Before leaving my house today to join in the North Carolina “Moral Monday” demonstration in downtown Raleigh, I saw MSNBC correspondent Craig Melvin do a story on the protests.  He interviewed Jotaka Eaddy, NAACP Senior Director for Voting Rights, asking her opinion about the interesting demographics of the arrestees.  


The crowds at these rallies have been overall fairly diverse, and people of a variety of races and cultures have joined the smaller group of hearty souls volunteering to be arrested.  But by the numbers, the latter group – the arrestees – has been a remarkably white, older, middle- or upper-middle class set.  During the news segment, video footage of Moral Monday arrests ran on a split screen opposite the interview.  Melvin observed that while the protests have been led by the NAACP, an organization created to support people of color, a lot of white folks have joined in.  Viewers were shown arrests of a few of them; a 60-ish, carefully-coiffed lady in a tailored silk blouse; a woman in her early 30’s in business attire; an older, bearded professorial-looking gentleman, who, incidentally, was wearing a grey hoodie to signify his allegiance to Trayvon Martin’s cause. 

Eaddy’s answer to the question about this profile of demonstrators was perfectly fine.  She explained how the new voting restrictions will affect voters across demographic lines; not just minority and poor voters, but young voters, seniors, and the disabled as well.  College students will have a harder time voting under the law, and elderly and disabled people of any race or economic status are statistically less likely to possess one of the strictly defined, government-issued photo ID’s required under the bill.  Indeed, injustice aside, the law is poorly conceived logistically, and may impact all voters.  Early voting days are well-used in North Carolina.  If we eliminate them, we will see longer lines on election days. 

But truth be told, many of the people volunteering to be arrested at the General Assembly building during these demonstrations are among those least likely to be affected by the pending bill.  They are professional, educated, employed or retired.  They likely already possess a valid North Carolina driver’s license.  If not, they are likely able to obtain the official documents they need to apply for a state ID.  In fact, it’s their ordinary access to resources and services that allows them to choose to go to jail for political reasons.  They are likely to have some professional, civic, or academic familiarity with the workings of the justice system, as well as access to money for bail and legal fees, free time or flex-time, and support networks. 

That doesn't mean it isn't hard to do this; it takes guts for anyone.  Some arrestees risk professional or familial censure.  Some of them are facing down fears of panic that can arise from sitting in a jail cell.  All of them are agreeing to an utter loss of freedom.  And nobody is making them do it.

So why are they there?  Why do they put their bodies on the line; offering their wrists up to be cuffed, climbing on a prisoner transport bus, staring into the glare of the mugshot light; fingertips inked for prints, and file into a jail cell to await release on to a downtown street in the wee hours of the next morning? 

They go to show allegiance to fellow citizens who will be affected by this bill.  They go in solidarity with those who will soon learn that although they are eligible, registered voters, state lawmakers have chosen to proactively and tangibly discourage them from voting.  

These arrestees exemplify an impressive combination of compassion, insight, and rage. Realize, the oldest of them have witnessed a better way than this.  They have been here during a time - over the last half-century - during which their country learned in fits and starts how to improve access to the polls.  They have seen, over these decades, legions of leaders from both parties strive to make it more possible for everyone to participate in the democratic process.  They have seen both conservative and liberal politicians say, this is critical.  Everyone must have a part in selecting their representatives.  It is essential to the integrity of our system.

Now our arrestees see something very different - something sinister – taking hold in powerful places.  They see conscious efforts to dismantle those decades of good work.  They watch public servants making cynical, short-sighted, and destructive policy decisions.  And they are wise enough to know the damage will be real, and it will hit hardest those who are least able to stand up to power. 

Understand what our arrestees understand: that strict voter ID requirements and reduced voting hours serve no legitimate purpose, and could potentially affect over 300,000 NC voters.  Understand that there will be folks who have counted on expanded voting hours in past elections, who will struggle to make it to the polls, or will be unable to wait hours on Election Day for their turn to vote.  Understand that there will be registered voters who will arrive at the polls on Election Day without possession of an accepted form of ID, who will be turned away.

