Amidst all of the hand wringing about the Presidential election, both its process and outcome, we can note that Hudson conducted a little experiment in democratic direct action that at the local level will likely produce interesting positive results in the future. Continue reading
Isabel Wilkerson’s book, The Warmth of Other Suns – the epic story of America’s great migration, ((New York City, Random House 2010)) creates whole new planes of awareness of our history.
This book startled me to a new understanding of how encompassing and pervasive the Jim Crow laws and social rules of the South really were. Without much thinking on my part, I have always equated Jim Crow with images of separate water fountains, lunch counters, and schools, along with denial of voting rights. Included were images of lynchings and mob violence. Wilkerson’s work brings to life the real depth of the American system of Apartheid. These laws and social rules were so extensive as to lead to separate break times in factories so that whites and blacks would not even use a stairway at the same time.
This is the story of the six million African Americans who left the South for the North and West of the US between 1910 and WWII. Wilkerson builds her narrative of the main courses of this migration through the stories of three people leaving three different parts of the South, venturing to the three main destinations, NYC and the northeast, Chicago, and Los Angeles over three decades (teens through 40’s). Her overall research included interviews with over 1,200 people.
The stories do not end with the escape from the South. Wilkerson follows the stories as they unfold in their new environs. Here the transition from the oppressions of the South to the new realities of the north and west. No surprise the escape from the South did not mean an instant escape from racism institutionalized or otherwise. This part of the story is more familiar to a Northern urbanite.
This book, along with Douglas Blackmon’s Slavery By Another Name – the re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to WWII ((NYC Doubleday, 2008)) are compelling additions to understanding the history of racism in the US. Both are must reads.
In the aftermath of the Bush victory there has been lots of discussion about the size of the voter turnout and the relative effectiveness of the Bush campaign’s get-out-the-vote organization. One simple fact needs to be focused on: even with a turnout of 116 million in 2004, roughly 97 million potential voters did not show up. Americans are still not involved in the election process.
Here is one concept for the next quadrennial presidential circus:
Lets have a get-out-the-vote campaign that focuses on the secular vote.
Going door-to-door, you could ask a basic diagnostic question. For example, “Do you believe that the Bible is the literal word of God?” If you get a “Yes”, then move on to the next door. If you get a “No” response, then point out to the potential voter that the fundamentalists are pushing their religion into schools, government, the Supreme Court, your bedroom, music, TV, and movies, to mention a few of their targets.
With 97 million people not participating in our politics, even at the level of voting, there is plenty of room to develop a significant new base of action.
Just in case you missed this tidbit from the BBC website. I guess the mixture of oil and religious nonsense explains why the US continues to support this repressive regimes among the many all around the world?
“Saudi women barred from voting”
The Saudi interior minister has said women will not be allowed to vote in the country’s municipal elections starting in February 2005. In response to a question about women’s getting the vote, Prince Nayef bin Sultan said simply: “I don’t think that women’s participation is possible.” An election law published in August did not explicitly ban women from voting. This led many campaigners for women’s rights to hope for a substantial breakthrough for Saudi women. The Associated Press quotes an unnamed Saudi election official as saying that the main reasons for barring women from the election were administrative. The official told AP that there were not enough women electoral staff to run women-only voter registration centres, while only a fraction of women in Saudi Arabia had photo identity cards.”