The "N" word - in three parts: PART I

Issue Number 10- August 22, 2002

The N-Word 3-Ways - Part 1
N-Word Author asks for apology

In our July 8th issue we published the following e-Mail message from N-Word author, Randall Kennedy:

May I have space in your publication to respond to the charges that have been aimed at me and my work by you and Professor Kilson?

Kennedy was the subject of a June 27 Guest Commentary in these pages by Harvard's Dr. Martin Kilson and an additional comment in the July 11 issue. Although The Black Commentator was under no obligation to Kennedy - moral, ethical, or otherwise - we responded:

As you requested, we will make space available in The Black Commentator for your response "to the charges that have been aimed at me and my work by you and Professor Kilson." Please use as much space as you feel necessary. We will publish every word, as written.

We promised our readers a very interesting issue. Here is Part 1, because the N-word author asked for it!

When you have finished reading what the N-Word author wrote, we invite you to read the N-Word Part 2 in which Harvard colleague, Dr. Martin Kilson says an apology is not warranted and N-Word Part 3 in which  calls for the repudiation of the N-Word author.

The following is every word written to  by the N-Word author:

Dear Readers of The Black Commentator:

I contacted the editors of The Black Commentator to respond to articles they have recently published about me and my work. They have granted me space to reply and assured me that they would print my response without editorial intervention. I would like to thank them for this opportunity.

First I was condemned by Professor Martin Kilson of Harvard University who berated me for writing Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. He stated that my book, particularly its title, evidenced "a cold indifference to typical sensibilities of African-American citizens, such as their deep dislike for public expression in American media . . . of the epithet nigger." In my book, I spend a considerable amount of space detailing how, over time, many black Americans have indeed expressed abhorrence to the use of "nigger" in all circumstances. For example, I quote Langston Hughes who wrote in 1940:

The word nigger to colored people of high and low degree is like a red rag to a bull. Used rightly or wrongly, ironically or seriously, of necessity for the sake or realism, or impishly for the sake of comedy [,] it doesn't matter. Negroes do not like it in any book or play whatsoever, be the book or play every ever so sympathetic in its treatment of the basic problems of the race. The word nigger, you see, sums up for us who are colored all the bitter years of insult and struggle in America.

In my book, I explain why many blacks view nigger in this way. I detail how racists have cruelly used nigger as a rhetorical weapon against blacks (and whites who affiliated themselves with blacks - ie., so-called "nigger lovers.") I give example after example of how nigger as insult has burdened the lives of blacks who are famous (Paul Robeson, Richard Wright, Hank Aaron, Michael Jordan) as well as those who are obscure. I offer a brief history of anti-black American racism, using nigger as the lense for focusing upon the horrors of lynching, segregation, and other forms of racial oppression. Professor Kilson mentions none of this. But in my book I go out of my way to show that there is reason, good reason, why everyone should be anxious in the presence of the N-word, and why many people - blacks and non-blacks alike - would like to see "nigger" expunged from our culture altogether.

In my book I proceed to argue, however, that a serious effort to erase nigger altogether would have bad consequences that would supercede the good that might be achieved. First, erasing nigger entirely would obscure from view significant parts of the history of racism. People should know, for example, that until recently major politicians openly and without embarrassment or apology referred contemptuously to blacks as niggers on the floor of the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Obliterating nigger from books, movies, plays, and similar productions would entail losing access to such knowledge.

Second, seeking to eradicate nigger would entail destroying, bowdlerizing, or otherwise removing from view many important anti-racist documents. Is that prospect far-fetched? Unfortunately, it is not. The NAACP's magazine, The Crisis, was removed from the list of publications approved for use in the public schools of the District of Columbia because the magazine was said to make "a practice of using the opprobrious term 'N' in its published stories of Negro life." School officials remained unmoved when it was pointed out that The Crisis was a crusading anti-racist publication.

Responding to the D.C. authorities, Roy Wilkins remarked that he and his colleagues at The Crisis believed the function of education "to be the inculcation of the truth and the discovery of truth by the widest reading and the freest discussion." He added: "we fail to distinguish between the use of the word 'nigger' and the highly suggestive 'N' which you use." Similar acts of censorship have ensnared other works of anti-racist literature including Dick Gregory's Nigger: An Autobiography, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn.

Third, seeking to eradicate nigger would entail attempting to muzzle people who use the work not as a racist insult but as a term of endearment or gesture of solidarity. Many black folk are using the term in just this way - as anyone knows who listens to rap, black comedians, or ordinary folk on the streets. One does not have to agree with this usage. One should recognize its reality, however, and understand the ideas and sentiments prompting it, all of which I do in my book and all of which Professor Kilson ignores.

Professor Kilson blames me and my book for racist uses of nigger in certain incidents that occurred recently at Harvard Law School, where I teach. He asserts that "clearly" these events were set in motion by my book. Nowhere does he establish that, in fact, there was some causal connection between my book and the incidents to which he alludes. A connection was plausible, even likely. But there is no evidence that he points to that "clearly" establishes causation. But let us suppose that, in fact, my book did prompt the misbehavior. Is a writer obligated to avoid a subject because some reader might misuse the writer's work? I think not. The alternative approach would permit bigots too much sway. I am sure that some racists will make mischief with my book. I cannot prevent that. I can only hope that the good that comes from the public education I attempt to impart will supercede the instances of misuse that are almost certain to occur.