Understand that there is simply no justification for strict ID requirements.  We have years of evidence showing that protecting the ballot from fraud is simply and effectively done without such requirements.  The threat of voter fraud has proven to be insignificant.  Of course, to the legislators currently in office in North Carolina, "insignificant" is too high a risk.  They have made it clear that they would rather see a number of eligible voters turned away from the polls than a single fraudulent vote cast.  Even still, a higher level of ballot security can be achieved without disenfranchising anyone.  The threat of fraud is so low that high-enough security standards are easily met by requiring voters to provide more readily obtainable forms of ID, such as voter registration cards, medical cards, work ID’s, bank cards, student ID’s, nursing home residence papers, even utility bills or other official mail.  It would be hard to even quantify how low a risk there is that someone would determine to impersonate another voter, arrive at the right polling place at an opportune time, present any card or document in their victim’s name, be handed a ballot, and cast a fraudulent vote. 

It is an understanding of this undemocratic solution to a non-existent problem that has infuriated and mobilized our arrestees.  They see that despite having been presented with copious research and personal testimony on such hazards to be faced by legitimate voters, our state legislators are stubbornly voting this bill into law. 

Our arrestees are standing up in the name of those who can’t.  They are saying with their actions that if these lawmakers want to marginalize some of the very people they represent; people who can’t afford to go to jail to prove a point, then they themselves will go.  Enthusiastically, they will go. 

Think about that.  How does it make you feel, knowing there are those whose own right to vote is not threatened by this bill, who are carving out space in their lives to be arrested protesting it?  I’ll tell you how it makes me feel.  It makes me feel teary.  It makes me feel awe, and gratitude.  It gives me a lump in my throat, and hope.  Today it made me think about a piece of music I cherish; the plaintive and stirring U2 song, “One”.    

Some of the lyrics of the song could be said to reflect on how things go wrong between people.  Listening to it today, the first few verses made me think about the mentality leading to the creation of the malevolent legislation we're seeing.  I hear the way these guys talk about the constituents they don’t care for.  I see how they choose to govern those who have so little - by starving them of support, tampering with their rights - while expecting them to participate as fully and effectively as anybody else in American society.  From the song: “Will it make it easier on you now, you got someone to blame… You act like you never had love, and you want me to go without…you ask me to enter, then you make me crawl… Did I ask too much?  more than a lot?  You gave me nothing and that's all I've got.”

Of course, most of the song is explicitly about who we as a people should be.  It’s about how we are different from each other, but we share "one love, one blood, one life."  And that "we get to carry each other."  

We get to.  
We get to carry each other.  
We get to carry each other, people.

*************************************************************************
One

Is it getting better?
Or do you feel the same?
Will it make it easier on you now?
You got someone to blame
You say

One love
One life
When it's one need
In the night
One love
We get to share it
Leaves you baby if you
Don't care for it

Did I disappoint you?
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without
Well it's 
Too late
Tonight
To drag the past out into the light
We're one, but we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other
One

Have you come here for forgiveness?
Have you come to raise the dead?
Have you come here to play Jesus?
To the lepers in your head

Did I ask too much?
More than a lot.
You gave me nothing,
Now it's all I got
We're one
But we're not the same
Well we hurt each other
Then we do it again
You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers
One life
But we're not the same
We get to
Carry each other
Carry each other
One.  One.

Try this one:
Poor people just want a hand up,
not a hand out.

Conservative pundits are very stressed right now, fretting about how to position themselves on Mitt Romney's comments at a May fundraiser in Florida.  In a just released video, recorded by a hidden camera, the Republican presidential candidate is seen wringing his hands, convinced that almost half the country is belligerently dependent on the government. 


His supporters don't know how to spin it.  Not because they disagree with what Romney said, but because they're afraid he won't get elected and put his ideas into action. 

Some think he got the numbers wrong.
Okay...so if it's not 47%, what's the right number?  It doesn't matter.  It wouldn't matter if he said 37%, or 27%.  He mis-characterized the group of people he's talking about. Who cares if he got the head count wrong?

