Voter Suppression: We Survived the Slave Ships, those Voter ID Laws ain’t Shit to Black Folks
Listen, in 2016 it could very well be nearly impossible to cast a vote if you’re African-American. Given the way things are playing out right now, Barack Obama winning in November could be the end of the black vote. If you think his 2008 victory pissed off the GOP, wait till you see what happens once he secures a second term. If you think they made it harder for “certain people” to vote this year, you ain’t seen nothing yet. White Supremacy will be so mad that Obama kicked its ass twice in a row that they’ll make it even harder for us to vote. Yep, Jim Crow will be back like a mu’fugga.
Think I’m playing? Shoot, by 2016, black folks will be required to produce ticket stubs from the ride on the slave ship to be able to cast a vote. Hell, the GOP might make it so bad that black folk will have to produce triplicate copies of a birth certificate with one’s original African name to be able to vote in 2016. Yep, y’all better start putting in your requests now while it’s still early. Uh-huh, don’t get caught slippin’ like hopefully none of you will be when it comes to voting on November 6th, 2012.
That said, checkout one woman’s experience via WaPo:
Philadelphia — Cheryl Ann Moore stepped into the state’s busiest driver’s licensing center, got a ticket with the number C809 on it and a clipboard with a pen attached by rubber band, and began her long wait Thursday to become a properly documented voter.
[...] Moore bent over a folding table and carefully filled out the form a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation worker had given her, in the first line she would stand in that day. Her ticket was time-stamped 11:38 a.m. and gave an estimated wait time of 63 minutes, which, said Moore, didn’t seem so bad.
She had been registered to vote since she was 19, and now she was 54.
“I’m on vacation this week,” she said, “so I thought, ‘Let me just get this done now,’ because by the time we get to November, you won’t be able to get in this place.”
She looked around. Nearly all of the 200 plastic chairs in the long room were filled with her fellow citizens — people trying to get licenses to drive mixed in with people trying to get licenses to vote. The bin on the wall that held applications for the “Pa. voting ID” was empty.
[...] Cheryl Ann Moore was such a grown-up.
She owns her home, a small rowhouse in South Philadelphia. She’s held the same job for 24 years, as a custodian at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where she works the 4-a.m.-to-noon shift. To get there, she takes the bus in the middle of the night. She doesn’t have a driver’s license, like thousands of working people in a city with one of the lowest rates of car ownership in the country.
She doesn’t have a bank account. “I pay cash or do layaway,” said Moore. “No credit cards; they’re dangerous.”
On Thursday, she slept in, until about 7 a.m., then got herself dressed to spend the day in Center City in a pair of pressed gray capris, a pink-and-white T-shirt and a pair of pink patent leather sandals.
She stopped at work to pick up the paycheck she gets every two weeks, then went to cash it at the same place she’s been going for years.
“They know me there,” she said, “I don’t need ID for that.”
But she had heard on the news she needed ID to vote, even though “I never had no problem before,” and her daughter, Sharia, who works in day care, had been pressing her. “She already has that non-driver license, so she told me I better get myself one.” Figuring there would be a crowd at the center, she hadn’t stopped for breakfast, and now it was 12:30 p.m., and she was hungry.
[...] ‘None of this makes any sense’
“This is a hot mess!” said Moore. “They want people to get out and vote, and none of this makes any sense!”
Pauline Broyaka, a native of Ukraine, was clutching her 1991 voter registration card. “I have no idea what I’m waiting for,” said Broyaka. She had number C805.
Irwin Smith was back for a second day. He had showed up at 8 a.m. Monday, only to find out voter photos aren’t taken on Mondays. Now he was back, holding his birth certificate and his Social Security card. The fact that he had held onto both, through decades of living on the street before he moved to a housing program four years ago, he saw as a sign he was intended to “be part of society again.” He had number C814.
“This is ridiculous,” said Moore. “We are all in this world together. We are as one. We are equal.”
She looked at her watch. It was 1:10 p.m., she had been there for 90 minutes, and C773 was up. “I think I should go get a money order for $13.50,” the fee for the non-driver ID, she said. “I better have that just in case.” She went around the corner to Liberty Market, fished out $13.50 and another buck for the money order.
“Even if I don’t need it, it pays to talk to people, and be prepared,” she said.
At 1:42 p.m., Moore stepped up to one of the eight manned stations and presented her paperwork. Registered to vote? “Oh, yes,” she said. “You want a voting ID?” asked the clerk. “Then you need to fill out this instead.” Moore took another clipboard, and another two-page form. “I already answered most of this,” she said.
A second clerk phoned the Philadelphia Board of Elections, and after a wait, verified she was, indeed, registered to vote. Ten minutes later, she directed Moore to print and sign her name on a sheet of paper labeled “Examiner’s Report.” She carefully detached her pay stub from the address page and offered her proof of residency. She swore her oath of affirmation.
At 2:10 p.m., she got a new ticket — A230 — for the photo line. At 3:25 p.m., after four hours, her number was called, and she scampered over to the camera, only to have the clerk take number A231 and the man standing behind her.
“Hey!” she said, “I’m right here!”
“I already called your number three times,” he said. “Now what?” she demanded.
“Take a new number,” he said.
“This is bull—-!” she said. “At the end of all this?” She bit her lip.
At that, another clerk waved Moore to another camera and told her to smile.
With that, after four hours, Cheryl Ann Moore became the proud owner of a laminated Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of State for Voting Purposes Only ID card.
“I feel good!” she said. She grinned, kissed the card, put it inside a compartment in her knockoff Louis Vuitton purse and zippered it shut.
So yeah, say the wrong shit and you can get punched in the mouth, stabbed, or maybe even shot. It might sound extreme, but, wouldn’t you be slightly perturbed if a bunch of rich white men was trying to turn back the clock and make you a second class citizen once again? I mean hell, ain’t like anybody asked for ID to declare an “N-Word” eligible to pick cotton, why then should we have to show one to exercise one of the most fundamental rights protected by the U.S. Constitution?
Cheryl Ann Moore after getting her new Voter ID (Photo: Washington Post)
Forgive me for being a lil’ on the uppity side when it comes to complaining about this issue. I mean, it’s not like anyone in my family has been shot, killed, and buried in any landfills in Mississippi for the right to vote. Yeah, it’s not like I have any reason to be shitty about having to miss maybe an entire day of work just to get the new Voter ID here in Memphis, Tennessee — being black, I’m happy just to have a job. That said, what the hell do I look like bitching about paying a poll tax about missing a day’s pay just to be able to pretend to be an American? Heck, maybe Abe Lincoln should have sent us back to Africa like he wanted. But then again, having a front row seat in the theater of democracy to watch Obama win and the GOP lose their rabbit-ass-minds would be well worth it.
