The Persistent Racist Accusations of the NC NAACP and its Continued Attempts to Frustrate a Voter ID Law in North Carolina | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Just because changing a law makes it easier or more convenient for only one group to vote doesn't mean that the 15th or 14th Amendment requires that change. Heck, extending the election season for a whole month and including 4 "souls-to-the-polls" Sundays would be really convenient, right? Taking votes over the phone would be convenient, yes? Allowing one family member to vote for everyone in the family, and extended family, would be perfect, for sure! Just because the legislative body or the voting public doesn't want to make the changes (and sacrifice voter integrity) doesn't mean the bill is racist or the voting public is racist, or the state legislature is racist. Groups like the North Carolina NAACP have to stop that nonsensical rhetoric.

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    NOTHING in the VOTER ID law of 2013 or in the current draft Photo-Voter ID law integrally impairs ANYONE's right to vote. There is the single entitlement - the right to vote on Election Day (as was the law in NC up until the end of the 21st century (late 1990's) and the right to submit an Absentee ballot if a person can't make it to the polling location in person. All the other voting tools and mechanisms are privileges, or "indulgences" (as Justice Scalia termed them). The state interest (in honest, fraud-free elections that comports with the constitutional principle of "one citizen, one vote") clearly outweighs any claims that a strict photo ID requirement may burden one group of voters. Again, the expectation is that EVERYONE'S vote is important, and the legislature has an obligation to protect the integrity of each person's vote. Every instance of voter fraud, which we know has become a serious problem here in North Carolina, diminishes the weight of honest citizens. Every instance of voter fraud cancels the vote of someone who has voted legally.

    Recently, I watched a YouTube video by journalist Ami Horowitz to examine just what people think of the NC photo ID law and the argument that blacks in North Carolina don't all have a photo ID and that some simply can't get one. It was rather enlightening. Ami went to the campus of UC-Berkeley to find out what college students think of voter ID laws and whether they believe they suppress the black vote. Their responses are classic liberal rhetoric. It is clear that white liberal college students have been indoctrinated by the rhetoric of Democrats and by such racist groups as the NAACP which alleges and alleges and repeats and repeats the same accusation - that voter ID laws are racist, they target blacks in their ability to vote, and that blacks are a particularly disadvantaged, incapable, uninformed, unskilled group of people.

    Horowitz then took his "On the Street" segment to east Harlem, New York City to find out what black people there thought of the answers that the UC-Berkeley students gave. Their responses were clear - the answers given by the white UC-Berkeley students was offensive, and yes, racist. Each person questioned had a photo ID on them, they said to be without one would be irresponsible, and not a single one thought it would be impossible to get one. To them, it appeared that blacks in the South have been stereotyped, to the detriment of their race in general. They could not understand the notion that fellow blacks couldn't get a photo ID, something that everyone in modern society must have.

    The point I am clumsily making is that groups like the NC NAACP and other groups that pursue policy (including challenging common-sense Voter ID and Photo ID laws) by promoting the inability of blacks, by alleging that whites use government to scheme in order to disenfranchise blacks, and by claiming that blacks are still the target of intentional discrimination are indirectly perpetuating the old stereotype that blacks are victims, that blacks are a disadvantaged race, that they are somehow less capable than every other race to conform with neutral laws. How offensive is it to allow the same stereotypes to be perpetuated as the one cited by Justice Taney in the Dred Scott decision? That was 160 years ago. By constantly using arguments like blacks are too poor to be expected to get an ID, that they don't have cars to drive to a DMV to get a free county-issued ID, that they are too uneducated to understand laws, that they can't get to a computer (all libraries have them for people to use), that they don't have cell phones (even though Obama gave every Democrat a phone), and that even if they could get to a computer, they lack the skills to use one or the ability to learn how to use one, they are teaching and indirectly recreating the segregated society that we left behind long ago, where there exists two general races - blacks who are generally inferior and unable to do for themselves and all others, who have no problem complying with laws.

    We've worked too hard as a society - passing laws, enacting policies, federalizing traditional state sovereign functions, remedying past wrongs, whites teaching their children that skin color is irrelevant, and hopefully blacks teaching their children the same, and reinforcing in all school children, and in fact, every single person, of the plight of blacks in this country (Black History Month) - to put the wrongs of the past behind us and to move forward in a colorblind society, judging one another not by the color of our skin (which we can't change) but by the content of our character (which is something each of us controls). It serves no purpose whatsoever to keep rehashing the past and reminding folks of how bad our country used to be. We can't move forward until the restraints of the past are removed, or ignored. Black activist groups such as the NC NAACP certainly aren't empowering blacks by poisoning them with the notion that they continue to need special protections in order to take an equal place in American society.

    IV. CONCLUSION

    There is a reason the NC NAACP fights so hard to oppose a Voter ID. It truly can't be that the NAACP and the Democratic Party believe that blacks are unable to obtain a photo ID (something every other race has no problem obtaining). No, the real reason is that the Democratic Party NEEDS the ability and opportunity to perpetrate fraud in the election process to order to win elections. It's been that way since the illegal election of John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, as president, and even the election of Roy Cooper, a Democrat, as North Carolina's governor. The NC NAACP and Democratic Party need elections in North Carolina to be loosely-controlled. NC is a potential swing state and because both groups stand on the same side of the political fence, they have more than a vested interest in how politics plays out.

    The NC NAACP and Democratic Party in North Carolina continue to imply that blacks are disadvantaged in many many respects [poor, uneducated, uniformed, more likely to move around (you need a car for that!!), have more health problems, less access to technology, have less ability to comprehend laws, etc etc], are inferiorly-situated (because of the aforementioned issues), and inferior in general (by their claims of being less educated, less knowledgeable, generally un-informed and less capable) in order to make the case that a photo ID is inherently discriminatory. We see clearly which party is the real racist party. What I don't understand is why blacks tolerate it. Their opposition to voting laws that take away excessive mechanisms and voting opportunities and tools, their support for Affirmative Action programs, and their constant demands for "special protection" rather than "equal protection" are all tacit ways they accept their inferior status in our society. Where is their dignity? Where are the black activist groups to stand up to oppose these positions on the grounds that they are racist and perpetuate horrible stereotypes?

    Again, the real reason the NC NAACP and the Democratic Party fight so hard to oppose a strict photo voter ID law is because requiring a photo ID at the polls will frustrate their schemes to perpetrate voter fraud and blacks, as always, are the perfect group to manipulate and use to challenge common-sense laws. In 2018 (53 years after the Civil Rights Act passed and 63 years after the forced integration of public schools) we should NOT be having this conversation and blacks should NOT allow themselves to still be characterized as inferior or somehow behind all other races (including Hispanics). Let's be clear - both parties can benefit from voter fraud, but only one party is dishonest enough to want to do so. And also, let's be clear... Enforcing a strict Photo ID has been challenged as discriminatory and as an undue burden on blacks and on the very elderly. Again, the Supreme Court entertained that challenge in Crawford v. Marion County (2008), against Indiana's strict photo ID Voter ID law. It held that a STRICT photo ID requirement to vote does NOT amount to an unnecessary burden on anyone's right to vote. Both a liberal justice and a conservative justice wrote opinions to that effect (yes there were two majority opinions!). In North Carolina, the challenge to our Voter ID law back in 2015-2016 was that it was discriminatory against blacks. The challenge was not that it burdened the elderly or that it burdened all minorities. (the review by the 4th Circuit was that it was intentionally discriminatory against blacks). We have to stop falling for the NC NAACP and Democratic Party bullshit. We should all be horribly offended at Spearman's words, just as a liberal college student is offended at hearing Ann Coulter or Ben Shapiro.