Professor Kilson accuses me of failing to become involved in addressing the incidents at Harvard. He says that the basis of this charge was the absence of any mention of my involvement in press reports. He ought not to have drawn and asserted such highly negative inferences about my conduct based merely on the absence of press reports. As should be obvious, the press does not report everything that happens. Moreover, he could easily have called me to find out what I did. It so happens that the students involved were my students. I was their section leader. And as their section leader, I called a meeting to discuss what had transpired. I would have been happy to relay this information to Professor Kilson. Perhaps he would still have found fault with me. But at least he could have done so on the basis of accurate information as opposed to a supposition that turned out to be incorrect.

After publishing Professor Kilson's diatribe, Mr. Glen Ford, the Co-Publisher of The Black Commentator, proceeded to continue with the denunciation by printing a commentary entitled "Randall Kennedy: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Fool." In his piece, Mr. Ford describes me as "a specialist in telling white people exactly what he thinks they want to hear." In doing so, he echoed Professor Kilson's remark that the "core purpose" of my book was "to assist White Americans in feeling comfortable with using the epithet 'nigger'." Neither Professor Kilson nor Mr. Ford offer substantiation for their claims, though one might think that a considerable amount of substantiation would be called for given the damaging nature of the charges they level. They do not say that I am mistaken, or even grossly mistaken. They go much further than that. They say that my motives are bad, that I am essentially an evil person. Hence, Mr. Ford writes that my career "appears to be based on playing the role of surrogate to white racists who fear to mouth the dreaded N-word but love reading about it from the perspective of a Black man who hates African Americans even more than they do." It isn't enough for him to attribute without evidence a bad motivation to the effort behind the writing of my book; without evidence or explanation he extends the attack to my career as a whole.

Two final points

Both Professor Kilson and Mr. Ford accuse me of what Professor Kilson terms "money grubbing." If by this he means to charge me with wanting to draw attention to my book and make money off of my intellectual labor, then he is correct and I plead guilty. But making money was not and is not the only incentive that drives me as a writer. Vanity and a commitment to public education are also important animating forces. In all candor, though, money matters with me - as is probably the case with most writers who publish books with commercial enterprises. I reject the proposition that any presence of pecuniary ambition necessarily dooms the integrity of intellectual work.

Finally, Mr. Ford states that the press release he issued announcing Professor Kilson's condemnation of me "got lots of attention, including coverage among the only media that Kennedy respects: the big white press. Kennedy clearly does not consider himself answerable in any respect to other Black people, but he does answer the phone when the Boston Globe calls." Unfortunately, unlike the reporter from the Boston Globe, Mr. Ford did not call. And, as I noted at the outset, this letter did not arise from a call or invitation from The Black Commentator. It arose from my own initiative because, contrary to what Mr. Ford suggests, I do care about my reputation in all spheres of society. Contrary to what Mr. Ford suggests, I have written for black-owned publications and spoken frequently in predominantly black forums. During my book tour for Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, I spoke at The Shrine of the Black Madonna Bookstore in Detroit, the EsoWon Bookstore in Los Angeles, Howard University, and was a participant in interviews, debates and panel discussions on scores of radio stations and programs which aim their broadcasts primarily to black audiences - for example, the Tom Pope Show (Washington, D.C.), the Daily Drum (Wash. D.C), Inside Detroit with Mildred Gaddis (Detroit), On with Leon (Baltimore, Md.), Say It Loud (Boston, MA) etc etc etc.

The treatment I have been given by Professor Kilson and The Black Commentator is mistreatment. It should give rise to apologies.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Randall Kennedy

We now invite you to read the N-Word Part 2 in which Harvard colleague, Dr. Martin Kilson says an apology is not warranted and N-Word Part 3 in which  calls for the repudiation of the N-Word author.

This is the challenge of the twenty-first century: to defeat the one hundred year tradition established by white educational leaders who created curriculums for Africans in America designed to prepare them to work for white folks.

A Book We Should All Read Worrill’s World By Dr. Conrad W. Worrill, PhD BlackCommentator.com Columnist

