THE VOTE, WHO SHOULD HAVE IT?

by Ruth A. Sheets

The answer to the question about the right to vote seems to depend these days, maybe for the whole history of our nation on who those in power think are worthy of the honor.  Our founders, of course saw only rich white men as capable of deciding who should govern.  I have wondered where that idea sprang from and alas, I know the answer is, there was no spring, just a constant consistent downplaying of women for millennia.  This was accompanied by the powerful belief within those same rich white men that they got to their positions of prominence either by their own efforts or because their family line was simply superior to the lines of the less successful.

The question of Black people voting did not cross the minds of the founders, well, perhaps one might have considered it but after careful thought, dismissed the idea.  Bringing it up in the Constitutional Convention would have been heresy.  They couldn’t even count slaves as full persons.  That was good, though because the slave states would have had even more power than they already had, which, of course, they didn’t deserve since slaves had no rights at all.

And, the Indigenous people here.  They were immediately dismissed by the founders as not even human, just savages deserving of being wiped off the face of the earth.  How could such creatures ever be citizens of anything?

Over time some less wealthy white men were added to the voting rolls because maybe, it made us look more like a democracy, you know, the thing we claimed to be.  All kinds of strategies were employed though, to make sure those poor white men voted in certain ways up to and including personal threats.

After the Civil War, when enslaved people across the country were officially freed, many white Americans could not imagine them voting.  The 15^th Amendment to our Constitution was supposed to take care of that, but as we all know, it didn’t.  For more than a century the descendants of the founders put every obstacle in the way of Black Americans being able to vote.  You will remember the imprisonment and forced labor of Black men for insignificant “crimes” and the unaffordable poll taxes.  Then there were the “literacy” tests requiring recitations of the Constitution and more obscure documents given to Black citizens as well as unworthy white men.

And, who can forget the lynchings of citizens by white individuals, mobs, and local officials, more than 4,000 known acts of terror totally unpunished, and far more never reported at all.  The goal of all these measures, make voting seem and be out of reach of Black Americans.

Women fought actively for the right to vote for more than 70 years and when the right was granted, only white women were “permitted” to vote in most places for another nearly 5 decades.  Activist Fannie Lou Hamer was beaten nearly to death for having the audacity to want to register to vote in Mississippi in 1962, and others were killed just putting forward the idea that every American citizen should be able to vote and with as few obstacles as possible.  That is in my lifetime. 

Here we are in 2021 and a bunch of white men are at it again.  This time they have some help from white women who have forgotten how hard it was for women to get the vote.  These particular white men are not just the men of British descent of 1787 but include all kinds of men of European descent who have become white under the radar.  And, white Cubans feel their opposition to Castro in Cuba should now make them white in America too. 

These white and newly “white” men and their female white allies have been passing all kinds of voter suppression laws in state legislatures targeted at people of color, young people, and disabled persons.  They, like the founders think these are people who are unworthy to have the rights of American citizens even though they have citizenship.  The white folks perpetrating these crimes against the United States are Republican, nearly to a person.  They are afraid their privilege might not hold up if those groups can vote with ease. 

A difficult thing for me to swallow is that as in the past, the targeted groups have nowhere to turn for help against this onslaught.  “The Supreme Court!” you cry.  Well, not so fast.  In 2013, the Court ruled that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was essentially void because the states that had been abusing people’s rights were now good little boys and girls and weren’t doing that anymore.  They lied which was obvious when within the next few days, those very same “good little boys and girls” were already putting all kinds of voter restrictions in place targeting all the same people the Voting Rights Act was passed to protect.  Did the Supreme Court correct, saying “We are sorry. We were wrong. We take back our decision.”  Not on your life.  They have doubled down and are approving all kinds of voter restrictions particularly in the former Confederacy.

Can those being disenfranchised count on Congress to help, perhaps with another Voting Rights Act that fixes the “problems” with the 1965 Act so the Court can’t dismiss it so easily?  Well, they could.  There are several voting rights bills in play, but not a single Republican, you remember, those rich white men (and a few rich white women) are still at it.  Not a single one voted for even debating the issue when the “Freedom to Vote Act,” a supposed bipartisan compromise, came before the Senate.  A filibuster was declared and not only did that shut off any chance of debate, but Republican legislators didn’t even have to stand up and defend their unamerican position.

What I have come to understand is that white men in power are still acting like little children in a privileged family where whatever they want, they get.  They don’t have to work for it beyond what they want to do even if they have to be sneaky and underhanded.  They don’t have to associate with people who aren’t like them in any meaningful ways, and they marry into families where their anger and selfishness are understood and tolerated and they never really have to grow up at all.  

Well, it is time for the rich white male Republican members of Congress and the Supreme Court to grow up.  I get it that your privilege is part of your everyday existence, and that people not like you are scary.  Denying American citizens their fundamental rights is childish.  You would do better to have a platform of caring for this nation and its people that you can stand on so a broader spectrum of people would support you, but alas, you have nothing but oppression in your quiver, and you call it stopping fraud and other buzz words and phrases that are synonyms for oppression. 