Some think he sounded mean and stupid. 
That he could have found a more graceful way to phrase it.  But it's the idea, that liberals want people to stay dependent, that is mean and stupid.  It's the idea that people receiving public assistance are happy with their lives, and want to reelect this President so he can keep their checks coming in while they do nothing, that is mean and stupid.  It's better that he said it in such an ugly way.  It's ugly.

Some think he didn't really mean it. 
Mitt Romney doesn't really mean this?  "... there are 47 percent who are with (Obama), who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you name it."

If Mitt Romney doesn't mean that, it's only because he doesn't "mean" anything.  It's because he doesn't think deeply about anything, and doesn't care much about who we are in this country. That's the only way that excuse works; if he didn't mean what he said in that videotape, it's not because he means something more hopeful, caring, and respectful of his fellow citizens.

The best Republican response is from the irrepressible Grover Norquist. 
Not surprisingly, he's in the I-like-what-Romney-said-just-not-how-he-said-it camp. He merely wants the campaign to get their wording right. He was relieved to talk to an operative who assured him they had sorted out their responding rhetoric. "I went up to the campaign and I said, What’s your take on this? And I got back the perfect answer: 'We’re working to provide opportunity, while the other team is trying to teach dependence.' And (Norquist chortles,) we win that fight in America.  If this was Bulgaria in 1957, I’m not sure we’d win the debate. In the United States, we win that debate."

Thing is, though, the other team is not "trying to teach dependence."  What we are trying to do is give people a hand up, not a.. well, you know the saying.  We try to explain this over and over.  And yet, here we are again.  Now it's Communist Bulgaria.

To review: 

• Believing that government must play a role in guaranteeing that people have food and shelter, when they otherwise wouldn't, is not teaching dependency. 
• Believing the government should play a role in providing for its citizens' education, health care, and infrastructure, is not teaching dependency. 
• Believing government can play a role in teaching illiterate adults to read, so they can get jobs and pay taxes and support their families - is not teaching dependency.
• Believing government can play a role in helping ex-convicts re-enter society - so they can get jobs and pay taxes and be self-supporting - is not teaching dependency.
• Believing government can provide job-training to low income youth - so they can get jobs and pay taxes and be self-supporting - is not teaching dependency.
• Believing government can contribute funds to agencies that teach budgeting, treat addiction, and counsel the homeless - so that more people can get jobs and pay taxes and be self-supporting is not teaching dependency.

These things have nothing to do with teaching dependency.  Quite the opposite.  To use Grover's words, we're working to provide opportunity.

Mitt Romney has made plain what we've always presumed his dark fantasy to be: he believes nearly half of this country comprises a maladjusted, useless, huddled mass. 

Mitt, you have so much to learn about the country you love and want to lead.  Let me see if I can help you down your path of discovery.

• Actually, each and every person on this earth is "... entitled to health care, food, and housing." Applying that to everyone on earth, that's my opinion. But at least for those who live in the US, it's settled law. It's the "life" part of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

• Even if this imaginary group - this mass of whining, irresponsible parasites - existed, rest assured, you and your fellows at that fundraiser would be the last folks on earth we would turn to for help.  You aren't at any risk of misleading "dependent" people into thinking you would throw us a crumb.
• It doesn't exist, this scary group you describe.  Mitt, you patriot, you celebrator of the American people, you don't know your own country.  And you're missing out.

Your vision of the poor people in this country embarrasses you.  Shouldn't you know, at your age, and with your breadth of life experience, that there are whiny, irresponsible parasites at every income level.  Yes, sir, there are individuals who walk around feeling entitled to be handed something they haven't earned.  One can find them living as inner-city thugs, middle-management loafers, and, well, high-level corporate predators. 

But the underclass you envision as dependent is made up of the hardest working people you'll ever find.  You are actually talking about the backbone of the country, Mitt. 

I would have thought a finance guy would take a look at the numbers before making such proclaimations: If you had stopped to compare the number of people on some kind of assistance with the number of people hunting for work, holding down part time jobs, holding down several jobs, working jobs and going to school, working jobs and raising kids, you'd have realized the only way it adds up is when working people still aren't making enough to eat.  They don't stop working when they get food stamps, Mitt. 

You're talking about the people that wait for the bus and catch rides and go to their service industry jobs and hospital jobs and day care jobs and maintenance jobs and food service jobs.  