It is very important for African people in America to educate and reeducate ourselves about our history and its relationship to the important ideas that shape how we see the world. We are still challenged today to create an educational climate that inspires African youth in America to understand that the purpose of education is to develop the skills and historical understanding of the past as it relates to the present and future in preparation for working for self and the liberation of African people. This is the challenge of the twenty-first century: to defeat the one hundred year tradition established by white educational leaders who created curriculums for Africans in America designed to prepare them to work for white folks. Dr. Carter G. Woodson, who founded in February of 1926, what at the time was called “Negro History Week,” would indeed be inspired by the ongoing discussion and debate over the contributions of African people to the history of the world. The movement led by Dr. Woodson helped lay the foundation for the current African Centered Education Movement that has become the catalyst for the intense study ofAfrica and the history of African people throughout the world, 365 days a year. We should all read or reread the late Dr. Jacob H. Carruthers’ profound book, Intellectual Warfare. It is very important for African people in America to continue to put forth the effort to educate and reeducate ourselves about our history and its relationship to the important ideas that shape how we see the world. We must continue this effort to educate and reeducate ourselves everyday to improve the quality of life for ourselves and our children. For over thirty-five years, Dr. Carruthers played a leading role as a scholar and intellectual activist in the development of the African Centered Education Movement. Dr. Carruthers was a tenured professor in the College of Education’s Inner City Studies Education undergraduate and graduate programs at Northeastern IllinoisUniversity in Chicago, Illinois and retired as Professor Emeritus. Along with Dr. Anderson Thompson, Dr. Carruthers helped shape both the undergraduate and graduate curricula that have become known throughout the country for providing a theoretical and practical understanding of the impact of the political, economic, social, and cultural forces on people who live in the inner cities throughout the world. Of course, one of the largest groups to live in the inner cities is African people. Therefore, a great deal of Dr. Carruthers’ writings and lectures concentrated on the white supremacy intellectual assault on African people and the world. Dr. Carruthers has been magnificent in exposing the European intellectual tyranny and its impact on the education of African people. It was through his association with the late, great Senegalese scholar, Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop and the late, great scholar / teacher, Dr. John Henrik Clarke that helped propel the genius of Dr. Carruthers’ insight into the “Deep Well” of the African Worldview.' As the founding President of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC), Dr. Carruthers helped shape an organizational format for African Centered scholars, teachers, students, and the overall African Community to have a collective vehicle in which to pursue the building of the African Centered Education Movement. His leadership, in this regard, has been monumental and inspiring to hundreds of scholars, teachers, and students throughout the African World Community. In this connection, Dr. Carruthers’ book, Intellectual Warfare, prepares us to function in the twenty-first century with a sharper understanding of our challenges as an African people. The book is organized into five sections: Part I: The Nature of the War; Part II: Defenders of Western Civilization; Part III: Intellectual Civil War; Part IV: The Champions of African Centered Thought; and Part V: Toward the Restoration of African Civilizations In the preface of Intellectual Warfare, Dr. Carruthers explains, “These essays reflect the thought of the ‘Chicago group’ and the ‘African Community of Chicago.’ I was simply a vehicle through whom ideas flowed. Even the mistakes are our mistakes rather than mine alone. The conceptualization of our work as Intellectual Warfareemerged out of the actual battles in which we were engaged.” In the first chapter, Dr. Carruthers instructs us by pointing out, “Thus, those who have been waging the long war to liberate African history and culture have been fighting the following two battles: (1) an international war against the European intellectuals and (2) a civil war against the colonized African spokespersons who are trained by Europeans to undermine African independence. The war is truly, as Dr. Anderson Thompson says, “a battle for the African mind,” or as the late Dr. Asa G. Hilliard, III and the First World Alliance put it, “a battle to free the African mind.” Those who believe in the just cause of the long war to liberate African history and culture must read and reread and study Dr. Carruthers’ most insightful observations, wisdom, and his “Deep Well” of understanding that is shared in Intellectual Warfare. BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Conrad W. Worrill, PhD, is the National Chairman Emeritus of the National Black United Front (NBUF).  Click here to contact Dr. Worrill.

CHILLING: What happened in the 1905 Russian Revolution cannot happen in Germany, Kautsky argues. Don’t look to “revolutionary examples,” as Luxemburg suggests. The “conditions for the mass strike” existed in “backward” Russia but, in Germany, “they do not” because, in Germany, “‘we have political freedom”!

Rosa Luxemburg: The Case for a Mass Workers’ Strike Represent Our Resistance By Dr. Lenore J. Daniels, PhD BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

