The Voting Rights Act 45-Years Later

Yes, as has been pointed out in myriad studies and has been used by liberals for decades, we did have a serious race issue in the southern US in the early 1960's. Yes, we did need legislation to ensure that African-Americans were allowed to vote without interference and no, it was not passed because of men like Al Gore. Sr, Robert Byrd and other Dixiecrats but in spite of them. If not for the GOP, LBJ's legislation would have gone down to ignominious defeat.

That said, should the South continue to pay for the sins of the past?

The Southern states (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas, as well as Alaska and Arizona) remain fully under the thumb of the federal government, and must get permission before making any change--no matter how minor--in voting procedures. Complying with the federal law cost those states and a handful of counties and municipalities across the country $1 billion in the past decade, one court filing estimates.

Today's arguments in the Supreme Court were incredibly compelling, and they got straight at this question, as raised by Chief Justice Roberts, to a lawyer defending the Act:

"Is it your position today that Southerners,” Roberts asked, “are more likely to discriminate than Northerners?"

The short answer to Chief Justice Robert's query is no.

Anyone who travels as extensively as I can tell you that the view of the South held by anyone from the North is stunted and remains in a pre-1965 mindset. People in the Northeast--especially liberals--believe that Bull Connor is still turning hoses on helpless blacks while southern governors are giving JFK the finger. They don't only think that white southerners are racist, they know they are.

To them I say, look around you. Then take a trip to Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte, Mobile, Knoxville or Memphis and tell me they are more racist than Boston, Newark, Philly, New York, Washington, DC or Baltimore. You can't because it's not true.

In the South, whites and blacks live together in the same communities and their kids attend the same schools. They respect each other for the most part and consider themselves Georgians, Alabamans, Texans or Tennesseans. You can't say that about us up here on the eastern seaboard.

In the aforementioned northern cities, we have a segregation that is nearly as insidious as that which was imposed in the South in the forties and fifties. It's a self-imposed segregation whereby blacks live in run-down cities like Newark, NJ or Camden, NJ and whites live in Chatham, NJ or Villanova, PA. These are a completely different culture and one in which the races mix only when absolutely required. Go to Atlanta and you'll see blacks and whites in equal numbers at a restaurant but where do you see the same thing up north?

Northern liberals have deluded themselves into thinking they are better than their southern brethren but they are the leading practitioners of this neo-racism. They flock to enclaves of whiteness like SoHo and Society Hill where you see no blacks living at all. They know exactly what neighborhoods not to go into because they are "dangerous" (read: black). They talk of equal rights but don't live it. They scoff at southerners who say "sir" and "maam" and label them rednecks but tend to have infinitely more racist tendencies.

I agree with Obama and his media sycophants, let's have a frank discussion on race. It will be shut down once those who consider themselves non-racists are forced to see the facts as they truly are.