Human and civil rights violations often occur in many parts of the United States, as illustrated by the recently passed marriage and election laws in state legislatures, judicial errors that occur through verdicts rendered in our court system, bias and discrimination that occurs at the corporate level, and bullying in our schools. When they occur, these violations have a serious negative impact on race relations in the community, can spark civil disobedience and conflict, and sometimes even threaten our ability to maintain law and order. What avenues are open to us to prevent them from happening in the future?

An assessment of our current race relations based on sixty years of observation

I’m not an expert on race relations, but I grew up with the civil rights movement in full swing and I saw what happened over the last sixty years both in Florida and in the nation as a whole. The best way I know of to solve civil rights problems like the ones described is to prevent them from happening by removing the underlying causes, but that’s not always possible and when it is possible it doesn’t happen overnight.

The American civil rights movement has brought us much progress in race relations through the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King, the American Civil Liberties Union, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by the United States Congress signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and the well-documented efforts of many others.

But even though our country has elected its first black president, in fact, our various racial groups, given the choice, still seem to prefer to mingle with members of their own race most of the time. This self-imposed distancing of races from one another when and where it occurs undermines mutual understanding and respect, provides the opportunity for misunderstanding to arise, and sometimes becomes the match that ignites civil disobedience when human rights violations occur. The protests and demonstrations taking place as a result of vote-suppression laws, marriage inequality, and alleged miscarriages stemming from unpopular jury verdicts illustrate my point.

My focus will be primarily on the vote suppression laws in effect during the 2012 presidential election.

Human and civil rights violations illustrated by election laws passed in state legislatures

When laws such as the ones listed below are enacted with the deliberate but clandestine intent to reduce the percentage of minority voters who go to the polls and cast their ballots because the party that passes the legislation receives far less support from those voters than does the opposing party, it is a deliberate deterioration of racial harmony and a clear attempt by the incumbent political party to maintain power at all costs, even in violation of human and civil rights. The laws and practices mentioned are reminiscent of the laws promulgated by the so-called “banana republics”. When these laws do not have the expected result and the party that approves them loses the election, what next? A military junta? It is outrageous that a political party in the United States should stoop to that level. If a political party cannot legally and ethically obtain a majority of votes, then it has no right to win an election. Consider these tactics for a moment, all of which have been used recently to try to win elections.

• Make registering to vote more difficult.
• Impose restrictive and onerous identification requirements as a prerequisite for registering to vote and casting a ballot.
• Prohibit same-day registration on the date of the general election.
• Minimize the number of days for early voting.
• Eliminate early voting on Sunday, a day when many voters of color prefer to cast their ballots.
• Make voting as inconvenient as possible for those who don’t normally vote for you.
• Deliberately distributing flyers in Spanish that incorrectly indicate the date of the election and show that it was held later than the scheduled date.
• Place far more voting machines in favored precincts than you do in opposing-party-dominated precincts to ensure long lines and voting delays in opposing-party-dominated precincts and ensure only short lines at ruling-party-dominated precincts.
• Shorten the hours that the polls are open.

Where these discriminatory attempts to suppress the rights of minorities exist, the next time a situation develops that those minorities consider discriminatory, such as miscarriage in a court trial, it will ignite and mobilize civil rights advocates, initiate litigation, provoke public protests, and petition government officials for redress of grievances. Is the need for such action being created to maintain and exercise the rights to which we are all clearly entitled in the best interest of racial harmony? Is it in the national interest to allow such practices to continue? Let the reader be the judge of the appropriateness of such action.

It is extremely disappointing that even after decades of legal, judicial, public and private, personal and corporate efforts to provide equal opportunity and establish a level playing field for all, we are still trying to get out of the quagmire created by the attitude of people who are frozen in time and do not want to see the need to change their attitude.

Conclusion

We must continue to educate our children to understand the fundamentals and great importance of the American civil rights movement, its causes, and the lives sacrificed that gave rise to it. And we must instill in them the need to firmly commit to legality for everyone: black – white (or any other race or color), lesbian – gay – bisexual – transgender or heterosexual, men – women, young – elderly and disabled without distinction of religious doctrine or political ideology.

Respect for our racial and cultural differences across all age groups seems key to overcoming the lingering remnants of intolerance and hatred that sometimes still disturb racial harmony and social integration. Old clothes become hard. In this case, let’s hope they die sooner rather than later.

© 2013 Douglas M. Midgley, JD All rights reserved worldwide