Page 2 The Skanner October 11, 2017
®
Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now
Bernie Foster
Founder/Publisher
The Fight to Protect Voting Rights Must Continue in 2017
Bobbie Dore Foster
Executive Editor
W
Jerry Foster
Advertising Manager
Christen McCurdy
News Editor
Patricia Irvin
Graphic Designer
Melanie Sevcenko
Reporter
Monica J. Foster
Seattle Office Coordinator
Susan Fried
Photographer
2017
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in y o u r c o m m u n
Opinion
e all know the power
of the vote.
One person, one
vote serves as the ba-
sic ethos and measurement of
any democratic nation. With-
out true voter protection, in-
tegrity and universal access,
America’s light on the hill
dims.
Since Shelby V. Holder dis-
mantled the Voting Rights
Act, many southern states
with a history of voter sup-
pression and related oppres-
sion of Black communities,
could, once again, enact laws
that would attempt to manip-
ulate the sole entity which
made all Americans equal:
the vote.
During the Presidential
election of 2016, the first in
50 years without full protec-
tion of the VRA, six of the 14
states implementing restric-
tive voter laws were previ-
ously covered by Section 5 of
the VRA. Additionally, five
of those states — Mississippi,
Texas, South Carolina, Ala-
bama and Virginia — put in
place new voter ID laws.
Since 2010, twenty states
have placed additional ob-
stacles to the ballot box and
according to the Brennan
Center for Justice, “states
most likely to pass new voting
restrictions were those with
the highest African American
turnout in 2008, those with
the highest Hispanic popula-
tion growth between 2000 and
2010, and/or those formerly
covered under Section 5 of
Derrick
Johnson
NNPA
Interim
President &
CEO
the Voting Rights Act.”
In 1858, when running
for the U.S. Senate from Illi-
nois, Abraham Lincoln said:
“A house divided against
itself cannot stand. I believe
this government cannot en-
dure, permanently half slave
and half free. I do not expect
the Union to be dissolved — I
do not expect the house to fall
— but I do expect it will cease
to be divided. It will become
all one thing, or all the oth-
er…”
Lincoln would go on to lose
that election to Stephen A.
Douglas, but the words he
uttered would last the test of
time. Today, we ask the same
question: Can a nation half-
slave and half-free continue?
It’s the same question ath-
letes like Colin Kaepernick
ask when they are singled out
for freedom, yet their broth-
ers remain in chains. If the
vote is actively suppressed
in communities of color and
poor communities, are we re-
ally free or just half-free?
Sometimes history will re-
peat itself, if we give it enough
time and a little help.
What is the difference be-
tween our present, partial
believers in democracy, who
callously promote gerryman-
dering, mischievous voter
ID laws, poll moving and poll
closing or voter purges, and
those who engineered the
post-Reconstruction
elimi-
nation of Black Power in the
South?
During the first post-Civil
War election in which Blacks
could vote, they provided
700,000 votes to help elect
Ulysses S. Grant to the White
House in 1868. The often-un-
“
Since 2010,
twenty states
have placed
additional ob-
stacles to the
ballot box
told secret is that before the
Civil Rights Era, where Black
voters in the South once again
sought out the ballot box in
greater numbers, we stood
ready at the first opportunity
to use the vote, when treated
as free people. At that time,
and clearly to some today who
seek to suppress the vote, this
was not acceptable.
During the 1898 constitu-
tional convention in Louisi-
ana, Thomas J. Semmes, chair
of the Judiciary Committee of
the Convention and former
president of the American
Bar Association said, “We
(meet) here to establish the
supremacy of the White race,
and the White race consti-
tutes the Democratic Party of
this State. The Convention of
1898 interpreted its mandate
from the people to be, to dis-
enfranchise as many Negroes
and as few Whites as possi-
ble.”