A working class hero is something to be. - John Lennon, “A Working Class Hero” The situation to state it briefly is this: The [SPD] Executive and the General Commission [of the Trade Unions] have already considered the mass strike, and after lengthy negotiations it was defeated by the resistance of the General Commission…The masses themselves ought to decide, but it is our duty to present the pros and cons, the general line of argument. I therefore am counting on you to give your support here [in this matter] and to run the articles without delay. - Rosa Luxemburg, “Letter to Konrad Haenisch,” [Friedenau, before March 14, 1910], The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, 2011 When it came to class struggle, Rosa Luxemburg was uncompromising. She did not use her position within the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) for social or material advancement. She was no opportunist seeking political inclusion in the German government as was the case with several key leaders of the SPD. Luxemburg was Luxemburg - no pantsuits or a seat on the right (or Left) hand side of State power. Critical critiques examining the motives of contemporary socialists (Marxist) was for her part of being an engaged citizen (let alone activist) as opposed to a robot with the mentality of the Freikorp soldiers who followed orders, arrested and eventually shot her dead in January, 1919. Before the “fateful question” of the First World War arose in which Luxemburg witnessed Germany socialism and international socialism undergoing a crisis of commitment to the principles of Marxism (“Letter to Karl Moor, [Sudende], October 12, 1914,” The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, 2011). [1] Luxemburg warned of the SPD’s turn away from the class struggle. The workers, suffering, are agitated and they want to see change by their own actions - en-mass. Where is the SPD? Where, echoes Rosa Luxemburg, is the SPD? Rosa Luxemburg’s article titled, “Theory and Practice,” (The Rosa Luxemburg Reader, 2004), [2] is an honest and uncompromising critical response to SPD leader Karl Kautky’s rejection of Luxemburg’s article “What’s Next?” in which the activist and thinker calls on the party to open discussions on the possibility of including a demand for a republic in Germany and her call to support a mass strike. Karl Kautsky [3] has made a notable blunder on the question of calling for a republic. That passage [in Luxemburg’s article ‘What Next?’] about a republic, which he did not want taken up, has nevertheless appeared as a separate article, titled ‘Zeit der Aussaat’ (Time for the Sowing of Seeds) in the Breslau and Dortmund papers, and perhaps a dozen others! And now K[ausky] reproaches me with the claim that I myself ‘had renounced’ it!... (“Letter to Konrad Haenisch, [Friedenau,] June 18, 1910, The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, 2011) Kautsky’s resounding nein to any discussion of a republic or a mass strike was read inNeue Zeit’s June12-14, 1910 publication of his article, “A New Strategy.” Editor of the party’s press which included Vorworts as well as the Neue Zeit though he may be, Luxemburg surmised, the “veto” would not have been Kautsky’s alone but also represented the opinion of the “high command” (“Theory and Practice”). But it is Kautsky who delivers the message: “Enough, that what you want is an entirely new agitation which until now has always been rejected.” Luxemburg’s ideas, he states, were a departure from the SPD program. I will not linger long on Luxemburg’s response to Kautsky’s rejection of a republic. Many claim we have such a thing here in the United States. But it is significant to mention that Kautsky thought her call to discuss the possibility of a republic - propaganda (“propaganda for a republic”) - far from anything Marx and Engels might have considered. “Even your point of departure is false. There is not one word in our program about a republic,” writes Kautsky. This new agitation…is the sort we have no business discussing so openly. With your article you want to proclaim on your own hook, as a single individual, an entirely new agitation which the party has always rejected. We cannot and will not proceed in this manner. A single personality, however high she may stand, cannot pull off a fait accompli on her own hook which can have unforeseeable consequences for the party. It is “no piece of heroism” on her part, Luxemburg explains. Both Marx and Engels supported the demand for a republic. So how is it possible Kausky mobilizes Marx and Engels against her, she asks, and claim she is presenting a “new agitation”? Engels’ “Political Demands,” section II, specifically refers to the “one flaw” in the SPD’s list of demands: “What actually should have been said is not there.” “If anything is certain,” Engels wrote, “it is that our party and the working class can only come to power under the form of a democratic republic.” What Engels “unqualifiedly declares” to be essential, Luxemburg explains, “is discussion of the slogan of a republic in the party press.” If not now and sometime in the near future! But as Luxemburg notes, “the follow up practice was not done.” “And now to the mass strike.” Are you familiar with my pamphlet about the mass strike (1906)? It dealsexactly [4] with all the questions that K.K. [Karl Kautsky] has brought up. It turns out that even our best people actually did not at all absorb the lessons of the Russian revolution [of 1905]. Well, it never occurred to Kautsky to censor Luxemburg’s article or to “‘forbid’ discussion of the mass strike.” (“Letter to Konrad Haenisch, [Friedenau,] June 18, 1910, The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, 2011) Kautsky’s creation of a “whole new theory of the conditions for political mass strike in Russia and in Germany” (“Theory and Practice”) is sinister, Luxemburg surmises, because it is motivated by the desire to steady the boat and prepare the workers for the voting rights campaigns already underway in Germany! Revolution aside, the voting rights campaigns and the elections are what the party feels is good for the people! … What happened in the 1905 Russian Revolution cannot happen in Germany, Kautsky argues. Don’t look to “revolutionary examples,” as Luxemburg suggests. The “conditions for the mass strike” existed in “backward” Russia but, in Germany, “they do not” because, in Germany, “‘we have political freedom”! Workers are provided “various ‘safe’ forms for their protests and struggle, and hence they are totally preoccupied with organizations, meetings, the press, and elections of all sorts’” (“Theory and Practice”). In other words, the people have “safe,” as in ineffective, ways of “protesting” to the government! As a means of struggle, the political mass strike could only be employed here in a single, final battle ‘to the death’ - and therefore only when the question, for the proletariat, was conquer or die. “When a positive result can be expected,” Karl Kautsky and the SPD will consider the possibility of allowing the people to engage in a mass strike. This is the position of Kautsky and the SPD, Luxemburg argues. Mass strikes for “backward” Russia but not for “the strongest” government: Germany! Luxemburg challenges the absurdity of Kautksy’s logic: How Social Democracy, on the other hand, should in all seriousness come to acknowledge a government to be ‘the strongest’ which ‘nothing but a military despotism embellished with parliamentary forms, alloyed with a feudal admixture, obviously influenced by the bourgeoisie, shored up with a bureaucracy, and watched over by the police’ –I find that somewhat hard to grasp. Contradictions! Kautsky’s Germany is not populated with happy workers benefiting from “the strongest” government Somehow, she writes, Kautsky has forgotten the quite enormous slave herds of Prusso-German state employers, railroad workers and postal workers, as well as the farm workers, who unfortunately enjoy very limited measure of that contented preoccupation with “organizations, meetings, and options of all sorts” as long as the right to organize is legally or practically denied them. Whole categories of workers, Luxemburg continues, “live politically as well as economically in genuine ‘Russian’ conditions…not to mention miners - will find it impossible, in the midst of a political convulsion, to maintain their slavish obedience or to refrain from presenting their special bill of reckoning in the form of giant mass strikes.” But Kautsky further claims that “the strongest” government has experienced the “glory of almost a century of continuous victories over the strongest great powers in the world.” And - “a strike in Germany would result in failure.” German worker could “take up the strike as a means of struggle only when he has the prospect of attainingdefinite successes with it. If these successes fail to appear, the strike has failed its purpose.” This is the gospel according to Karl Kautsky - not Karl Marx! Participate in the elections, not in strikes and street protests! And, of course, Kautsky is a self-declared Marxist at the time he writes, “A New Strategy.” As any union agitator knows, writes Luxemburg, “definite successes” in the form of material gains “absolutely are not and cannot be the sole purpose, the sole determining aspect in economic struggles.” In other parts of Europe, strikes “without much ‘plan’” erupt because “a great exploited mass of proletarians [stand] opposed to the concentrated ruling power of capital or the capitalist state.” Strikers are not infrequent but frequent, she continues, and “mostly end without any ‘definite successes’ at all - but in spite, or rather just because of this are of greater significance as explosions of a deep inner contradiction which spills over into the realm of politics.” These are periods of the “most beautiful confusion” - “spontaneous combustion of the masses,” union leadership, “economic struggle and political struggle, mass strikes and revolution.” But it seems “that ‘theory’ does not merely ‘stride forward’ more slowly than practice: alas, from time to time it also goes tumbling backwards.” Organize voting rights campaigns! Prepare for the elections! We are the Left; we’ve got your back! And we wonder why in the 21st Century it is possible for the capitalist state to amass its power to repress the voice of opposition and protests and to misrepresent the lived experiences of the workers even to themselves? Look to the Left, Luxemburg suggests! Look to those who present themselves as adherents of class struggle but who function for the capitalist rulers. How can the workers here in the U.S. call for a General Strike for May 1st when we are “the strongest” government in thee world and we have a “Black” president? While the Occupy Movement is supporting the May 1st call to stage a general strike, the Left press is silent. Elections! Change again is on the way! We should focus our attention, as Kautsky would argue, to supporting “the strongest government” and postpone expectations for “a mass strike until the year after the Reichstag elections.” Luxemburg: This is “nothing-but-parlimentarism.” - politics for the capitalists - and the rise of a fascist state will not be far behind! Rosa Luxemburg did not live to see the rise of the fascist state. She was murdered by the Freikorps in Janaury 1919. But she knew… BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Lenore Jean Daniels, PhD, has a Doctorate in Modern American Literature/Cultural Theory. Click here to contact Dr. Daniels. [1] The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, editors, Georg Adler, Peter Hudis and Annelies Laschitza. Most of these letters in this collection are, for the first time, available in English. [2]   The Rosa Luxemburg Reader, editors, Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson, 2004. [3] (1854-1938), Social Democratic writer, influential theoretician of the Second International…Luxemburg broke with him [after] he moved closer to reformism (The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg). [4]  Words in bold print are present here as they appear in The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg and are established by the editors of that text.

