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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (July 28, 2021)
Page 2 The Skanner Portland & Seattle July 28, 2021 ® Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now The Movement for Justice Will Not Be Deterred Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor OUR VOICES Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2019 MERIT AWARD WINNER The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2020 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. LOCAL NEWS BRIEFS LOCAL EVENTS Updated daily online. d ay ! • L i ke u s o n F ac it Hear about it first. Sign up for Breaking News and Events at ebo TheSkannerNews o k • learn • co m me in y o u r c o m m u n he right-wing majority on the Supreme Court just undercut the Voting Rights Act again. Having gutted the section that re- quired pre-approval of state voting laws to protect the rights of minorities to vote in Shelby v. Holder, Republi- can-appointed justices now have castrated the backup clause — Section 2 — which bans racial discrimination in election practices in Brnovich v. DNC. The result will open the floodgates even further to the wave of partisan laws that Republicans are pushing in states across the country to suppress the votes of African Americans and other people of color. The right-wing jus- tices continue their assault on the meaning and power of the Voting Rights Act, a triumph of the civil rights movement that Justice Elena Kagan, writing in dissent, noted rep- resents the “best in America.” The reaction against the civil rights movement continues. Every movement for equal justice under the law in this country has been met with a brutal reaction. When re- formers tried to limit the spread of slavery into new states coming into the repub- lic, the slave states seceded, Civil Rights Leader launching the Civil War, the deadliest war in American history. After losing the war, when the federal government began reconstruction to free the slaves and guarantee equal political and economic rights to all, the reaction was brutal, with lynching and ter- “ lican legislators have sought to make it harder for African Americans and other people of color to vote. The long lines that mark inner-city voting sites are a graphic demonstra- tion of the success of those efforts, for many people can’t take the hours off from work to cast a ballot. In each era, the lawless reaction — and blatant violations of the Con- stitution — have been ratified by disgraceful decisions in the Supreme Court. The court ratified segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson, inventing the doctrine of separate but equal The so-called “conservative” jus- tices on the Supreme Court are rewriting the laws passed by Con- gress to serve their own partisan purposes rorism — led by the Ku Klux Klan and others — spreading to suppress the newly freed slaves. In the end, segrega- tion — America’s version of apartheid — spread through the South and the hope of the civil rights amendments was crushed. Now, after the civil rights movement, the Voting Rights Act and the election of Barack Obama, the reaction has been fierce. Across the country, Repub- — a concept that existed only in the judge’s imaginations, not in the realities of any of the former slave states. Vot- er suppression following the civil rights movement was ratified in Shelby v. Holder and now in Brnovich vs. the DNC, that have essentially gutted the Voting Rights Act, the crown jewel of the civil rights movement. The so-called “conserva- tive” justices on the Supreme Court are rewriting the laws passed by Congress to serve their own partisan purposes. Now the excuse is to limit vot- er fraud, even though there is no evidence of such fraud oth- er than in the ravings of parti- san politicians. This struggle will continue. Clearly, Repub- licans across the country have decided that rather than seek- ing to win the votes of African Americans and other peoples of color, they would rather pass measures to suppress their vote — from discrimina- tory changes in voting prac- tices, to gerrymandering of districts, to (most dangerous- ly) empowering Republican legislatures to overturn the results of an election. Once more people of conscience must stand up and organize to protect the right to vote and to counter those who would sup- press it. Once more, right-wing jus- tices have written another shameful chapter of judicial ignominy that must simply be overturned. Once more Congress must act to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to counter the brazen efforts of the court’s right wing to neuter it. Once more, those standing in the way of equali- ty under the law will find that the movement for justice will not be deterred. Lesser of Two Evils M Local News Pacific NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar • nts Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. T Jerry Foster Advertising Manager to y • Opinion any Black voters knew we were settling for the lesser of two evils when we held our nos- es and voted for Joe Biden for president of the United States. With Donald Trump in the mix, we knew that Biden was not the worst that we could do, but a lesser evil is still an evil. More than eight months after we cast our votes, we clearly see what that evil looks like. Democracy has slipped during the Trump years and is now in hanging by its fingernails onto a cliff that plunges into the abyss of racial inequity, the likes of which we have not seen since President Rutherford Hayes withdrew federal troops from the South in 1877, ending the first Reconstruction. There can be no doubt that elements within this coun- try, and particularly within the Republican Party, hope to strip Black and brown people of their constitutional and human rights. The recent ma- neuvers to limit voting rights are bullets aimed directly at the heads of non-white people. These assaults upon the most loyal segments of the Democratic Party are being facilitated by Democratic politicians who display an undeniable hostility towards voters of color by prefer- ring a nonexistent comity Oscar H. Blayton Guest Columnist among members of Congress to the rights of citizens, in- cluding their own constitu- ents. And all the while, our lesser of two evils simply mouths platitudes about get- ting along without taking any leadership position that “ cares what will happen to peo- ple of color when a Trump- packed U.S. Supreme Court continues to uphold the new barrage of Jim Crow voting laws that are popping up like poisonous mushrooms across the country. It is not enough to say that Biden will be #OneAndDone and plan to rid our country of his feckless administration after four years. We must mo- bilize now to ensure that we will have the ability to vote after his four years in office. There are those who use We must mobilize now to ensure that we will have the ability to vote after his four years in office would protect voters of color, the Democratic Party or the democratic principles upon which this nation is supposed to be secured. Given the current situation people of color find ourselves in, I offer up that U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema know that an overwhelming majority of Republicans in Congress have no desire to act in good faith and seek a rea- sonable compromise to pro- tect voting rights. But Sens. Manchin and Sinema do not care. And given the recent behavior of Biden, we must ask ourselves if the president the term “the second Recon- struction” to characterize the period after the passage of the Civil Rights Acts. But just as the newly freed slaves were abandoned by the prag- matists of politics in the late 19th century, people of color are facing abandonment by scores of Democratic politi- cians today. If we do not act to protect our own rights and liberties, we will suffer the same catastrophic fate that our ancestors suffered for nearly a century after our faint-hearted allies decided our freedoms were not worth fighting for. This is more urgent than a call to action – it is a “scram- ble alert.” People of color have a pressing and monumental task ahead of us – great, in both importance and size. We have many allies, both stout-hearted and faint-heart- ed, and we face many detrac- tors of varying degrees. We have our future to protect. Now is not the time to delay. Those who want to “wait and see” are merely in denial. The evil is upon us. We cannot be led into inaction by those who either care so little or know so little about what we face. There are a multitude of civic and political organiza- tions that take this threat to our democracy seriously and we can look to them to help us organize and prepare for the onslaught facing us in the coming years and not be hamstrung by an ineffective White House. It is beyond the scope of this writing to list all the or- ganizations girding for the upcoming political battles, so we must seek them out in our local areas and offer our sup- port in whatever way we can. We cannot delude ourselves. The struggle is upon us, and we must prepare for “good trouble,” as John Lewis put it, because peace is not so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. nt • lo c a l n e w s • eve