This process was replicated
throughout the South as An-
drew L. Shapiro points out in
his Yale Law Journal article,
“Challenging Criminal Disen-
franchisement Under the Vot-
ing Rights Act: A New Strate-
gy” (1993). He highlights how
Mississippi’s constitutional
convention of 1890 became
a prototype for implement-
ing constitutional provisions
designed to disenfranchise
those individuals, who com-
mitted “certain crimes, which
Blacks were supposedly more
likely than Whites to com-
mit.”
This meant that, “the law
removed the vote from those
convicted of such ‘furtive of-
fenses’ as burglary, theft, ar-
son, obtaining money under
false pretenses, but the ‘ro-
bust crimes of Whites,’ which
included robbery and murder
or ‘crimes in which violence
was the principal ingredient,’
were not.”
Today, we know the impact
of felony disenfranchisement
and the role it plays in keep-
ing millions of individuals,
who have served their time,
from being able to vote.
Read the rest of this commentary at
TheSkanner.com
Parents Deserve ‘Real’ School Choice
I
was recently approached
by a father of a student
from Ann Arundel County,
Maryland that was disap-
pointed that his son was un-
able to attend his neighbor-
hood magnet school; his son
met all the requirements to
become classified as a mag-
net student. Upon inquiry,
administrators informed the
father that the feeder school
system did not permit his
child to attend the desired
school, even though the cam-
pus was less than two miles
away from their family home.
This was especially upsetting
to the father, because he pur-
chased the home 10 years ago
with that specific school in
mind. The school prescribed
by the feeder school system is
12 miles away from his home.
Great Schools, the leading
national nonprofit organi-
zation devoted to assisting
parents in unlocking educa-
tional opportunities for their
children, gives the prescribed
feeder school a two out of five
stars rating, compared to the
four stars given to the school
initially selected by the father.
Realizing that the school’s rat-
ings may lead to a misguided
conclusion, he and his wife
Dr.
Elizabeth
Primas
Progam
Manager,
NNPA
toured the school to get a first-
hand look. They were equally
disappointed with the school
climate and physical condi-
tion of the building.
His son is a recipient of the
“
non-magnet school, which
has only one Advanced Place-
ment (AP) course and limited
opportunities in advanced
courses.
My question to Education
Secretary Betsy DeVos is this:
Why is it that, despite your
push for “school choice,” par-
ents are still being directed
to lower performing schools
with poor school climate, in-
adequately prepared teach-
ers, and failing test scores?
This is contradictory to the
It appears that this administration
has allowed states and local school
districts to re-segregate and to
provide lower quality education
to children of color
President’s Award for Educa-
tional Excellence. The admin-
istrators were adamant that
the prescribed school would
meet his son’s educational
needs; despite their insis-
tence, the father was never
convinced.
After failing to make prog-
ress with school administra-
tors in Ann Arundel County,
he made the hard decision
to enroll his child in a local
intention of the Every Stu-
dent Succeeds Act. It is the
opposite of the policies you
and the Trump Administra-
tion say you support. The
options offered to this parent
were inadequate and did not
allow him the opportunity to
ensure his child will receive
a quality education. Fur-
thermore, the feeder school
system, in this instance, was
completely ineffective.
Instead of fixing education,
it appears this administration
has allowed states and local
school districts to re-segre-
gate, provide lower quality
education to children of color
and sentence our children to
academic underachievement.
This is not how ESSA was de-
signed to operate.
Thankfully, this parent did
not accept less for his child.
Other parents may not have
the ability to stand for their
children. ESSA was supposed
to provide a high-quality ed-
ucation to all children. Let’s
make sure no child is faced
with choosing between po-
tential social isolation for a
higher quality education or
convenience at the expense of
academic achievement.
Get involved with education
in your community and learn
more about the Every Student
Succeeds Act at www.nnpa.
org/essa.
Dr. Elizabeth Primas is an
educator, who spent more than
40 years working towards im-
proving education for children
of diverse ethnicities and back-
grounds. Dr. Primas is the pro-
gram manager for the NNPA’s
Every Student Succeeds Act
Public Awareness Campaign.
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