Think about what you're saying, Mitt - that half the country is sucking off the other half.  You don't know what you're talking about.  But you're talking about us, and we're offended.

I will try to assume that GOP Senator Jeff Sessions, (R - AL), doesn't understand that the specter of the hungry child is real. 
He can't knowingly accept the existence of actual hunger in this country, and still say that it is a colleague's proposal to end that hunger that is immoral.

I'll try to assume that those who decry the rising cost of the federal food stamp program as the problem, rather than the rising need for food stamps, are simply confused.

I have to believe that they truly aren't processing the fact that they are trying to reduce the deficit by forcing desperate people who come to agencies looking for help to literally go away hungry.

Here are just three ways we could adjust the tax code to save more than enough money to make up for what Republicans are suggesting we rob from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, (SNAP), a.k.a. food stamps. 

•  1. Get rid of the rule that allows stock holders to "lease" their holdings to banks for several years, avoiding capitol gains taxes on those funds.  This costs the Treasury billions of dollars a year, far more than the amount we supposedly are being forced to glean from the food stamp program.

•   2. End the practice of allowing corporations to use one value for their stocks for tax deductions and use another value to sell.  This is sort of like the Blue Book value vs the market value of a used car.  You report one to the IRS, and one to potential stock holders, and can actually come out ahead by showing the loss.  Billions lost to the treasury.

•   3. Close the loophole that allows huge, profitable corporations to pass out massive numbers of stock options to executives then claim those as losses to lower their taxable net profits, and even go into a loss, meaning future taxes are plunged even lower.  More billions.

 
These are just three quick examples to show that there is money that can be moved around without touching food stamps.  I know this is a simplistic way to look at it - it's almost silly to set up my argument this way,  I do it to illustrate a point, and there are surely countless easier and more immediate ways to shift funds to avoid cutting spending on a program that literally keeps people from dying. 

There is no better way to ensure we feed the hungry in this country than keeping SNAP funded.  There is no more direct, efficient way to cause people to have food in their mouths.  This is a matter of giving people who don't have enough to eat a debit card they can use to purchase food.  This is about beans, apples, ground beef and milk - it is not theoretical, it is not a legitimate question of policy. 

The program isn't intended to replace efforts to help people get back to work so they don't need food stamps.  Feeding people should not be questioned in discussions about how to improve the economy over time.  I have no problem debating the merits of closing tax loopholes.  I understand there is an argument to made by some on the Right that reducing benefits and advantages enjoyed by the wealthy could stifle investment.  My point here is that there is no legitimate reason to suggest that the only way to reduce the deficit would be to take it out of the food stamp program, or that it would be okay to do so if even if there was no other way.  What could be more urgent than this? 

How often do you think about your own race on a day-to-day basis?  Are you aware of the race of those around you?  Do you interact mostly with people of your own race or another race?  Describe the feelings you experience in this area.  Does your own race impact how you live your life, or how happy you are?  How does race affect your family and friends?

If you are white, have you ever thought about these questions before?  Think about whether you notice your own race very often.  If you are black or Latino or part of another minority, reflect on how often you think about your own race on a typical day.  Describe how you think society effects your awareness of your own race as you go about your day.

Do you think white people have less than, the same as, or more responsibility to be cognizant of racism than black people or other minorities?

Thanks for any thoughts you have!

Melissa V. Harris-Perry is professor of political science at Tulane University.  She is founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Project on Gender, Race, and Politics in the South.  She is an increasingly visible and effective media personality. Harris-Perry churned quickly through her first 15 minutes of national fame and kept on charging.  After logging several years as a popular professor and an outspoken social critic on the lecture circuit, her star really began rising as an occasional guest on MSNBC's evening news commentary programs.  She quickly established an authoritative voice in the national dialogue on important cultural and political issues.  Harris-Perry now hosts her own program on MSNBC each weekend, and her contribution is truly a boon to the country.  Her show appears on Saturdays and Sundays, 10:00am-12:00pm. 

