SCOTUS arguments show 'there is still work to do' on voting rights

President Lyndon Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act,
with Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights
leaders in the Capitol Rotunda, Washington, DC, 08/06/1965
(Photo credit: The U.S. National Archives)

There are few words that cut through the perennial story of American pride in its exceptionality, like "racism." That one, ugly social system, propped up over our sordid history by institutional and ideological bulwarks of denial and ignorance, like Jim Crow, is part of the DNA of our country, away from which we are continually attempting to evolve. But just saying it's over doesn't end it. Seeing more minorities voting than ever doesn't end it. Electing an African American president doesn't end it.

Ask the people whose 2012 vote was protected by the Department of Justice denying attempt after attempt in states affected by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The need for DoJ clearance and oversight is essential to implementation. That's what makes the law "rational in theory and practice," the loss of which, the plaintiff representing Shelby County, Alabama, in the case, argued Wednesday, should be grounds for overturning the preclearance called for in the disputed section of the VRA.

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Rounding up the Roma in Europe's Arizona

"A disgrace." That's what the European Union Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding called France's continuing deportation of thousands of Roma (part of a group commonly known as Gypsies) to Romania.

France claims the ethnic minority, who mostly live in poverty in more than 300 camps across the country, are disproportionally responsible for a high number of crimes and criminal behavior. France has expelled the Roma before, but the latest wave follows an attack by Roma on a police station, in reaction to a young woman from a local camp being shot and killed by police.

What makes this episode particularly vile, is the leaking of a memorandum that was issued in the beginning of August, calling for a "systematic action to dismantle the illegal camps, in priority those of the Roma." Furthermore, to the EU's dismay, French officials have insisted that they are working "in favor of the Roma population."

"We can improve the situation of the Roma," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman, "who are at the heart of our concerns and our action."

So the French are uprooting thousands of individuals, putting them on buses and airplanes back to the discrimination they will face in Bulgaria and Romania in order to "improve the situation" for them.

The French Interior Minister, Brice Hortefeux, defended the action, saying the deportations are happening "not because they are Roma, but because they (the camps) are illegal." Remind you of anything?

The refrain in Arizona, and elsewhere, is that the anger over illegal immigration is over the "illegal" part, and not racism. This despite the fact that the most vocal anti-immigrant groups are the ones worried about White people becoming a minority, those who see the US defined as a nation run by Europeans.

The EU's Reding pegged it Tuesday, when she said, "This is a situation I thought Europe would not have to witness again after the Second World War." In World War Two, Vichy France was notoriously complicit in rounding up Jews and Gypsies and sending them to Nazi death camps.

So what's going on here? The French have decided that because they are French, they cannot possibly be racist. Everything they are doing - expelling the Roma, outlawing the burqa for Muslim women - they are doing for their minority populations, not to them. N'est pas?

-PBG

When the moon says it's Rosh Hashanah and Eid al-Fitr, and the sun says it's 9/11

"Allah is great, Allah is great.
There is no deity but Allah.
Allah is great, Allah is great
And all praises are for Allah."
- Opening Takbir prayer Muslims say when Ramadan is declared over, and Eid al-Fitr begins

"It is true that You alone are the One Who judges,
proves, knows, and bears witness;
Who writes and seats, (counts and calculates);
Who remembers all that was forgotten."
- from the Un'taneh Tokef prayer, recited by Jews on
Rosh Hashanah

"This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day."
- President George W. Bush address to the nation on September 11, 2001

This year marks the first time since the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), the Eid (festival) marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and September 11 have all aligned.

It is a poignant reminder that the faith of humanity moves as a clock, and will not be disrupted by angry men, violent weapons, and hateful words.

When this year's Ramadan began, and it became apparent that 9/11 could end up being the first day of Eid al-Fitr, Muslim leaders in America became nervous. It could, after all, appear that the faithful, with parties and carnivals worldwide, were celebrating 9/11, rather than commemorating the end of Ramadan festival in their traditional way.

A spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations told the Associated Press when the month began, that he could "sense brewing" hate on the internet, especially with the Manhattan Islamic Center controversy inflaming tensions. "It's getting really scary out there," Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR told the AP.

As it turns out, the Saudi Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the Eid will begin in Saudi Arabia on Friday, which is September 10. Most Muslim countries are expected to follow the Saudi lead on this. Although in the U.S., one can expect the traditional Eid celebrations to be more muted than usual in deference to the 9/11 anniversary.

Although both Jews and Muslims follow a lunar calendar - with days and months delineated by the phases of the moon - the Jewish calendar is always adjusted to make certain that the appropriate festivals correspond to the appropriate seasons. Passover, for example, will always be in the spring, Shavuot in the early summer, and Rosh Hashanah in the autumn.

