Tag Archives: NAACP

North Carolina Voting Maps

Voting Map

For the first time since the Civil War, republicans were in charge of drawing voting districts in North Carolina.  And in a move that should have surprised no one, they redrew those lines in a different manner than had democrats.

And in a response that also surprised no one, democrats, voting rights groups and the NAACP sued.

Today they lost:

Raleigh, N.C. — A three-judge panel on Monday upheld legislative and congressional districts drawn by the Republican-dominated General Assembly in 2011, ruling unanimously that the maps were constitutional.

Democrats, the state NAACP and good-government groups had sued to invalidate the maps, saying they were improperly drawn based on racial considerations. The opponents also argued lawmakers too finely split the state, dividing so many local voting precincts that it would create confusion.

But the three Superior Court judges found that those challenging the maps had not showed “a violation of any cognizable equal protection rights of any North Carolina citizens, or groups thereof, will result.”

Frankly, I’m tired of the constant race bating that is pitched whenever issues like this arise.  To think that only republicans are guilty of selfishly drawing district line is ignorant.  And to think that republicans are doing it to repress some minority is insulting.

I mean, it’s not like the map hadn’t already reviewed, by the now insulting VRA stipulation:

But in 2010, Republicans controlled both the House and Senate and, therefore, redistricting legislation. Former Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat who left office in early 2013, had no say in how the districts were drawn because state law does not give the governor veto authority over redistricting plans.

Republicans leveraged those favorable districts to win super-majorities of both the state House and Senate, as well as capture nine of the state’s U.S. House seats.

After the maps cleared the General Assembly, they were reviewed and “pre-cleared” by the U.S. Justice Department under a procedure laid out by the federal Voting Rights Act. The U.S. Justice Department, whose leadership was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, found the maps did not hurt the ability of minorities to elect candidates of their choice.

In fact, Republican lawmakers frequently cited their need to comply with voting rights law as a reason to create legislative districts that contained high concentrations of minority voters. Plaintiffs challenging the districts said lawmakers were trying to illegally “pack” minority voters into a few districts, diluting their overall influence.

The map was pre-cleared by the US Justice department.  Not an organization that is exactly in favor of fairly enforcing republican themes.

We’ll see if there is an appeal.

 

North Carolina: Moral Monday

NC-GOP1

North Carolina is firmly red, much to the joy of NC State fans the world over!

But seriously, some folks are not overly happy that the republicans are in power:

We don’t take civil disobedience lightly. But the avalanche of extreme policies from Gov. Pat McCrory and the North Carolina General Assembly — attacking the poor and unemployed, cutting crucial funding from public education and dismantling voting rights — left us no choice. From teenage college students to elderly grandmothers, we are assembling in the State Capitol, week after week, to sing, pray and force politicians to hear our voices.

After our first nonviolent protest, 17 of us were arrested and jailed. The next Monday, 30 moral witnesses were carted off in handcuffs, and the next week the number was 49. Last week, 57 protesters were arrested and jailed. Still more of us are prepared to put our bodies on the line to oppose the backward, far-right ideological vision taking hold in our state.

Here’s why.

In the first 50 days of this session alone, the General Assembly and McCrory cut the earned income tax credit for more than 900,000 poor and working people. They rejected federal funding to expand Medicaid to cover 500,000 North Carolinians without health insurance. They slashed state unemployment benefits and rejected federally funded Emergency Unemployment Compensation to 170,000 laid-off workers. This vicious war on the poor will devastate hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians who are already suffering. And with no checks on the Republican hold on the legislature and governorship, these laws are only the beginning.

Piling further indignities on the poor, they also want to require people applying for temporary assistance or benefits to submit to criminal background checks, and force applicants to a job training program for low-income workers to take a drug test, for which they have to pay.

Now the legislature wants to increase and expand taxes on groceries, haircuts and prescription drugs. They’re even taking aim at poor children with a bill to lower the income requirement for North Carolina’s prekindergarten program, making it off limits to nearly 30,000 children who would have previously qualified.

Perhaps most terrifying is that the politicians who have seized control are trying to rig the state’s election rules, seeking to remain in power far after this legislative session. In their kitchen sink approach to voter suppression, they have pushed bills to require strict forms of photo ID for voting, repeal same-day registration, cut early voting from 17 days to six and ban early voting on Sundays.

Mr. Barber is the President of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP.  And he’s been instrumental in the Moral Monday protests at the capital.

Personally, the protests smack of laziness and juvenile tendencies. These people are getting arrested to see their names in the paper.  To back slap each other at the Occupy Nowhere bonfires.  They fuel themselves.

The Tea Party rallied, to be sure.  But they were legal.  They weren’t arrested.  They left the grounds better than they found them

These people?  Occupy Wall Street retreds.

The NAACP – Racists

The definition of the word “racist” has changed.  Today, its use has been co-opted by the left to instill a form of faux outrage against groups, or more accurately, policies that they don’t like.

To be sure, given any group of people and any sufficiently random problem to be solved, there will be disagreement.  And, in my opinion, in that disagreement lies the secret to America’s success; what a horrible horrible world it would be if it worked exactly like I wanted it to.

Or if it worked exactly like YOU wanted it to.

However, some of us engage in an especially caustic form of objection.  See, it’s one thing to disagree on merit, to debate rationally, emotionally even, but in a realm of reality.  But that doesn’t always win elections, it doesn’t always move people to act, to anger or to vote.

To do that, you have to make it that your opponent is “against” something.  And one of the most often used targets for that is race.

