rather than to take full responsibility for one's actions. A scene of racial accord is playing out now in Atlanta, Ga. This metropolis, long considered a birthplace of black progress, dubbed by some 'the black capital", is on the brink of electing its first white mayor in forty years. Sadly, the question of racism has again reared its ugly head to try and foil the efforts of the political community to get past such barriers.
Since the death of popular black mayor Maynard Jackson in 2003, the city's demographic has been steadily changing. Atlanta's black population has held pretty much the same line, but the white population has continued to grow-the ratio of black to white has gone from around 61% to 39% to where it is now at around 56% to 44%. Local politics are not so much of the racial monotone they were in days past. Councilwoman Mary Norwood is way out front in the polls, leaving her next two closest opponents considerably behind. Ms. Norwood has gained the support of black businessmen and political leaders in the metropolitan area.
In a memo to the mayor and city council, the BLF(Black Leadership Forum) insisted that this cannot possibly be happening in Atlanta. Atlanta is predominantly black, they say. It has always had a black mayor-not entirely true-but we know what they mean. The fact that some in the black community support Ms. Norwood is not worthy of consideration to this organization. The only facts they are interested in are of the black and white nature. The Al Sharptons of this world need to realize that the racism they insist they see is often only in the rear view mirror. In today's America, it is mostly Gone With The Wind. They need to stop shaking their fists and trying to hang on to Tara!
Don't they understand that this recognizing a person for their achievements and attributes, for what they can contribute to their fellow man, is what Dr. Martin Luther King stood for? This would be the watermark for him-to see the one city that has heretofore been the bastion of civil rights history, that has flourished and nourished the lives of so many of his people, come full circle to the point where they can elect an official of another race with what appears thus far to be an overwhelming mandate. A white government official going to great lengths to help a black lady run for office. The city with the largest black population in the South supporting a white woman's mayoral candidacy. That, Mr. Obama, is what a post-racial America looks like.