Laura D. Blackburne, Chair (The Crisis Board of Directors) writes: Freeing Ourselves From Police Violence..The senseless brutalizing and killing of unarmed Black men and women by law enforcement officers must stop. Marching and other demonstrations are not enough. We must take control of the power structure that controls and sets policing policies. The historic victories that won out full American citizenships were brought with the blood of too many of our forefathers and foremothers. They were brutalized, and even murdered, trying to eliminate legalized segregation and to gain the unfettered right to vote. Often it was the police who led those assaults. We cannot allow our full and equal citizenship rights to be taken back because of the devious efforts to limit our voting power. We must also get over the current lethargic and passive self-serving lifestyles of far too many of us. Too many of us are so mesmerized by our electronic addiction that we do not focus on the outright and persistent assault on the most precious aspect of American citizenship, the right to VOTE. Instead, we should use these electronic devices to organize our communities into focused and continuous action to register and turn out voters for every election. All politics are local. That means we must fully participate in every election, for the City, County, State and National officials who impact our daily lives. If we exercise our vote as much as we exercise our thumbs texting nonsense all day, we would not have only three African American police officers out of a total of 53 in a town like Ferguson, Mo. where the population is 60 percent African American. We would have elected officials at every level who respond to the needs of all the residents. Yes ,there is a concerted and well-funded assault on our voting rights. Yes, the conservative majority of the U.S Supreme Court is on a mission to set us back to a time when we were kept in our place and could not voted. And today, many states and local communities are undertaking and all-out assault on our right and opportunity to vote. Requiring unnecessary and unwarranted costly identification requirements, ending Sunday voting, moving polling sites, reducing the number of voting machines available at polling sites. The list of these obstacles goes on and on. The lastest legal permission granted by the U.S Supreme Court to undermine our tradition of one person, one vote was to rule that political pacts could receive almost unlimited contributions of money. This money can flood communities with campaign propoganda in support of the candidates and retrograde policy that is tied to the right wing agenda. That old saying is still true: He who pays the piper calls the tune. We must make sure that our brothers and sisters who have completed prison sentences, including parole, get registered to vote...and get to the polls to cast their ballots. Finally, we must insist that all of our children who are eligible to vote do so, even if they are away from home in college or in the military or living in their own homes. Racism is multi-generational, so our freedom, safety and equality can only be won by multi-generational activism and voting. If we pick our leadership in City, State and National Elections, then we can pick our police leadership- and our policing policies.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 19:35:08 +0000
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