August 12, 2015
Page 7
O PINION
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To Fight Racism, Protect the Right to Vote
Repairing the
damage done by the
Supreme Court
Rights Act of 1965, which enshrined the
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time.
The Voting Rights Act mandated federal
review of any new voting rules in 15 states,
m
most of them in the South, with
BY L EE A NN H ALL
hi
histories of discrimination at the
The cold-blooded murder
po
polls. Two years ago, the Supreme
of nine people at a Charleston
Co
Court’s 5-4 decision on Shelby
church made it impossible to
Co
County v. Holder effectively gutted
deny the persistence of racism
th
the enforcement tools of the federal
across the nation. So do the sym-
vo
voting law.
bols of support for slavery and
The right to vote is still the law
oned on of f th
segregation that remain emblazoned
the l land — in principle — but the Su-
public property throughout the South, and preme Court ruling turned the protection of
scattered among some Northern states as those rights over to state and local author-
well.
ities.
What will it take to bring real racial jus-
Since the ruling, states such as Arizona
tice to our country? For starters, protecting DQG .DQVDV KDYH SDVVHG UHVWULFWLYH YRWHU
the right to vote.
ID laws. And North Carolina ended early
A century after the end of the Civil War, voting and same-day registration.
Southern segregation thrived because of
They’re far from alone, and this voter
lynch laws, poll taxes, and other institu- suppression isn’t limited to the states that
tional restrictions on African Americans. joined the Confederacy. But I can’t help
2QHRIWKHJUHDWDFKLHYHPHQWVWKDW¿QDOO\ wondering how jurisdictions that still wrap
broke the back of Jim Crow was the Voting WKHPVHOYHVLQWKHUHEHOÀDJFDQEHFRXQWHG
on to safeguard fair voting rights.
To protect against discrimination, Con-
gress must pass the Voting Rights Ad-
vancement Act. The bill would repair the
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years ago on voter protections.
The Senate version, introduced by Ver-
mont Democrat Patrick Leahy, would pro-
vide federal observers where necessary. It
would also require federal permission for
states to change their voting laws, and it
mandates bilingual voting materials where
appropriate.
You’d think that following a tragedy
like the one that struck the Emanuel Af-
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protecting voting rights would sail through
Congress. Sadly, you’d be wrong.
What are the stonewalling legislators so
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black vote threatens them.
Black voters accounted for 12 percent
of the national electorate in the 2014
elections, up from 11 percent in 2010 but
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That year — when President Barack
Obama was running for reelection —
black turnout eclipsed white turnout by
about 2 points.
In some Southern states, such as North
Carolina, African-American voters make
up over 20 percent of the electorate. Black
voter turnout in that state has increased
dramatically in the last 15 years.
With the 2016 election right around the
corner, maybe that’s something Southern
Republicans are worried about. After all,
they’ve already denied residents of most
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sion and a living wage. Now they’re threat-
ening their voting rights too.
By all means, take down those Con-
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museums. But more importantly, begin
addressing the deeper issues those symbols
represent — both in the South and through-
out the country. Legislators must raise a
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eryone.
LeeAnn Hall is the executive director of
the Alliance for a Just Society. Distributed
by OtherWords.org.
Spectacular Act of Nonviolent Civil Resistance
Giving Obama
political space to act
P ATRICK T. H ILLER
I don’t know any of
the 13 activists who low-
ered themselves from
the St. Johns Bridge in
Portland, nor any of the
dozens of kayakers pad-
dling in the Willamette River be-
low them, but they succeeded in a
temporary blockade of the Shell-
leased Arctic-bound icebreaker
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I know that the activists par-
ticipated in our democracy—they
were nonviolent and far more civil
than many members of Congress.
The ship was in Portland for re-
pairs of damage to the hull, which
ironically occurred when it was
scheduled to leave for the Arctic
as part of the safety conditions
Royal Dutch Shell Oil needed to
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for oil after a series of accidents
in 2013.
