Category: Discrimination (Page 2 of 11)

Obama: We Will Educate Trump

September 18, 2016 / MCDC

During the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner, President Obama discussed issues of civil rights and slavery in relation to Donald Trump.

Addressing the Congressional Black Caucus gala for the last time as president, Obama warned that while his name would not be on the ballot in November, all of the progress that the country has made over the last eight years was on the line.

“If I hear anybody saying their vote does not matter, that it doesn’t matter who we elect — read up on your history. It matters. We’ve got to get people to vote,” Obama said. “I will consider it a personal insult — an insult to my legacy — if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote.”

Felony Disenfranchisement

September 14, 2016 / MCDC

More than one in five African-Americans in Virginia are disenfranchised, according to The Sentencing Project, a Washington-based nonprofit that focuses on criminal justice. McAuliffe has said the reinstatement of felons’ voting rights would distance Virginia from Jim Crow laws that have haunted it.

It’s 2016, but Republicans still think only white property owners should vote. Virginia is one of only four states in the nation – along with Florida, Iowa, and Kentucky – to disenfranchise all individuals with felony convictions for life. The only means of regaining voting rights in these states is through action by a governor or pardons board.

Please note on July 22, 2016, the Supreme Court declared the Governor’s grant orders of April 22, May 31, and June 24 to be unconstitutional. If you have previously used the searchable database, your status may have been changed to reflect that decision. If your rights were restored before April 22, 2016, your rights were not affected by the Supreme Court’s decision.

After the Virginia Supreme Court ruled in July that governors couldn’t restore the voting rights of felons en masse, Gov. Terry McAuliffe vowed the 13,000 felons that registered through the executive order he issued would be able to cast their ballots come November.

http://www.sentencingproject.org/issues/felony-disenfranchisement/

For ex-offenders, a roller coaster ride to vote

September 13, 2016 / MCDC

“I don’t care what their politics are,” McAuliffe said in an interview Thursday while visiting the Dan River Region for an economic announcement. “I want them to vote.”

McAuliffe also countered the notion that his executive order was to earn Democratic voters or score political points — he said he wanted to help erase part of the commonwealth’s racist past.

State Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Moneta, said he largely agreed with what McAuliffe’s actions had accomplished, voicing his support for an automatic restoration of rights for most ex-offenders.

“We are a nation of second chances,” Stanley said. “When you look at it individually, humans make mistakes.”

He also said he would change the part of Norment’s proposal limiting restoration to non-violent felons, explaining that the list of violent felonies included many not traditionally seen as violent.

The ex-offenders, along with the rest of Virginia citizens, have until Oct. 17 to complete their registrations. More information is available at Virginia’s Restoration of Rights website.

“We constantly expand that list and sometimes, I think, without justification,” he said. “We can’t make every human action a crime.”

For ex-offenders, a roller coaster ride to vote

Gov. Terry McAuliffe and local lawmakers continue to argue over the way to let more than 200,000 Virginians earn back the right to vote. “I don’t care what their politics are,” McAuliffe said in an interview Thursday while visiting the Dan River Region for an economic announcement. “I want them to vote.”

The View from Trump Tower

September 10, 2016 / MCDC

Satire. But just barely.

The Strange Paradox At The Heart of the Alt-Right

August 28, 2016 / MCDC

Through tacit endorsements of conspiracy theories and offering policies based on bigotry and blind nationalism, Trump has given a loud voice to the concerns of white supremacists, misogynists, militant patriots, and other groups loosely collected by the umbrella term “the Alt-Right.”

What the alt-right is actually decrying is not a loss of liberty but a loss of privilege.

The chief campaign of the Alt Right and figures within it — such as provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos or MRA crank Scott Adams — is a war against attempts to give women and minorities a larger role in our culture and anyone who might suggest hate speech is actually dangerous. Calling themselves “cultural libertarians,” many of these young conservatives feel they are waging a righteous war for liberty against a powerful establishment of feminists and crybabies.

View at Medium.com