Recently, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Marc Morial, and five other Black political leaders sat down for a meeting with President Biden and Vice-President Harris to voice their concerns over the plethora of anti-democratic bills working their way through the legislatures of red states designed to limit the voting rights of Black and brown people. The Republicans, sensing they are becoming a marginalized minority, are unfairly attempting to change voting rules so they can handpick the winners and losers in future elections.
The methods they are planning to use harken back to the days of Jim Crow, where Blacks were denied the vote by a wide variety of means. Today they are seeking to make it more difficult for persons of color to vote by limiting early voting, shortening poll hours and curtailing the use of mail-in ballots. The legislators in the state of Georgia even went so far as to make it illegal for anyone to give out bottles of water to people waiting on line to cast their ballot.
While I applaud the Black leaders for taking the initiative by sitting down with the president and vice-president, the meeting perhaps should have included white representatives from the progressive left, such as students and members of the LGBTQ communities (indeed members from all of the groups that formed the coalition that helped Biden/Harris win victory) since they all stand to lose just as much as Blacks if Republican efforts at limiting the franchise are successful.
Under the guise of assuring “election integrity” — in spite of the fact that voter fraud is so rare in this country it’s almost non-extant — Republicans are seeking to steal elections so they can enact their right-wing agenda, which amounts to continued white superiority, installing a form of government akin to the recently dismantled apartheid of South Africa. And they are utterly shameless in their efforts.
Since the two voting rights bills are stalled in Congress, there has to be a grassroots effort to get around whatever stumbling blocks red state legislatures come up with to rig elections. And this effort should not be taken up by Black voting rights organizations alone. White allies that stand to lose just as much as Blacks have to be included in efforts to beat back this Republican assault on democracy. We all have to band together if we are to weather the coming storm of Republican vote rigging.
2 Responses to “MANSFIELD: Weathering the Storm”
Patricia Blochowiak
But of course.
Penny Jeffrey
The League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland, LWV Ohio and LWVUS are all working for voting rights, including all of its diverse membership.