Beginning at the end of the 19th century, states began passing legislation directed at restricting minority voting with often dramatic effect, especially in the South where turnout fell from 64.2 percent in 1888 to 29.0 percent in 1904.

Republicans Reverse a 150-year-old Trajectory in US and Enact Laws That Restrict Voting Rights - 

By David Morris, On the Commons

Posted on April 3, 2012, Printed on April 5, 2012

http://www.alternet.org/story/154805/republicans_reverse_a_150-year-old_trajectory_in_us_and_enact_laws_that_restrict_voting_rights

For its first 200 years the American Republic slowly, sometimes infuriatingly slowly and at horrific human cost (e.g. the Civil War) expanded the franchise.

In 1870 the 15th Amendment gave blacks the right to vote.  In 1920, the 19th Amendment extended the franchise to women. In 1924 Congress granted Native Americans citizenship and thus the right to vote.  In 1961 the 23rdAmendment gave the residents of the District of Columbia the right to vote for President.  In 1971 the 26thAmendment gave l8 year olds the vote.  In 1986 Congress gave military personnel and other US citizens living abroad the right to use a federal write-in absentee ballot for voting for federal offices.

The right to vote, however, did not ensure that one could vote.  Beginning at the end of the 19th century, states began passing legislation directed at restricting minority voting with often dramatic effect, especially in the South where turnout fell from 64.2 percent in 1888 to 29.0 percent in 1904.

For 100 years after the Civil War the Supreme Court ruled that even where state voting rules were discriminatory, the federal government had no right to intervene.  Then in 1965 Congress finally gave blacks and other minorities the effective vote by passing the Voting Rights Act, eliminating most voting qualifications beyond citizenship for state and federal elections, including literacy tests and poll taxes.  In 1966 the Supreme Court affirmed that law.

Since 1970 federal and state voting reforms have all moved in one direction: facilitating access. In 1993 the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) offered citizens the opportunity to register or re-register to vote at many public facilities, including Motor Vehicle offices and post offices.

Between 1973 and 2009 nine states enacted Election Day registration laws. States made provisions for early voting and eased the rules on absentee voting.  Some allowed voting by mail. Between 1997 and 2010 twenty-three states either restored voting rights or eased the restoration process of voting rights for those convicted of felonies.

Virtually all these laws were passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by Republican and Democrat Governors alike.

The Tide Turns

And then came November 2010.  An unprecedented politically tsunami swept the country.  Conservative Republicans won a remarkable 675 seats in state legislatures, gaining control of both houses in 27 states and control of both houses and the governor office in 23.

Once in control Republicans once again exposed a fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives.  Liberals focus on process. Republicans focus on outcomes.

