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This week on CounterSpin: The Supreme Court is grabbing the front pages with rulings on marriage equality and the Voting Rights Act. But the Court’s curious ruling on affirmative action also raises plenty of questions—especially about where the discussion of that issue might be headed next. We’ll speak to Kimberle Crenshaw of the African American Policy Forum about that.
Also on the program: Barack Obama gave a major address on climate change. What it signaled, rhetorically or otherwise, was very much up for debate. The media discussion included plenty from Obama’s critics in the fossil fuel industry, but what were the environmentalist critiques of the policy? We’ll talk to Public Citizen’s Tyson Slocum.
LINKS:
—African American Policy Forum
Your CounterSpin guest, Kimberle Crenshaw of the African American Policy Forum, the week ending June 28 went over an important bit a little too fast for me.
The “AFFIRMATIVE ACTION” issue again finds “us” (Americans) dealing with the effect or consequences instead of dealing with the cause.
If black kids are unprepared for college work, if they can’t pass the “culturally biased” college-entry or other tests – then, by god, prepare them properly in the pre-college years, make darn sure they have quality education (in resources, instruction, exposure, activities) in those years (too often black people disparage as “white” what they later need to pass tests); so that in later years they have some choices, options instead of having to beg at the mercy of “white” whatever: legislatures, courts, employers, entrenched power, nepotism etc.
The same is true for the “VOTING RIGHTS” issue: people of the United States, including black people, don’t bother themselves to vote in percentages found even in “Third World” countries yet they have no problem shopping against their better interest at Wal-Mart!
If black people really wanted to vote (with Fannie Lou Hamer’s level of care and devotion) ─ they would embrace the process and this country. If they need ID cards, get them. Establish a nonprofit of some sort, contribute and raise money to obtain ID cards for people who can’t afford them. For people who can’t to vote on Tuesdays, work for weekend voting; to accommodate weekend workers, ensure more voting by mail and other alternatives; reestablish nonpartisan voter leagues to encourage voting and rally independents to run for office.
There is so much to do at the “underlying cause” level of issues. When it gets to the political and partisan, ideologically biased executive and legislative and judicial levels, it too late. We need to do things differently from the way we used to or take the best (Fannie Lou Hamer and League of Women Voters) of the past and better it. It was interesting to me that in photo on your CounterSpin page for the “Affirmative Action” issue, there was a protest banner reading “Diversity works,” but in the images on camera, there was no “diversity”: a small group of black-only women is not diversity and it undermines and contradicts the banner’s argument. Americans need solidarity across and embracing difference of all kinds. That is another long-standing “underlying” problem that needs mending, amending, revising.
Think tanks such as the African American Policy Forum Kimberle Crenshaw represents and all kinds of nonprofits and not-for-profits (like corporations) have their reason to be; but more than any other reason to be is the unspoken reason: self perpetuation. That’s okay for them but it is a narrowed view, and when one of these groups is the only voice on a subject segment of another program’s discussion, the debate is narrowed. These are just my thoughts, of course. [Bennett’s Study: todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com]