Unfortunately, the rest of the country needs you to be adult enough to see that we live in a democracy and that requires people who are citizens to be able to vote with little difficulty and for you to see to it.  It is not an honest American challenge to see how hard you can make it for non-white, young, disabled persons, and others you don’t like to vote.  Republican state legislators have forgotten if they ever knew what it means to keep an oath they have made to our nation and what a democracy is.  Lies work very well to cement their positions. 

It is time you guys stop being child-men and child-women and try adulthood where people actually discuss things, debate, consider, then vote based on the honesty of an argument.  Majority Leader McConnell has let power get to his head so he can't see anything but the power he can wield.  Shame on the rest of you privileged white men and a few women who have chosen to sit silently or to vote to go along with his childishness.  You should be able to do better,

My question, do you privileged white folks in power even care about the Constitution or are you so scared you might not be the big cheese forever that you'll sabotage our democracy for whiteness?

A good test of your adulthood would be passing the Freedom to Vote Act (S. 2747) and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (S. 4). These bills are only mildly invasive of states’ rights which Republicans seem to revere so highly, but are crucial in helping fix our broken political system and build a democracy that works for all Americans, believe it or not, even you. 

I am betting white Republican childishness will win out.  However, I would love to be proven wrong this time. 

OPEN LETTER TO REPUBLICAN TEXAS LEGISLATORS (AND OTHERS OF LIKE MIND)

by Ruth A. Sheets

The new wrinkle to the Texas legislature’s anti-American actions is forcing teachers to teach alternative points of view related to history, in at least one case, the Holocaust.

OMG!  An alternative to the Holocaust???  Don't you foolish ignorant legislators and school district officials know that we, the allies were the alternative to the Holocaust and we didn't do all that well.  We refused to let Jewish and other asylum-seekers from Germany enter the US.  We did nothing to end the death camps even when we knew about them.  Then, we imprisoned 120,000 people of Japanese descent, mostly American citizens in the most horrific conditions in places in this country no one else would live, just because they were Japanese.  Then we forced them to fight for us, their country that had imprisoned them on pain of even longer imprisonment.  Then, we used and abused service members of color through segregation and other humiliations.  

So, tell me Texas legislators, what is it you would have teachers include in their curriculum of lies?   Which points of false history will you have fed to your young white kids?  The truth might be too painful for their little psyches! 

I get it Republicans are totally enamored with lying and cheating these days to get what you want, so what will you white-wash so your poor sheltered privileged little white kids won't have to read or hear about atrocities done by white people, in Europe or here?  Are your kids so fragile they can't learn the truth and discuss it? 

How do you think your kids are going to respond when they learn that you all have worked hard to deny voting rights to American citizens of color?  How are they going to like knowing you chose to gerrymander districts so Black and Brown votes would be absorbed by the fewer white voters now living in Texas?  What about the warped history and possibly science curricula? 

I am guessing you are trying hard to keep them from learning to think critically so they won't notice.  I suspect they are smarter than you think.  They will find out, you know, even if you don't admit what you have done. 

From your first bill in this recent session to the present including your anti-abortion actions, the legislation you are passing is singularly racist and misogynistic and has nothing to do with truth, justice or what should be the American way.  Neither is any of it about faith or concern for your kids.  It is about control of women and people of color, often through fear and intimidation, your fear of them and thus your intimidation of them

I am interested to see how else you will try to white-wash education for your state’s children.  You've been at it for a while, since Texas began so I suspect you will come up with more ideas and excuses.  After all, the white-washing convinced you to run for office believing you should deny people's rights.  I guess you can pass it down through your family as it was passed to you.  That is how racism and misogyny as well as homophobia and xenophobia continue. 

Scared white people are afraid of losing the unbelievable privilege you of course, claim you don’t actually have.  Like little kids, you will wrap a blanket of vile legislation around yourselves so you won’t have to encounter the “monsters” you fear are under the bed while the monsters you should fear are within yourselves.  

However, you must know, despite what you want teachers to teach, it won't brainwash your kids as white as you would like.  This is still a democracy and your kids have access to the internet and excellent strong teachers who care enough about your kids to teach the truth even if they have to hide it in the garbage you Republicans want taught.    

In some other state legislatures, the white men and some women are licking their lips ready to pass all the same stuff Texas has passed.  However a lot of the people of this country are horrified that such evil is nearly unchecked.  An entire political party has dismissed any morals or ethics it has ever held in favor of fear mongering and passing hateful legislation that helps no one but themselves.  Shame on Texas Republicans and any other states that follow your example.

THE WAR AGAINST WOMEN AND ABORTION RIGHTS SURGES

by Ruth A. Sheets

For generations there has been a kind of war against women.  Women are the target but it is not always clear who make up the army working so hard to defeat women.  What would the defeat look like?  It depends where one is. 

In my world, it was recognizing boys as the most important people in every classroom, expecting them to give the “best” answers, to see them as being the smartest, most clever beings.  I was lucky because most of the girls in my classes were not having it.  I learned from them and they from me that boys were no better, smarter, or more worthy of acknowledgment than we girls.  