The Republicans first priority after gaining power was to ensure continued power by reducing the turnout of demographic groups like students, blacks, Hispanics that traditionally vote Democrat.

The groundwork had been laid by a 2008 Supreme Court decision.  In 2006 Indiana became the first state to require a government issued photo ID for voting.  The Supreme Court upheld that law.  Justice John Paul Stevens, writing the main opinion opined that the requirement  “is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting the integrity and reliability of the electoral process.”

Amply justified?  An Amicus Brief filed by the Brennan Center for Justice found no justification at all.  After exhaustively examining the briefs to the Supreme Court, Justin Levitt of the Brennan Center for Justice concluded, “not one of the sources cited shows proof of a vote that Indiana’s law could prevent. That is, not one of the citations offered by Indiana or its allies refers to a proven example of a single vote cast at the polls in someone else’s name that could be stopped by a poll site photo ID rule.” The Center described the fraud targeted by Indiana’s law “more rare than death by lightning.”

But the lack of a shred of documented evidence of voter fraud was irrelevant to the Court.  The Court decided that Indiana did not have to demonstrate that a photo ID was needed to prevent fraud.  The burden of proof was on petitioners to prove not only that a photo ID would be burdensome, but that it would be extremely burdensome.

With the Court ruling in 2008 conservative Republicans attacked.  In 2011 at least thirty-four states introduced bills to require photo ID to vote.  Seven enacted them into law.

In 2011 at least twelve states introduced bills to require proof of citizenship to register or vote.  Three states enacted these into law. Five states restricted early voting. Two states reversed executive actions that had made it easier for citizens with past felony convictions to restore their voting rights.

The 2011 Florida law is perhaps the purest distillation of the Republican effort to making voting more difficult.  Indeed, during Florida’s legislative debate, State Senator Michael Bennett, the Chamber’s President Pro-Tempore insisted that voting “is a hard-fought privilege. This is something people died for. Why should we make it easier?”

In 2008 Obama won Florida by just 2.5 percent.  Two factors accounted for his victory.  First, Florida opened the polls two weeks early.  Even so, long lines across the state prompted the governor to issue an emergency order extending the hours for early voting. That enabled waves of new voters, often minorities and students to vote.  Early voting also included voting the Sunday before election day. Obama’s “souls to the polls” drives successfully brought tens of thousands of blacks and Latinos to vote after church. According to the Palm Beach Post “[m]ore than half of the black voters in the [November 2008] election voted before Election Day and many of them went on [the] final Sunday.”

The second factor was the success of voter registration drives. In 2008, more than a million new voters were added to Florida’s rolls, 233,000 of them from voter registration drives. Hispanic and African-American voters are approximately twice as likely to register through a voter registration drive as white voters.

The 2011 law reduced early voting from two weeks to one week. Voting on the Sunday before Election Day was eliminated. Florida eliminated the longstanding right of voters who moved before an election to update their new address at the polls on Election Day.  The law now requires a photo ID.  As many as 25% of African-American voters do not possess a current and valid form of government issued photo ID, compared to 11% of voters of all races.

The 2011 required those who register new voters to turn in completed forms within 48 hours or risk fines.  The New York Times recently reportedthis has led the League of Women Voters to abandon its efforts this year. A national organization that encourages young people to vote, Rock the Vote, recently began to register high school students around the nation.  But not in Florida, because of fears that teachers could face fines.

Prior to 2007, nearly one million Floridians who were convicted of a felony were permanently disenfranchised in the state; almost a quarter of them were African-American. In 2007, Republican Governor Charlie Crist simplified and streamlined the process for individuals with non-violent convictions to regain their voting rights, affecting some 150,000 Floridians.  In 2011 Governor Rick Scott returned Florida to its pre 2007 policy.  Some 87,000 persons who were in the “backlog” of cases waiting for restoration will not have their voting rights restored.

That the Republicans objective in changing the voting rules is to consolidate power is incontestable.  Consider Texas’s new voter ID law.  It doesn’t allow voters to use student ID’s but does permit them to use concealed weapon licenses. A few weeks ago the US Department of Justice rejectedthe new law as a violation of the Voting Rights Act.  Texas is appealing.

Because of their convincing victories in 2010 Republicans might argue their actions are simply manifesting the people’s will.  But it is difficult to imagine people voted in 2010 to make it more difficult for them to vote in the future. Some empirical evidence supports that view. In 2011 a Republican legislature and Governor in Maine eliminated that state’s 38-year old Election Day registration. Last November Maine’s citizens went to the ballot box and re-instated the previous law with a convincing 59 percent majority.

Unfortunately this November few if any states will let voters directly decide whether they want to reverse a 150-year-old trajectory and make voting more burdensome. The voters must express their will more indirectly, by electing legislators who believe voting should be more rather than less accessible.  The new rules make this much more difficult.  But that would only make a victory for democracy that much sweeter.

 

David Morris is co-founder and vice president of the Institute for Local Self Reliance in Minneapolis, Minn., and director of its New Rules project.