The fragile ecosystem, acceler-
ated climate change, and the miss-
ing infrastructure and technology
to mitigate disasters in the Arctic
are the major arguments against
drilling. Scientists in Nature
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unburnable.”
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sidered the Fennica’s departure
from Portland a “make-or-break
moment for our environment and
our future climate.” One would
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assume that such arguments are
high on President Obama’s envi-
ronmental and climate priorities. I
suspect President Obama does not
need to be reminded, but
he might need the political
space to act.
Public activist cam-
paigns are crucial elements
to open media, social and
political space for climate
protection and to the challenge of
corporate-driven extraction of re-
sources. Even though many agree
with the causes activists support,
they tend to dismiss them for a
variety of reasons - they’re naïve,
breaking the law, they’re hypo-
crites, they curtail the rights of
others, or it’s none of their busi-
ness.
Over the last years I have stud-
ied the lives of nonviolent activ-
ists extensively. I can attest that
such critique is far off. We should
look at the activists as individu-
als who might be very ordinary
people whose extraordinary ac-
tions contribute to positive change
based on a vision of a better future
for everyone.
On the group level, social
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campaigns have proven to be suc-
cessful. One might look at nuclear
disarmament, framed as a result
of cooperation between former
U.S. President Ronald Reagan
and former General Secretary of
the Communist party of the So-
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But historian Lawrence Wittner
documented that cooperation was
both driven and made possible by
the efforts of worldwide activist
campaigns.
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Obama vetoed a bill authorizing
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pipeline and there is speculation
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XL pipeline in the next month. If
that happens, the primary reason
might have been the sustained
effort by modern grassroots envi-
ronmental movements which have
kept the project and its conse-
quences in the public imagination
long enough to open the political
space for Obama.
On the more personal level,
individuals who adopt an activist
identity tend to develop world-
views with concerns that go be-
yond themselves. In my year-long
study of nonviolent activists some
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community; perspectives beyond
the local; the interconnection of
personal, social and environmen-
tal issues; a long-term commit-
ment; and a positive sense of self.
These factors become important
when we examine the larger strug-
gle they are involved in.
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ar Tom Hastings described the
#ShellNo protest in Portland as
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turned out over two days. Yes,
they brought down the airborne
activists and cleared the kaya-
kivists out of the way and bullied
their oil rig through. But they lost,
big time, in the view of Portland-
ers. I saw entire families just out
to support for hours on end. So
many kids! And spirits were so
good, so sweet, so positive. Big oil
lost; they just don’t know it yet.”
Of course there are those of us
who say that activists and their
supporters are hypocrites. The
ropes they used to hang bellow
the bridges, their puffy coats to
keep warm, their kayaks, their life
vests, etc. all are petroleum-based
products. Should those of us who
drive cars and have many of the
privileges of Western societies
be excluded from challenging
dangerous oil drilling? If purity
is required, virtually no one will
ever qualify and we should thus
never hear disagreement from our
citizenry to corporate or govern-
mental policy, i.e., the end of de-
mocracy.
While the protest in Portland
got worldwide attention, the reali-
ty of our news cycle is that another
mass shooting or announcement
of a new presidential candidate
will take over the headlines mo-
mentarily. At the same time it is
clear that these acts of nonviolent
civil disobedience gave a boost to
the sustained effort of preventing
Shell and any other corporation
from drilling for oil in the Arctic.
The activists very well knew that
they ultimately would not prevent
the ship from passing. The stated
goal of this action by Greenpeace
was to get President Obama to
reject Arctic drilling. Just like the
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Obama administration now has an
opportunity to change its course.
Thanks to the activists, any at-
tempts at Arctic drilling from now
on will be under far more scruti-
ny and political leaders now have
more space to act.
Patrick. T. Hiller, Ph.D., syndi-
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transformation scholar and pro-
fessor.
The Law Offices of
Patrick John Sweeney, P.C.
Patrick John Sweeney
Attorney at Law
1549 SE Ladd, Portland, Oregon
Portland:
Hillsoboro:
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Email:
(503) 244-2080
(503) 244-2081
(503) 244-2084
Sweeney@PDXLawyer.com