The Shameful Racism of Southern Conservatives: They Just Don't Want Minorities to Vote

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/shameful-racism-southern-conservatives-they-just-dont-want-minorities-vote



Sometimes conservative politicians, particularly those who hail from the South, accidentally forget to dog-whistle and they say what’s really on their minds. It’s always revealing.

Take the Georgia secretary of state, for instance, who just this week gave a speech about voting “integrity” and told his Republican audience, “the Democrats are working hard, and all these stories about them, you know, registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines, if they can do that, they can win these elections in November.” That was actually a rare slip-up in an otherwise pretty slick speech where he obliquely referred to ACORN and its alleged misdeeds and bragged about how the state is making it really complicated to register online so as to root out (nonexistent) voter fraud, wink, wink. (That last seems like a dubious strategy for a party that is dependent on elderly, rural white voters …)

But after you isolate all the clever obfuscation, you see that he is simply saying that Democrats are registering too many racial minorities and that will inevitably hurt the ball team. This is, of course, an old story that goes back to Reconstruction. In those days the Southern conservatives all gathered in the Democratic Party, but any party with which those particular folks identify gets upset at the prospect of racial minorities voting. Such things as “citizenship tests” and poll taxes are no longer available to them so they have to rely on subtler ways to ensure that this group of citizens are kept from voting their interests.

It used to be strictly African-Americans about whom these fine folks were worried but the modern GOP has been pretty concerned about the Latino vote for some time as well. As long ago as the early ’60s, Arizona Republican activist (and future chief justice of the Supreme Court) William Rehnquist was involved in something called Operation Eagle Eye. This document in the LBJ library, which Rick Perlstein found for his book on the Goldwater campaign called “Before the Storm,” lays out the strategy:

John M Bailey, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, charged today that “under the guise of setting up an apparatus to protect the sanctity of the ballot, the Republicans are actually creating the machinery for a carefully organized campaign to intimidate voters and to frighten members of minority groups from casting their ballots on November 3rd.

[merrily]

1. To be fair,

the rw desire to keep people from voting is not limited to the South or to minorities.

Systematic vote caging goes on by neighborhood and address. Like so much in politics, it's about the numbers and economic strata.

They are no happier to see George Clooney vote Democratic than they are to see Vernon Jordan vote Democratic and I am pretty sure they are not trying to keep Michael Steele or Heman Cain from voting.

Do they have additional issues about minorities? Yes, many of them do. But that is not the point with voting. Does vote caging capture more minority votes than white votes? Depends on the neighborhood, but usually yes. However, I can't say that is the focus of vote caging, rather than the result of long-term effects of xenophobia and racism, including in leasing and selling real estate, in hiring, etc. They think minorities and poor people are likelier to vote Democratic than Republican--and that may well be accurate, though Steven Spielberg does all right, I gather. So, they target minorities and poor people in Democratic districts.

But, again, Republicans are no happier for whites to elect a Democrat than they are for minorities to elect a Democrat. Other issues are all about race and nothing else, or about economics and nothing else. This one is about votes first and primarily (no pun intended) and race and economics second and incidentally. Shouldn't be about any of those things, first, second, third or last. Every person should want everyone to vote. But there are more Democrats than Republicans, so they would like for all of us to be denied a ballot.

[DeadEyeDyck]

5. They might want to watch what they wish for.

North Georgia has a large population of Koreans. They are wealthy, educated and vote republican.

[merrily]

8. And they probably will not vote cage in that district or those districts.

[LuvNewcastle]

2. Simply put, the only way Republicans

can win elections is by keeping the poor and non-whites from voting. Unless the GOP makes a drastic change, it will be a long time before they win the presidency without cheating. That's why they run Republicans in the Democratic Party. It gives the GOP a fighting chance.

[Jerry442]

3. "Such things as 'citizenship tests' and poll taxes are no longer available..."

I wouldn't be too sure about that.

[PADemD]

4. casting their ballots on November 3rd

Shouldn't they vote on November 4th?

[Chellee]

6. Different election

the paragraph following:

“‘Let’s get this straight,’ Bailey added, ‘the Democratic Party is just as much opposed to vote frauds as is the Republican party. We will settle for giving all legally registered voters an opportunity to make their choice on November 3rd. We have enough faith in our Party to be confident that the outcome will be a vote of confidence in President Johnson and a mandate for the President and his running mate, Hubert Humphrey, to continue the programs of the Johnson-Kennedy Administration."

[Chasstev365]

7. Yet they claim they love American more than Democrats

The voter obstructions of these Republicans state governments should be the rallying cry of a new Civil Rights Movement. If they require a photo ID, there should be mass efforts to get IDs for minorities etc. $, Bus trips, whatever it takes! If they close DMV sites where minorities can register, challenge it in court. FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!

Meet every obstacle head on and do whatever it takes to fight it and draw attention to the injustice of these thugs.

[WhiteTara]

9. especially since the election takes place on Nov 4th.