Harris-Perry is great on television, able to think on her feet during those rapid-fire, expert-in-a-box debates, and has come into her on with her own show.  She is disarmingly effective, at once confrontational and charming.  But it's in her writing that you see the depth of her insight.  What I love most about her body of work is her unwavering assertion that society has a responsibility to address racism and sexism. 

The crux of her work has been an investigation of the confluence of race, gender and politics, and especially the stubborn inequalities that exist in the US.  As I have said elsewhere on this site, these issues are not the quaint, sixties-era counterculture obsessions that conservatives and even centrist Democrats would like to make them.  If nothing else, we should view the work of people like Harris-Perry with self-interest.  We won't ever begin to realize our potential as a country until we lay these problems bare and solve them. Harris-Perry's commentary on current events, which you can read on her website, melissaharrisperry.com, is lively and smart.  She has a biting sense of humor and writes with entertaining prose, while her theories are carefully considered and defended.  It is a treat to find a writer who can be entertaining and colorful while operating inside a sound, academic format.  Harris-Perry definitely pulls that off.

In a recent article on her website, melissaharrisperry.com, Harris-Perry spoke about Presidential politics, the rhetoric around Herman Cain's campaign, and the potentiality of having two black candidates run against each other for the White House. 
"[W]e need to bury, once and for all, the idea that racism is primarily about saying mean or unflattering things about black people, and specifically saying mean or unflattering things about President Obama. We need to insist that discussions of American racism rest firmly in revealing and addressing the disparate impact of policies and practices that create or deepen racially unequal outcomes. Racial animus might have prompted the nasty signage about the president at anti–healthcare reform rallies, but who cares? The issues of racism in healthcare are the continuing racial health disparities that impact black Americans from infancy to old-age. When some whites refuse to vote for Barack Obama it might be caused by racism, but the voting racism I am much more interested in is the voting and registration regulations that state governments are imposing right now in ways that will likely disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of black voters.  If we allow white Democrats to believe that support for Barack Obama is sufficient to protect them from any racialized criticism then we will have to extend that same logic to Republican supporters of Cain. Both are ridiculous. The politically relevant question on race is not the willingness to support a candidate who shows up in a black body. Anti-racism is not about hugging the black guy running for president, it’s about embracing policies that reduce structural unfairness and eliminate continuing racial inequality."

Melissa Harris-Perry
www.melissaharrisperry.com

Writer Tim Wise is a long-time soldier in the fight against racism in the US.  He is a lecturer and author who writes powerful, rigorously-researched and well-developed essays and articles, which you can find on his website.  Wise is a white Southerner who forcefully articulates the need for active involvement of white people in the fight against racism.  As a white Southerner myself, committed to same battle, he is one of my heroes.

From the website FAQ's page:
"White privilege refers to any advantage, opportunity, benefit, head start, or general protection from negative societal mistreatment, which persons deemed white will typically enjoy, but which others will generally not enjoy. These benefits can be material (such as greater opportunity in the labor market, or greater net worth, due to a history in which whites had the ability to accumulate wealth to a greater extent than persons of color), social (such as presumptions of competence, creditworthiness, law-abidingness, intelligence, etc.) or psychological (such as not having to worry about triggering negative stereotypes, rarely having to feel out of place, not having to worry about racial profiling..."

"If anybody is racist, it's the Democratic Party!"  This week at a meeting of the Clear Water, Texas chapter of the Tea Party, a conservative activist attempted to stake out the Republican Party as the home of the real hope for African Americans.  Exhorting the crowd to pull out their Smart Phones and bookmark his website RagingElephants.org, Apostle Claver Kamau-Imani informed ecstatic attendees that "the vast majority of them folks of color" support the Tea Party.  "We've done the polling on a national scale," he said, not specifying who conducted the poll he cites.  "Over 80% of those folks...agree with us!"  Kamau-Imani explained why. 

According to him, black people in this country are finally starting to realize that Democrats are “the party of slavery”, and Republicans are “the party of emancipation”.  One might assume he was speaking metaphorically.  There are black voters who have left the Democratic Party, reportedly in part because they believe that liberal policies supporting federal funding for social programs encourage dependency and are not in the best interest of black Americans.  They believe that it is the Republican approach, with an emphasis on economic growth, tax incentives and deregulation that will do more to encourage expansion, create jobs, and help black small business owners and others.  Those voters are being courted by the Tea Party, and by Republican Presidential hopeful Herman Cain, who spoke later in the same program. 