© 2012 On the Commons All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/154805/

Reason for good cheer - the Koch Brothers Had a Very Bad Week

6 Reasons the Koch Brothers Had a Very Bad Week

By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet

Posted on April 2, 2012, Printed on April 5, 2012

http://www.alternet.org/story/154795/6_reasons_the_koch_brothers_had_a_very_bad_week

Were there a way for a few billion clams to wipe a week off the calendar, one imagines that Charles and David Koch, the multibillionaire principals of Koch Industries, would like to see the final week of March 2012 vaporized, at least in the public mind. For the Kochs, it was a week of bad news: a new documentary about their political activity and corporate negligence was making a splash -- on the same day a story broke announcing an FBI investigation of two Wisconsin groups tied to Americans for Prosperity, the political ground organization they founded and fund. (Full disclosure: AlterNet is a supporter of the documentary, Koch Brothers Exposed, and I appear in the film.)

Things got even worse the next day, Friday, March 30, when the billionaire brothers learned that afederal court handed down a decision that may ultimately require certain non-profit groups, such as Americans for Prosperity, to reveal their full donor list, and the New Yorker's Jane Mayer, who wrote a devastating profile of the brothers last year, reported on the Kochs' involvement in a barrage of anti-Obama ads sponsored by a tax-exempt non-profit called the American Energy Alliance, which may also now be required to reveal its donor list.

On the very same day, another federal court struck down portions of Wisconsin's controversial law that stripped collective bargaining rights from most of the state's public employees -- a law championed by Americans for Prosperity, and rammed through the state legislature a year ago by the AFP-supported Gov. Scott Walker. Here, we take a closer look at the Kochs' very bad week. 

1. An FBI Investigation

Just hours before the premiere showing of Koch Brothers Exposed in Manhattan on Thursday, March 29, the Miwaukee Journal Sentinel's Daniel Bice broke the news that the FBI was investigating possibly illegal activity by two groups led by Mark Block, former director of the AFP Wisconsin chapter, during his stint as campaign manager for former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain. (The Hermanator famously referred to David Koch as his "brother from another mother" at an event hosted by the oil baron in Washington, DC, last year.) Among documents Bice uncovered last year was a profit-and-loss statement for Prosperity USA, a nonprofit group headed by Block, which details travel costs for a visit last year with David Koch and Americans for Prosperity president Tim Phillips in Washington, DC.

While that's not proof of wrongdoing, it is proof of David Koch's link to Block, a shady character who has been prosecuted in the past for violating Wisconsin election law.

The Journal Sentinel reports: "FBI agents have been talking to donors and other individuals connected with Prosperity USA and Wisconsin Prosperity Network," both non-profits founded by Block while he was at the helm of AFP-Wisconsin. (AlterNet has published several reports involving the Wisconsin Prosperity Network, here,  here and here.)

In correspondence with the Center For Public Integrity's iWatch News last year, AFP spokesperson Levi Russell acknowledged that “there were financial dealings with Prosperity USA and/or the Wisconsin Prosperity Network.”

2. Revelation of Koch Involvement in Group Running Anti-Obama Ads

Already, March 29 was looking like a tough day for the Kochs when Politico's Kenneth P. Vogel burst forth with an article revealing the involvement of the Kochs in an organization, the American Energy Alliance, that launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign against President Barack Obama on Friday. The ads put forth the specious claim that the president's policies are driving up gasoline prices.

According to Politico: 

The group launching a $3.6 million ad campaign hitting President Barack Obama on gasoline prices has deep ties to the billionaire libertarian industrialists Charles and David Koch.

[...]

The groups are run by Tom Pyle, a former lobbyist for Koch Industries. Pyle regularly attends the mega-donor summits organized by the Koch brothers, including the 2012 winter summit in Indian Wells, Calif., where the Kochs raised more than $150 million to be directed to groups ahead of the general election.

[...]

The ads come after the Kochs’ primary political group, Americans for Prosperity, earlier this year launched a $6 million ad campaign calling out Obama over the now-defunct, government-subsidized maker of solar power components, Solyndra.

The following day, the New Yorker's Jane Mayer followed up with a closer look at the American Energy Alliance:

So who is behind the advertising campaign to push the line that Obama is to blame? Bill Burton, senior strategist at the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA believes that it comes from a familiar source. “The Koch brothers and other oil barons are using profits from high gas prices to fund false political attacks benefitting Governor Romney,” he says.

[American Energy Alliance Communications Director Benjamin] Cole retorts that there is “not a single penny of Koch money” paying for the two-week ad campaign. But he declined to confirm or deny reports, including one by Politico, that the Koch brothers, whose privately owned conglomerate, Koch Industries, is a major domestic-oil refiner, have steered funds to both the American Energy Alliance and the Institute for Energy Research. A spokesperson at Koch Industries did not respond to questions on the Kochs’ ties to the groups.

3. Federal Court Sets Stage for Revelation of Americans For Prosperity Donors

The Koch brothers are notoriously secretive about where they put their money when it comes to their influence on the political process. Their vehicles of choice are a particular sort of nonprofit organization -- those that fall under either 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Service tax code. Under current Federal Election Commission regulations, organizations sponsoring so-called "issue" ads -- even those with with the (c)(3) or (c)(4) designation -- have not been required to reveal their donors. Americans for Prosperity, the Americans for Prosperity Foundation and the American Energy Alliance all fall under one of these designations. In her report on the anti-Obama ads discussed above, Mayer explains it on the New Yorker's Web site:

Technically, the ads have been produced and aired by the Washington-based American Energy Alliance, a 501c-4 social-welfare organization under the Internal Revenue Service’s tax code, whose activities, under the law, have to be largely non-political. This group shares office space and personnel with a sister organization, the Institute for Energy Research, a 501c-3, whose tax status is typically reserved for charities. Its activities have to be strictly non-partisan and non-political.