See, if I can make it look like your position on an issue is racist, I win.  Not because my position is stronger or more valid, not at all.  It’s because I have successfully cast you as a racist.  And who is for racism?

No one.

And this is how the left, liberals and democrats operate.  They ignore the merits of the policy and instead, and effectively, manipulate race.

And here in North Carolina we have an elected official going after the source:

Raleigh, N.C. — A Republican House freshman will be in the spotlight Friday at an NAACP press conference for an email he sent to the state organization, calling the group and its leader “racist” and “race-opportunists.”

Rep. Michael Speciale, R-Craven, along with all other state lawmakers, received an emailed version of a statement last week by NAACP state president William Barber on proposed voter ID legislation.

In the statement, Barber calls voter ID initiatives “national propaganda efforts by the far-right to justify the obvious tactic to suppress the votes of minorities, youth, disabled and the elderly,” and urges Republican legislative leaders to abandon their push for such a law in North Carolina.

Sing it brother!

The e-mail in full:

Dr. Barber,

This is as insulting a diatribe as I have seen in years. The NAACP has a proud history of working on behalf of black Americans to address the problems of society directed at them. You tarnish that with your racist diatribes and your race-baiting attitude. The photo requirement to vote is to prove that one is who they say they are. Nowhere in anyone’s minds but yours and your fellow race-opportunists is race, ethnic background, or color of one’s skin mentioned, insinuated or inferred regarding the proposed voter ID laws.

You do minorities and the elderly a disservice when you assume that they are incapable or incompetent to the point that they cannot provide a photo ID to vote. Photo ID’s are required in nearly every aspect of American life, and most Americans over the age of 16 have some form of photo ID. Your talking points make no sense, as you ramble on with Constitutional phrases to give an impression that you know what you are talking about, and it is apparent that you are grasping at straws. Your attempts to make minorities and the elderly believe that they are victims in this effort is contrary to common sense but apparently necessary to your economic survival

Your comments, both today and in the past are racist and inappropriate, therefore, I request that you remove me from your email list.
Michael Speciale

The new definition of racism, the “urban-dictionary” version of racism, calls out anyone that would use race as a reason to promote a policy.  Anything from immigration to voter-id to pre-k education to unemployment reform to you name it, if you don’t agree with it you can defend your position best by calling racism.

And it’s about time that someone called the left on it.

When someone uses “racism” as a lever to push an agenda that they disagree with, they are as guilty of this “urban dictionary” version of the definition as those they themselves accuse.  In this case it’s voter-id.  The North Carolina chapter of the NAACP is calling out state officials for engaging in racist policy as it pertains to voter requirements.  Yet they are silent on ID requirements for alcohol, cigarettes, the lottery, sudafed, and -as I learned today- mailing packages in a box through the mail.

Is it true that voter fraud is a problem in North Carolina?  Probably not.  Is it true that we want people who are casting votes to be able to prove who they are?  Probably so.  Given the economic circumstances is it the best policy to pursue at this time?  Debatable.

But is it racist?

If you ask that question, think that question, in those words, you don’t know what you are talking about.

That Whole Squeaky Wheel Thing?

As a general rule I try to listen to what people say with a degree of open-mindedness.  IN my line of work, I hear all kids of reasons for things gone wrong and even more for why they can’t get fixed.

All day, every day.

And, in truth, many of those folks are right.  Or mostly right.  Or maybe just kinda right.

Every once in awhile I find someone who is NEVER right and I disregard what they say out of hand.  The Reverend Barber and the North Carolina NAACP are that guy.

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s NAACP chapter says it will fight the General Assembly’s plan to redraw legislative and congressional boundaries in court and within the Obama administration.

The Rev. William Barber said Monday the group is ramping up to challenge the maps drawn by the first Republican-led Legislature since the 1870s.

The first map drawn by Republicans since the 1870s.  Can you imagine how gerrymandered that map is today; only in favor of the Democrats?  Can you imagine a scenario where that map ISN’T gonna look different than the Democrat’s map?  One that has had the advantage of being refined over 141 years?

It’s become so bad that I’m not convinced proper legislation has been passed unless and until Reverend Barber complains.  Then I KNOW it’s right!

William Barber: North Carolina NAACP

I don’t like groups of people that label other groups of people as racist.  Or of saying that they are doing things for racist reasons.  I mean, do those groups of people even know what racism means?

The belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors and that this endows some races with an intrinsic superiority over others.

Does the NAACP really think that a group of people, in this case the Tea Party, really feels that they hold beliefs that African American people have characteristics determined by hereditary factors?

It would seem so.

However, with that said, I don’t believe the answer to such gross mis-characterizations in such circumstances is to respond in kind.

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The NAACP and WCPSS

A message to the NAACP regarding the Wake County public schools:

You are making yourself look silly.

Period.

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WCPSS: Diversity

The advocates of the Diversity policy in Wake County have lost an advocate.

Since I became interested in the debate, I have sided with the folks who were in favor of using socio-economic diversity when planning assignments in WCPSS.  I am pretty much in favor of using any tool in a tool box to fix a problem.  And I think the data supports the fact that when a school is becomes “too poor” it tips.

And achievement suffers.

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Racism

Ugh.  Ugly.

With very few exceptions, the racism our in the early stages of our nation have been our worst example of Liberty.  It’s horrible and without defense.

But are we reaching new lows?

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Over Selling Their Complaints

There is quite a fight here in Raleigh over our schools.  Because of the way we build school districts here in Carolina, our district is the 18th largest in the nation.  And because we are so large, we have quite the diversity; and with it–debate.

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