Doing more TV watching over the internet than writing these days, when not involved in courses I’m teaching.
Has anyone else followed the details of what is going on in North Carolina? Rachel Maddow is hitting the matter very hard on today’s show.
This has all, of course, seemed to me as Jim Crow. And Sore Loserism, the fact that certain hardcore Republicans can’t come to grips with the fact that Democrats win and win big, on more and more occasions.
The state of North Carolina is passing law after law, which are designed to make it more difficult for Democrats to vote. Since most blacks in North Carolina vote for Democrats, this is, in effect, a way to make it more difficult for black people to vote.
In the Japan-side expat blogosphere, there is a long-running tiff going on as to whether the haphazard application of a rule (or some rule with what seems a poorly grounded purpose) is a form of discrimination. I am more of the camp to say that you do need to look at what effect a certain rule has.
People who discriminate don’t always come out and say, “Now, I do this with discriminatory intent!!!” What tends to happen is, they try to figure out clever ways to reach their discriminatory result without overtly seeming to want to harm one particular group.
This looks like what is going on in North Carolina right now. All the changes have, as an end result, making it more difficult for Democratic-leaning communities to vote and thereby making it difficult for blacks to vote.
I hope the Obama Administration’s Justice department rains holy hell down on the North Carolina government for what it is doing against the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Particularly, as a message to multimillionaire Art Pope, who Maddow reports has basically bought the North Carolina state legislator and now is budget director for the state.
Most southern states are banana republics and have been since inception—certainly since their little stunt in the 19th century. You don’t try to find middle ground with people like that. You call them out for what they’re doing.
Hoofin 