The Republican Party, said Kamau-Imani, is the party that is going to "set the captives free!"  But interestingly, when he went from the metaphorical to the literal to support his claim, he steered clear of a look at the current political ideologies of each party, and relied on ill-conceived emotional references to the Democratic Party of the Old South as far back as antebellum times.

Getting to specifics, the charismatic speaker explained that “If anybody is a racist, it's the Democratic Party that's the racist!  The party of the Ku Klux Klan!  The party of Jim Crow!  The party of Bull Conner, the party of segregation!”

Nimbly jumping back to the present, somehow managing not to trip on roughly forty years of colossal evolution in the philosophies of the two parties, Kamau-Imani insisted, "They're the racists, not us!  We're their friends!  We're the emancipators! We're the liberators!  We're their friends!"  Perhaps in a half-hearted attempt to move from the historical to the immediate, Kamau-Imani added the sound-bite, "We're the ones that believe in freedom!"

Kamau-Imani is technically correct, of course, as far as he goes.  Bull Conner, the infamous Birmingham lawman known for turning water-hoses and attack dogs on Civil Rights demonstrators. was a registered Democrat, and the party was famously pro-slavery before the Civil War, and fought integration for decades.  But if you're going to make references to that period as though it defines what the Democratic Party stands for today, you should take a look at the way both parties developed, shifted, and evolved.  And if you want to recruit black voters by claiming the platform of the early Republican Party, it would be more candid to describe all of its planks.  After all, it was those wild-eyed, tax-and-spend Whigs who eventually formed the Republican Party, and those guys were pretty loose with the federal dollars when it came to propping up farms, setting up schools and building railroads across the frontier.

Throughout our country’s history, the political parties have morphed, splintered, and adjusted to reflect new realities.  We have only consistently seen the current configuration of mostly-liberal Democrats and mostly-conservative Republicans since around the time of Kennedy and Johnson, and even since then there have been tremendous changes.  We have seen both Nixon and Reagan successfully court moderate Democrats.  We’ve seen Republicans occasionally wooed by Democratic plans to prioritize welfare reform, deficit reduction, and military strength.  And we’ve seen extremist wings of both parties come to greater prominence and influence.

Many would argue, however, that measurable, society-wide, legal progress - in justice and economic opportunity - didn’t begin to occur for black Americans until the 1960's, under Democratic control of the White House and Congress.  In terms of proactive political involvement and decisive party leadership, of the two parties it has been the Democrats that have fought for things like anti-discrimination laws; equal opportunity in housing, education, and employment; improved access to the ballot; and state-sponsored programs to improve the lives of minority youth.  Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and ushered in the era of the Great Society, which, until it was dismantled year after year by Republican Presidents, dramatically reduced poverty, a problem disproportionately affecting blacks.  It took a Democratic majority in Congress at that time to see these policies through.  Countless lives were changed for the better with the implementation of affordable housing programs and school lunch programs, the expansion of public transportation, and the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid.

If Republicans think this approach to addressing the needs of black voters is the wrong way to go, they need to submit new ideas honestly and argue for them rationally.  If Herman Cain believes, as he has said, that race no longer holds anyone back in this country, and that he himself never benefited from advances made (by Democrats) in the last half-century, let him explain exactly how that transpired, and how Republican policies better ensure success.  More power to him if he can convince black voters things will work out well for them if only they will start voting Republican. 

If what Kamau-Imani means is that there are good reasons for African Americans to vote Republican now, that’s what he should say.  He is free to make that case.  Contemporary Republicans are in their rights to promote fiscal conservatism as a means of attracting black entrepreneurs, or promote their social values to conservative black religious communities. They won’t fool many with their attempt to convince voters that the late-model GOP has any claim on the progress that has been made on race in this country.  But if they want to take the lead going forward, they should state the case on its merits, not try to mislead voters with false comparisons between modern-day Democrats and Old South Dixecrats, with their lynch mobs and state-condoned segregation.