    Reverend Spearman and the NC NAACP like to point to President Grant and his "clear signature" on the 15th Amendment and his message to Congress as to the historic nature of the amendment, but they cherry-pick with his message. In that special message to Congress delivered by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 30, 1870 in honoring the passage of the 15th Amendment, he offered this encouragement:

    "I call attention of the newly enfranchised race to the importance of their striving in every honorable manner to make themselves worthy of their new privilege. To the race more favored heretofore by our laws I would say, withhold no legal privilege of advancement to the new citizen. The framers of our Constitution firmly believed that a republican government could not endure without intelligence and education generally diffused among the people. The Father of his Country, in his Farewell Address, uses this language: 'Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.'"

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    Most people would hope that groups like the NC NAACP would put politics of race aside, stop inferring that the racism of the Reconstruction era still lingers in the hearts of white people and that every act of government is intentionally designed to somehow disenfranchise or otherwise discrimination against blacks, and instead take their cue from President Grant - to empower blacks not to cling to a history of victimhood but rather to project empowerment and equality through education and intelligence.

    References:

    The NC NAACP Addresses the Voter ID Law, November 26, 2018 at the NC State Capital in Raleigh - https://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/video/18023119/

    NAACP Outlines of Voter ID Protest - https://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/video/17996798/

    Opinion, US District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, North Carolina NAACP v. Pat McCrory, 2016 (upholding the 2013 NC Voter ID law) - http://www.ncmd.uscourts.gov/sites/ncmd/files/opinions/13cv658moo_0.pdf

    Opinion, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, North Carolina NAACP v. Pat McCrory, 2016 (reversing the District Court opinion and striking down the 2013 NC Voter ID law) - http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/161468.P.pdf

    Opinion, US Supreme Court, Crawford v. Marion County Board of Elections, 553 U.S. 181 (2008) - Opinion by Justice Stevens - https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-21.ZO.html

    Opinion by Justice Scalia - https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-21.ZC.html

    VIDEO: Ami Horowitz "How White Liberals Really View Black Voters" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrBxZGWCdgs

    Ulysses S. Grant's Special Message to Congress, March 30, 1870 (after the passage of the 15th Amendment) - https://www.nps.gov/ulsg/learn/historyculture/grant-and-the-15th-amendment.htm

    Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. __ (2013) - https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-96

    Jay Delancy, "The Voter Fraud Too Many Deny," US News & Observer, February 18, 2016. Referenced at: https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article61140462.html

    Jay Delancy, "The Voter Integrity Project (VIP) Issues Response to Draft NC Voter ID Bill (v 0.9)," November 27, 2018. Referenced at: https://voterintegrityproject.com/draft-voter-id/ (or https://voterintegrityproject.com/draft-voter-id/?fbclid=IwAR1SAo_s5tVW-QV5oEFO9Frf5AAXU6FhgZz7Z4N3pSRWCitLXXVyxfhtKGM

    Aaron Bandler, "5 Statistics That Show Voter ID is Not Racist," Dailywire, August 2, 2016. Referenced at: https://www.dailywire.com/news/7992/5-statistics-show-voter-id-not-racist-aaron-bandler

    NC's draft Voter - Photo ID Law (S.824), "Implementation of the Constitutional Amendment Requiring a Photographic Identification to Vote" -

    - https://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2017/Bills/Senate/PDF/S824v2.pdf

    Voting Rights Act of 1965 - https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=100&page=transcript

    Government Relations, Regulatory Affairs and Contracting Group, "Supreme Court Strikes down Voting Rights Act's 'Preclearance' Formula," Ballard Spahr, June 27, 2013. Referenced at: https://www.ballardspahr.com/alertspublications/legalalerts/2013-06-27-supreme-court-strikes-down-voting-rights-acts-preclearance-formula.aspx

    Thomas J. Espenshade, Chang Y. Chung, and Joan L. Walling, (December 2004), "Admission Preferences for Minority Students, Athletes, and Legacies at Elite Universities," Social Science Quarterly, December 2004. Referenced at: http://www.princeton.edu/

    tje/files/Admission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20Walling%20Dec%202004.pdf [OR accessible from Wiley Online Library, 85 (5): 1422-46].
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