Even though the American Energy Alliance and Americans for Prosperity are rather blatantly political in their activities, lax enforcement has allowed the groups to get away with their ads and political rallies while shielding their donors from disclosure.

A decision made on Friday by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia could change all that, laying before the eyes of the world the extent of the Koch brothers' spending through such organizations.

As the Huffington Post's Paul Blumenthal reported:

Friday's court ruling could reverse a trend started by the FEC rules, and aggravated by the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, that led to an explosion in undisclosed contributions to electoral efforts. The percentage of independent spending that went undisclosed jumped from 1 percent in 2006 to 43.8 percent in 2010, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Advertisements falling under the rubric of "electioneering communications" include those run against President Barack Obama by the American Energy Alliance and Americans for Prosperity, both non-profits linked to the Koch brothers. All ads run by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are classified as "electioneering communications." The ruling would require for the first time that contributions to these groups, and many more, be disclosed.

The FEC, whose nondisclosure rules were challenged by Rep. Chris Van Holland, D-Md., could appeal the ruling if four of the six FEC commissioners vote to do so. 

4. Recall This: A Legal Defeat for Koch-Funded Wisconsin Gov. Walker

Just as the date was being set for a recall election for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a federal court struck down portions of the anti-labor law that all but ended collective bargaining for the state's public employees. When first introduced in the state legislature, the anti-union measure sparked an uprising in the Dairy State last year that led to an 18-day occupation of the state capitol building. Walker was elected in 2010 with a substantial assist from the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity (then under the leadership of Mark Block, now a person of interest in the aforementioned FBI investigation). Judge William Conley took aim at several portions of the law: those that forbade the automatic deduction of union dues from public employes and demanded yearly union elections. Such provisions treated certain groups of public employees differently from others with similar jobs, apparently according to their loyalty to the governor.

From Amanda Terkel's report on Huffington Post:

The court ruled that the state cannot prevent public sector unions from automatically deducting dues from workers' paychecks and cannot require them to be recertified annually. 

The law, known as Act 10, requires most public sector unions to hold annual votes on whether a majority of its members want to recertify the union. It also took away the rights of some unions to automatically collect dues from members' paychecks.

The court kept most of the law in place, but it ruled that the state did not have the power to pick and choose which unions could deduct dues. Under Act 10, only "public safety unions" -- those representing firefighters and police officers -- could continue to take out payments automatically.

AlterNet's Steven Rosenfeld explains the loyalty issues involved:

The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge William Conley, which struck down those sections of the law, held that the legislature had the right to deny union bargaining rights, so long as that policy was applied evenly across all state employee unions--not just the ones opposing the governor's or his party's policies. In Act 10, Walker generally exempted state police and public safety unions from the bargaining and dues-collecting restrictions.

"The Act’s treatment of the Capital Police, who endorsed the governor’s opponent, in comparison to its treatment of state vehicle inspectors, who endorsed the governor, best illustrates this suspect line-drawing," Conley wrote, saying that targeting of some unions violated the Constitution's equal protection clause.

5. 'Koch Brothers Exposed' Debuts

If you're trying to keep a secret -- say, one about the amount of money you're investing in organizations that put out disinformation in order to sway the political process in your favor, or maybe one about the cancer affecting nearly every family in a neighborhood downriver from your paper plant -- a documentary raising questions about these things is never a good day. On Thursday, March 29, filmmaker Robert Greenwald unveiled a feature-length film, Koch Brothers Exposed, at a screening co-sponsored by AlterNet and Greenwald's Brave New Foundation.

But given all the other fires that had popped up in Kochland -- the court ruling against Scott Walker, the FBI investigation of Mark Block, the Politico report on the Kochs' support of the American Energy Alliance, and the New Yorker's exploration of the Alliance's Koch links -- you'd expect that public relations wizards for the Kochs and their proxies would be falling all over themselves issuing statements and doing spin-control on these developments. Instead, radio silence:

From Politico:

A spokesman for the Koch brothers did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

From the New Yorker:

A spokesperson at Koch Industries did not respond to questions on the Kochs’ ties to the groups.

The Kochs' political operatives were hardly more responsive. From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in its report on the FBI investigation that involves the Kochs' Americans for Prosperity:

Block did not return texts, emails or calls asking for comment on Thursday.

From the Huffington Post, in its report on the court decision against parts of the Scott Walker anti-union law:

Walker's office did not return a request for comment.

Instead, the PR professionals at Koch Industries focused on filmmaker Greenwald, posting an attack on him on their Web site, and complaining of "harassing phone calls" from Brave New Foundation staffers who were requesting comment on the documentary, and making a big deal of a bad joke made by one of the staffers after he thought he had hung up. When a behemoth corporation -- in this case, the second-largest privately held corporation in America -- uses its corporate Web site to attack an individual the way Koch Industries went after Greenwald on Friday, there's usually a bit more to the story. In this case, it appears the public relations geniuses at Koch were hoping to deflect attention away from the Kochs' very bad week.

Adele M. Stan is AlterNet's Washington correspondent. Follow her on Twitter:www.twitter.com/addiestan

© 2012 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/154795/