The Muslim calendar, in contrast, is not locked to the seasons. It slips about ten days a year, relative to the secular, Gregorian calendar. That is why Ramadan, a holiday where people fast during daylight hours, can come in the short days of winter or the long, hot days of summer.

A specific Muslim date will align with a specific Jewish date only once every 33 years. Some find the confluence of holy days significant. "Both Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan are opportunities for thauba or teshuvah, improving one's character through introspection, increasing one's commitment to doing good deeds," according to an interfaith dialogue on one Jewish British website.

Some, like Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who just "suspended" his plans to burn Qur'ans on Saturday's anniversary, have drawn brimstone lines in the coal sands of intolerance, hoping to rally the vapid minds of rabid ignorance to their side. Instead, their line has become a circle of light, uniting Muslims and Jews, and all those for whom the insanity of this hateful act was beyond the pale.

The "extended period of soul-searching," as one author put it, present during both Ramadan and the Jewish High Holidays, must, Insha'Allah /Im Yirtza HaShem/God willing, "help bond our communities together."

-PBG

Remembering Days of Daisies and Death

On the Fortieth Anniversary Of a Memphis Killing

What is the color of nostalgia? I'm old enough to remember a past through a classically clouded sepia haze, but I'm also young enough to see the past through a shower of pop art daisies.

Remembering the times when daisies were on everything from black-light posters to bell-bottoms to that spot of smooth skin between Goldie Hawn's belly button and bikini line (sock-it-to-me), it sounds like a time of love - of innocence and joyful self expression. In some ways, it was.

"If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say."

But mixed into that psychedelic rainstorm and brainstorm is the bloody shadow of cut roses that are doomed before they ever open their petals to the world.

"Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards— that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school."

It may be that we bundle roses into bouquets, when they've only just started to smell and barely to flower, to indicate that there is a greater beauty in our relationships and in our lives that awaits joyful discovery even as the fragrant petals await their time to smile.

"I'd like somebody to mention that day that
Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life
serving others.

"I'd like for somebody to say that day that
Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody."

But when cut roses fall onto the coffins of the dead, it means something else. It represents the unfulfilled potential of a life abridged, an abrupt end to discovery's trajectory.

"I want you to say that day that I tried to be
right on the war question.

"I want you to be able to say that day that I
did try to feed the hungry.

"And I want you to be able to say that day
that I did try in my life to clothe those who
were naked."

It is these dying roses that fall like hailstones through the bright mist of a 1968 daisy shower. They are the shrapnel in the flower power explosion. Anyone who remembers that April day remembers the scars it left on our hopes, the holes it tore in our dreams: disbelief; distrust; and a toxic infection that - by the end of June - turned most activists into apathetic cynics.

"I want you to say on that day that I did try
in my life to visit those who were in prison.

"I want you to say that I tried to love and
serve humanity."

But I don't mean to categorize April 4, 1968 as just another element in the concept we call "The Sixties," or even to lump it into the multi faceted maelstrom of that one, tragic year. I want to call that day what it was - it was the day the drum major died.

"Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major,
say that I was a drum major for justice.
Say that I was a drum major for peace.
I was a drum major for righteousness.
And all of the other shallow things will not matter.
I won't have any money to leave behind.
I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life
to leave behind. But I just want to leave a
committed life behind."

From Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Drum Major Instinct" speech,
delivered February 4, 1968 at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia

The child I was then is only a small part of the man I am now. Remembering that day, in the carpool, when Mrs. Pazol told us that Martin Luther King had been assassinated, I wonder how much I really understood of the man. Indeed, I am lucky that I live in a city that considers itself not only his birthplace but also the guardian of his legacy. When Atlanta finally allowed itself to breathe, the years that followed had a momentum that was unstoppable. Achievement and equal opportunity have been growing here since then, despite the rednecks in their white sheets.

But no one thinks the words "We Shall Overcome" are passe, ready to be retired. Even if Senator Obama captures the Presidency, that ends nothing. The past month of "their church vs. our church," "their pastor vs. our pastor" shows that not only is there still a feeling of disconnectedness in the African American community, but there is also a white racist behind every tree ready to spring a backlash onto the conversation.

Senator Obama's ascendancy, however high it goes, is good for the country. It's good for "White" America and it's good for "Black" America. Even the disturbing overtones in the public debate in March are good because we can see how much farther we actually have to go to see equality from every racial perspective, which is one of the main points of Sen. Obama's speech on race.

One thing is clear: in a country where our Founding Fathers were proud to declare e pluribus unum - out of many, one - there can never be equality without generosity; there can never be freedom without a voice; there can never be unity without understanding; there can never be an "us" as long as there is a "them."

When the time finally comes to stop singing "We Shall Overcome," no one will remember why we even sang it to begin with. Until then, we all must sing it, because if not for keeping our eyes on that distant time, we would be forever still, lying in our own blood on the cold, concrete balcony of a Memphis motel.

-PBG