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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 2016)
February 24, 2016 Black History Month Page 19 O PINION New Prices Effective May 1, 2014 Ending Lifetime Sentences on Voting Rights Martin Cleaning Service An unduly punitive law made right M arc h. M orial A wrong has been made right in the state of Maryland. In a long overdue reversal led by the state’s legislature, ex-offenders in Mary- land—citizens who have done the proscribed time for their crime— will automatically regain the right to vote once they have been re- leased from jail. Prior to this vote, Maryland required all individuals with past felony convictions to complete all terms of their probation and parole before their access to the polls could be restored through what many described as a lengthy and confusing process. The previous policy—which disproportionately impacted com- munities of color—was unduly punitive; delaying and denying by men and women who paid their debt to society and completed their prison sentences the quint- essential right of any citizen who lives in a democracy. Such tactics of voter disenfranchisement must not be tolerated or become an acceptable policy option in a nation that professes to be governed by democratic tenets. Once the Maryland bill becomes law, an estimat- ed 40,000 men and women currently on felony probation or parole will have their right to vote restored—many of them in time to vote for their local and nation- al leaders, including our nation’s new president. While there is much to applaud, we must recognize that this victo- ry is a drop in the proverbial buck- et. Today, in the United States of America, almost six million citi- zens are effectively locked out of the democratic process because of laws that disenfranchise citizens convicted of felony offenses. Maryland now joins 13 other states, plus the District of Co- lumbia, in immediately restoring the voting rights of ex-offenders upon their release. There are nine states that permanently bar certain ex-offenders from voting at all. Two states, Maine and Vermont, do not restrict voting rights to any citizen with a criminal conviction, even those still in prison, but this is a battle that must continue to be fought around our nation. Among other beneits, voting promotes public safety. When we allow citizens to fully re-integrate back into society the transition must include more than securing employment or housing. While those pursuits and others are im- portant, civic engagement can es- tablish a vested interest in the well being of the communities where ex-offenders make their homes, work and pay taxes. Because of the enduring tan- gle of race and the criminal jus- tice in our nation, the majority of convicted felons disproportion- ately come from racial and ethnic communities, effectively disen- franchising not only individuals but entire communities. The res- toration movement is therefore a movement to confront racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. Throughout our nation, nearly one in 13 Afri- can-American adults is banned from voting because of these laws. And it should come as no surprise that the states that have the harshest policies just happen to be those states with legacies of slavery, segregation, discrimi- nation, voter suppression and the denial of the right to vote. Felon disenfranchisement is a tactic to suppress the vote, as much as voter id laws and it must be stopped. America should not be in the business of denying individuals the right the vote. We are a stron- ger and truer democracy when we offer all citizens this fundamental right. Denying an ex-offender the right to vote serves no real pur- pose other than to undermine the democratic principles on which our nation is founded. Marc H. Morial is president and chief executive oficer of the National Urban League. Every Young Black Kid Gets ‘the Talk’ on Racial Proiling ‘i aM k alief b roWder ’ by b randen M iles The day before I started high school, my father took me up to the park around the corner from our house to have “the talk.” It’s the talk black families had when Trayvon Mar- tin was shot and killed in Florida. It’s the talk we had when Michael Brown was shot and killed in Mis- souri. It’s the talk we had when Tamir Rice was shot and killed in Ohio. And it’s the talk we had when Sandra Bland was found dead in a jail cell following a traf- ic stop in Texas. If you’re a black teen, it’s a talk about how to survive. My dad made sure I understood that I was going to be proiled — even put in danger of harm or ar- rest — simply because of the color of my skin. I didn’t have to wait long to experience this harsh reality irst- hand. When I was 16, my friends and I walked through a popular entertainment store in Cambridge, Mass. to meet up with some of our classmates. A security guard at the door stopped us. He looked at each of us, and then asked us to empty our back- packs. Confused, we protested that we hadn’t touched any- thing — and we hadn’t. But the image of three young black guys passing through a store with backpacks was enough make the security guard suspicious. It felt like he was presuming our guilt. My friends and I were lucky enough to be released with- bing someone of a backpack — a crime he said he didn’t commit — Browder wound up spend- ing three years at the notorious Rikers Island prison before the charges were inally dropped. He spent two of those years in soli- tary coninement. Browder’s torture was so se- vere that he took his own life shortly after his release in 2013. Browder’s torture was so severe that he took his own life shortly after his release in 2013. He was just 22. out charge. However, on any giv- en day, over 50,000 young people are detained in state and local pris- ons nationwide. Although young black people are just 17 percent of the nation’s juvenile population, we account for 31 percent of all juvenile arrests. Kalief Browder — a 16 year- old kid from New York — was once accused of stealing, just like us. Awaiting trial for rob- He was just 22. President Barack Obama men- tioned Browder recently, when he issued an executive order banning juvenile solitary coninement in federal prisons. That was a wel- come step, though it leaves the much greater number of young people locked up in state and local prisons without the same protec- tion. The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision Montgomery v. Louisi- ana, on the other hand, does offer some relief to incarcerated youth at the state level. The ruling up- held a previous decision that mandatory life sentences without parole for people under 18 were unconstitutional. Moreover, it worked retroactively, requiring that anyone who’d received the sentence when they were still un- derage must have the opportunity to argue for their release. These two decisions relect positive steps towards criminal justice reform, but they’re only helpful to young people who’ve already been arrested and locked up. That’s not enough. Every level of our legal system must be exam- ined not only for inhumane deten- tion practices and police brutality, but also racial proiling. I didn’t know Kalief Browder, but I do know that the criminal justice system sees me the same way it saw him. That’s because we share three traits that presume our guilt: Being young, black, and male. It’s time to change that. Be- cause I don’t want to have to give “the talk” to my own child. Branden Miles interns on the Criminalization of Poverty Proj- ect at the Institute for Policy Stud- ies. Distributed by OtherWords. org. 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