Dear Diane,
I've been backspacing over and over trying to come up with a good analogy for how my brain functions and how my trains of thought work but all I'm coming up with is spaghetti but that seems to imply my brain is both edible and mushy… very appetizing. But I started by going through NYTimes articles on affirmative action (narrowly avoided reading the 10 articles/month quota fu NYTimes I'm not paying 99 cents for news), then tried to redeem my airmiles for my flight from Malaysia back to the states, bought my plane ticket to Bowdoin (ah the 21st!!! Less than a month ;_;), remembered to waive Bowdoin's medical insurance, finally got back to reading about affirmative action, and am now reading about Lyndon B. Johnson.
So that's where I'll start this.
I have a real soft spot for President Johnson (Wilson's got my heart though what a sweetheart) because in case you haven't figured out, social rights are very near and dear to me (um yea elina 99.9% of your posts are about race including this one do u have no versatility). Sure he was far too ambitious when he dreamed up the "Great Society" socialist program and his "War on Poverty," and sure he escalated the Vietnam War. But I feel like his impact on racial equality are pretty downplayed, especially because JFK tends to overshadow him in that regard. But Johnson was the first president to properly confront racial segregation with two Civil Rights bills in '63 and '64 when Kennedy previously wasn't able to break a filibuster by the Southern Dems. He then foresaw Southern dissent against his party but signed the bill anyway - unlike Nixon who favored segregation as means to grab votes from southerners. Johnson also passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the LANDMARK bill that prohibited voting discrimination, establishing federal oversight of elections administration for 48 YEARS. Wait, 48 years you say? Hang on hang on lemme do the math that means … it lost its power this year. I'm sure you kept insane tabs on the three big rulings the Supreme Court made this summer, including striking down Prop 8, mixed results on affirmative action (I'll get to that soon), and deeming the Voting Rights Act, specifically section 4 and 5, as outdated and unnecessary. Section 4 allows Congress to create a "coverage formula" to determine which states need to approval of their election laws under Section 5.
Here are Justice Ginsburg's words on the significance of the VRA:
“Beyond question, the V.R.A. is no ordinary legislation. It is extraordinary because Congress embarked on a mission long delayed and of extraordinary importance: to realize the purpose and promise of the Fifteenth Amendment...For a half century, a concerted effort has been made to end racial discrimination in voting. Thanks to the Voting Rights Act, progress once the subject of a dream has been achieved and continues to be made.”
She said it so eloquently, exacerbating the negative effects of the err in the Supreme Court's ultimate 5-4 ruling to free the 9 states that required federal advanced federal approval of election laws.
Naturally these states responded immediately upon the court's ruling. Within literally hours, the Texas Department of Public Safety announced the department would begin distributing photo IDs under a 2011 law that US Attorney General Eric Holder had blocked based on the VRA. In Mississippi, voter ID would be required in primaries June 2014. North Carolina Republicans responded saying they similarly are putting a voter ID bill in motion.
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My next post will be part II, on affirmative action, where I began this tangent about Lyndon B. Johnson. I really want to show you the quote by Johnson that struck a chord in me and my position on racial equality, as well as you will see, on affirmative action.
"Nothing is more freighted with meaning for our own destiny than the revolution of the Negro American...In far too many ways American Negroes have been another nation: deprived of freedom, crippled by hatred, the doors of opportunity closed to hope...But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please. You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'you are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair...This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result...To this end equal opportunity is essential, but not enough, not enough."
Johnson said this over forty years ago at Howard University's commencement speech, and yet it feels so relevant even today. We are all looking for opportunity, trying to reach a greater potential by discovering the space to do so. But there is a history that continues to cripple African-Americans to this day… and while equal opportunity is just within their grasp, America still has a long ways to go before she can even begin to ask for their forgiveness.
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until Friday (for part ii oh the suspense!),
Elina
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