Page 6
July 20, 2016
O PINION
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A Voting Rights Victory in Maryland
Almost 6 million U.S. citizens are effectively locked out of the democratic process
m arC m orial
Thousands
of
Marylanders
will
regain the right to
cast their ballots this
election year, thanks
to the state’s law-
makers.
The
Maryland
House and Senate recently vot-
ed to override a veto by Gover-
nor Larry Hogan to ensure that
ex-offenders will automatically
get their right to vote back once
they’ve been released from prison.
Previously, Maryland required
all individuals with past felony
convictions to complete all terms
of their probation and parole be-
fore their access to the polls could
by
be restored through a lengthy
and confusing process. That
policy — which disproportion-
ately impacted communities of
color — was unduly punitive.
It delayed the restoration
of voting rights for men and
women who’d already paid
their debt to society by com-
pleting their prison sentences.
This kind of voter disenfranchise-
ment must not be tolerated in a na-
tion that professes to be governed
by democratic tenets.
So as of March 10, an estimated
40,000 Maryland men and women
currently on felony probation or
parole will have their right to vote
restored. For many of them, this
will come in time to vote for local
and national leaders, including our
nation’s next president.
Maryland is joining 13 other
states, plus the District of Colum-
bia, in immediately restoring the
voting rights of ex-offenders upon
their release — plus two states,
Maine and Vermont, that don’t
strip anyone with a criminal con-
viction of their voting rights, in-
cluding when they’re behind bars.
While there’s much to applaud,
this victory isn’t enough. That’s
because 11 states permanently
bar certain ex-offenders from ever
voting again.
Today, almost 6 million U.S.
citizens are effectively locked out
of the democratic process because
of laws that disenfranchise citi-
zens convicted of felony offenses.
“These restrictions serve only to
further alienate and isolate mil-
lions of Americans as they work
to regain normality in their lives,”
said Representative John Conyers,
a Michigan Democrat who’s au-
thored legislation that would safe-
guard voting rights for ex-offend-
ers nationally.
Because of the enduring tangle
of race and the criminal justice
system in our nation, convicted
felons disproportionately come
from communities of color, effec-
tively disenfranchising not only
individuals but entire communi-
ties. Throughout our nation, near-
ly one in 13 African-American
adults is banned from voting be-
cause of laws that disenfranchise
the formerly incarcerated.
And it should come as no
surprise that the states with the
harshest policies just happen to
be those with legacies of slavery,
segregation, discrimination, and
voter suppression. Just like voter
ID laws, felon disenfranchisement
is a tactic that suppresses voter
turnout.
Among other benefits, voting
promotes public safety. Civic en-
gagement establishes a vested in-
terest in the well-being of the com-
munities where ex-offenders make
their homes, work, and pay taxes.
We’re a stronger and truer democ-
racy when all of our citizens enjoy
this fundamental right.
The Problem with ‘Blue Lives Matter’
Tragedy creates
some confusion
J ill r iChardson
We’re not long
into summer, but
already we’re long
on tragedy. Police
shootings of black
men in Minnesota,
Louisiana, and beyond. A mass
shooting of police officers in Dal-
las.
Yet this surplus of tragedy
seems to have created some con-
fusion. So let’s clear things up.
There’s a difference between
cops killing unarmed black peo-
ple and the horrific murder of cops
that just occurred in Dallas.
I don’t wish to diminish the
losses in Dallas, or the loss suf-
fered any time a cop is killed.
That’s a tragedy beyond words.
But it’s still different from the
by
deaths of Alton Sterling, Philan-
do Castile, Michael Brown, Tamir
Rice, and so many other black
men and women who’ve lost their
lives at the hands of the po-
lice.
The cops who killed Ster-
ling and Castile were em-
ployed to protect the public.
Sterling and Castile, in other
words, paid the salaries of
their own killers with their
tax dollars. The murderer in Dal-
las, on the other hand, was no pub-
lic servant.
Anyone who kills a cop fac-
es severe penalties. The Dallas
shooter, after all, is now dead. But
cops who kill unarmed black men,
most of the time, walk free. Indict-
ments are uncommon, and convic-
tions are rare.
Any time a cop is killed, the
entire nation agrees that it was a
crime and a tragedy. President
Obama came back early from
Europe to speak at a memorial
service for the officers in Dallas,
where former President George
W. Bush also spoke. That’s not
necessarily the case when cops
kill black men.
value as human beings by digging
for any imperfection to justify the
act. But that’s what happens to
black men killed by cops.
Police departments or unsym-
pathetic journalists dig up old mug
the killing of cops and the killing
of black men by cops is that both
are tragedies. In both scenarios,
beautiful human lives are snuffed
out for no reason at all.
So why is it right to say “Black
Anyone who kills a cop faces severe penalties.
The Dallas shooter, after all, is now dead. But cops
who kill unarmed black men, most of the time, walk
free. Indictments are uncommon, and convictions are
rare.
Moreover, nobody is now look-
ing into the records of the mur-
dered officers to find out if they
ever did anything wrong. Nobody
wonders if perhaps it’s their own
fault that they’re dead — because
of course it isn’t.
It’s unspeakably wrong to blame
victims of a heinous crime for their
own deaths, or to diminish their
shots, petty rap sheets, or any sug-
gestion the deceased might have
used drugs or had a record, even
if none of those alleged crimes
would have been punishable by
death. They blame victims for
not following instructions, or di-
minish the problem by calling out
“black-on-black violence.”
The only equivalence between
Lives Matter” but not “Blue Lives
Matter”? Because our nation al-
ready believes that cops’ lives
matter. But not everybody values
black lives, and that’s the problem.
OtherWords columnist Jill
Richardson is the author of Recipe
for America: Why Our Food Sys-
tem Is Broken and What We Can
Do to Fix It. OtherWords.org.