Black-on-Black voter suppression?

At the recent conference of the National Urban League which was held here, a major subject of concern was voter suppression. It seems that since conservatives/republicans represent a smaller portion of the electorate they had decided to win “by any means necessary” including violating the very spirit and meaning of a democratic process.

Republicans try to justify voter suppression attempts by claiming widespread voter fraud was a concern. This has repeatedly proven false, but of course that does not stop them from making that claim. Numerous groups that focus on registering impoverished communities to vote have reported harassment and even threats of arrest for their efforts.

Suppression can come in the form of laws that require certain forms of identification, purging of the rolls, making polling places hard to access or even placing police checkpoints near the polls to harass or intimidate potential voters. It’s always directed at the non-white and the non-rich.

Within the Black community there is another type of suppression, born of frustration, disillusionment and cynicism.

The first thing this group overlooks is the most obvious, what we have lost by not voting. A majority-Black city is run by Council that does not reflect the ethnic makeup of the city, ONLY because Black people did not turn out to vote! The outcomes of local, state and national elections have been determined by the numbers of eligible Black voters who sat on their butts instead of pushing a button. Now we have to live and die with the decisions of elected officials who don’t have our best interests at heart, which brings us to the next point;

It DOES matter who is in office. These people make decisions that affect both your quality of life and whether you will have a life. They decide if a factory can put poison in the air or water in your neighborhood. They decide if your streets will be fixed and how well. They can raise or lower your cost of living with a simple vote. The education of your children; the availability of health care; the number of jobs and who will fill them; whether your child can be drafted to go face death in a war, all of these and more are decided by the people you elect by voting or by refusing to vote. Either way you are part of the process.

Finally, if your vote really did not matter, why are white conservative Re­publicans trying so hard to take it away from you? Why are they investing millions in lobbying, campaigns, court cases and other efforts to stop you from voting? At least think about it: if your vote did not matter then there would be no all-out attempt—overt and covert—to try and suppress the vote by those in power!

It’s so painfully obvious, conservatives don’t play fair and that the only way for them to keep their foot on our necks and the necks of those races and classes of people who are not likely to support their agenda is to block, suppress, deny, limit, hinder or revoke your ability to vote.

In a democracy the vote is the great equalizer. Both the millionaire and the pauper have one vote, and in this society the number of paupers is growing.

Conservatives have decided that democracy only works if they are winning. They have a reason (no matter how dishonorable) to sabotage the process by keeping their opponents from participating.

Black people cannot afford to ignore any tool, any weapon, any device that might possibly be used to improve our condition, so GET UP AND VOTE!

This article was originally published in the August 13, 2012 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper