From time to time I write about my embarrassment of black liberal politicians. Whether we like it or not, race is a sore subject that we can’t get away from, and what blacks do bothers me more than what others do because I’m black.
Take Chris Rock’s performance at the Oscars. I was angry about it and said so. I got a few equally angry e-mails from blacks who didn’t like my critique, but they had nothing to say about Rock’s clownish and stereotypical behavior.
Those feelings surfaced again when I read this cringe-worthy article (reg. req.). A little national security background first.
In the age of Islamic terrorism, we need to do everything we can, within reason, to protect ourselves. People who want to blow us up enter the country through porous borders or legally, but overstay their visas. Some of the Muslim thugs who attacked us on 911 had aroused suspicion before the attacks, but not wanting to hurt their feelings and/or get sued, government officials and others said and did nothing. Never again, they said. The gigantic Department of Homeland Security was tasked to secure the homeland. Frisking old ladies at airports is one of their bold new “security” initiatives.
Back to the cringe-worthy article. Requiring photo identification to vote is a small but important step toward securing our homeland. While fake IDs are readily available, the more we require this means of identification, the harder it is (in theory) to produce a convincing phony one, in my opinion. Photo IDs will also help reduce voter fraud, which is a good thing, right?
A bunch of black politicians in Georgia don’t think so. They staged a walkout because the governor wants voters to show identification before they vote. No, that’s not a typo. They walked out of the Capitol in protest because people who want to vote in Georgia will have to show valid, government-issued ID.
I didn’t need to read further than the first couple of paragraphs to get the gist of it. I could recite the rest of the story in my sleep. But for the sake of “research,” I read it all. An excerpt:
Democrats say it could prevent as much as 3% of the population from voting — especially poor, black and elderly Georgians, because they are less likely to have photo identification.The law now will go before the U.S. Department of Justice, which must review and approve it under the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 because Georgia has a history of vote suppression.
In March, leaders of the state Legislative Black Caucus compared the restrictions to Jim Crow-era methods of disfranchisement, like the poll tax or the literacy test.
“It’s announcing that the state is designed to look more like 1954 than 2005,” said state Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown, a Democrat from Macon. “It cuts to the core of the progress we’re making in Georgia.”
This is an example of what I mean when I say politicians treat blacks like children. Black so-called leaders and politicians disingenuously conjure up images of Jim Crow when they can’t get their way, without even realizing they’re playing to the negative stereotypes that plagued blacks for generations, hurting the “poor, black and elderly” they claim to care so much about.
“Poor, black and elderly” citizens don’t know how to go down to city hall or the DMV to get an identification card? First of all, why don’t they already have picture identification? Don’t they drive or hold jobs? How do they cash checks, both welfare and earned, and open accounts, without proof that they’re who they purport to be? Ridiculous.
Identification is such a basic requirement that for years I thought you were supposed to show ID when voting. I was surprised the first time I voted in the District of Columbia when the poll worker didn’t even look at my driver’s license, which I had in my hand. It turns out I didn’t even have to bring it!
I can certainly understand how poll taxes and literacy tests discouraged people (poor blacks and whites) from voting 50 years ago. Literacy tests were a blatant attempt to keep blacks from voting, and whites were often not even required to take the tests. Read about what they used to do in Alabama. This test (PDF) would be easy for most of us now, although I can imagine the difficulty for someone poor and undereducated at the height of Jim Crow.
But this is not 1954, and blacks are not still “overcoming.” We are a free people with all the rights and privileges (and RESPONSIBILITIES) of citizenship. Strangely enough, some blacks think that having less wealth or material possessions as someone white is evidence of racial discrimination. Unbelievable.
The most embarrassing (not to mention juvenile) behavior of these politicians is this:
[S]everal black elected officials sang protest songs, wept and wrapped themselves in shackles; many Republicans responded with puzzlement at their colleagues’ reactions. (Emphasis added)
Good grief. These people should be ashamed. Instead of taking a leadership role and helping “the poor” acquire ID cards, they stage ignorant protests like this. In 2005. Some of you may not know this, but slavery is over, and Jim Crow is dead.
If your reaction to reasonable voting requirements is to whine about “disenfranchisement” and act like buffoons, perhaps you shouldn’t be voting anyway. Your sense of history is warped if you think this is reminiscent of an era where your grandparents and great-grandparents had to jump through unfair yet legal hoops to vote.
Black politicians have gotten away with this drama for so long, nobody expects anything different. They’re accommodated, spoiled children. Whites are afraid of them, and too many blacks agree with them. Not only do they reinforce blacks-are-ignorant, blacks-are-victims stereotypes, they do damage to the memory of blacks who suffered bondage, legal segregation, and actual disenfranchisement.
And they show no respect for those who died fighting to erase those awful stereotypes.
Update: State-issued IDs will be free for those who can’t afford them. Will that be the end of it? Of course not. For every one problem solved, politicians will come up with ten more.