During my sophomore year in college, abortion became legal which meant women could expect a safe and legal end to pregnancy if needed, although, anyone who chose abortion was supposed to feel ashamed, hide her face, and be seen as spoiled goods.  Shame is a powerful weapon.  It has been used for millennia to keep women in their place.  Now, the anti-woman forces had a cause for their scorn, and the best part, they could describe these women as murderers and baby-killers.  Wow!  The emotional appeal of this language was enormous.  And, , instead of being passive players in the “put girls down” covert and sometimes overt  skirmishes in classrooms and work places, conservative women could battle other women in public, screaming their own righteousness for all to see. 

The word “feminist” was seen as a curse and to admit you were one was permission for those screamers to attack.  All this was forced into the foreground to distract everyone from what men were doing.  After the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that women had the right to choose abortion, the Court began slowly to morph into a stealth squad working against women’s rights.  When rights were altered or removed, it nearly always negatively impacted women:  religious groups didn’t have to have insurance for employees that covered abortion care, limits to abortion were added bit by bit and now the Court has permitted a 6-week limit to abortions in Texas and a woman justice was right there ruling against women.  Both armies are now on the field and women (and men) are on both sides.

I can’t help being disgusted the way conservative (OK, right-wing) justices can rule our nation with their own personal ideologies, and do it in the middle of the night with no public hearing. That’s what happened in Texas.  In the middle of the night, the Supreme Court conservatives allowed the six-week abortion ban in Texas to go into effect.  It essentially overturns Roe v. Wade, a precedent for more than 48 years. 

This in itself is bad enough, but the problem is deeper.  The Texas law also gives people, not even just citizens of Texas the right to stalk people as vigilantes to do a gotcha on people who may or may not actually help a woman to obtain an abortion, which should still be her right.  Then, the stalkers, the reporters, get $10,000 for their vigilantism. 

When one side in a war has extreme power at every level:  the courts, Congress, and in the states, the conflict is one-sided and nearly impossible for the defenders to gain any ground.

Setting citizens of this country against each other is at least as powerful a weapon as the shaming that was and is employed so effectively.  It is pretty much guaranteed that those who will be targeted by this appalling vigilantism will be people of color because that is how it always is in this country where systemic racism ties in so neatly with systemic misogyny.

There are a few million more women in this country than men, so one would think sheer numbers would give us an advantage.  The problem is, the promotion of male supremacy begins at birth.  Boys are allowed to get away with things girls would never be permitted to do.  We even let males form gangs that terrorize whole neighborhoods, communities, and countries.  And, the hard part to admit, women are part of this socialization, this permission for boys to remain jubenilized, pushing others around with their greater physical strength but acting like spoiled toddlers.  We as a nation arm men to fight the cause de jour then bring them back into society with no preparation to be full adults who can function without being ordered about, and without weapons.  Women often become targets.

In Afghanistan, the United States was at war for 20 years and never thought to arm the masses of women who would be victims of the child-men that make up the Taliban.  Why didn’t we?  Women were not seen as important enough to prepare to protect themselves and their children when the crazies returned to power, which it was pretty clear would happen.

Women all over the world are at the mercy of armed child-men who are so scared of women’s power they work really hard to keep women down and out of public life.  The men who rule so many countries are unable to negotiate with anyone because they are used to ordering people about listening to no one if they can help it.  It is most frightening when these childish rulers have nuclear weapons as in China and almost in Iran, North Korea, and possibly other countries.  Who will suffer most when these child-men go off and attack - women and children.

Abortion is just an issue with emotion tied to it that conservative Americans can use against women, to try to keep them subservient, poor and in low-paying jobs.  I can’t help but wonder what happens when the current Court, ruling against what women and many men want, declares Roe v. Wade dead and allows vigilantism and other acts to divide our nation further.  What will they and the anti-woman faction choose as the next battleground?  Will it be birth control so women will be pregnant as often as men can make it happen?  Will it be keeping pregnant women out of the workplace, you know, men shouldn’t have to look at women that fat?  Will rape be made acceptable?  After all, one of the justices on the Supreme Court has credibly been accused of attempted rape.  Will it be ending following up on accusations of sexual harassment in the workplace?  After all, another Supreme Court justice has credibly been accused of sexual harassment. 

The guarantee is, the war against abortion will continue in some form because it has provided a lot of victories for the armies of taking away women’s rights as well as civil rights.  It seems women are going to have to step up our preparedness to continue the fight.  We need to find new weapons whether perhaps through women-owned media.  Maybe we can actively work out ways to circumvent Republican moves to keep us from voting.  We might get more pro-women candidates into office all over the country and work to vote out the women-hating women that have taken so many offices lately.  We all need to be engaged because the anti-woman forces are gathering for a major battle and we women are not really prepared.  That’s probably because we are doing the work of holding our society together, as always, but particularly now during a pandemic:  our schools, our churches and other religious institutions, our homes, our communities.  Where are the men?  Many are standing with us, but many are not. 

We need to more forcefully demand justice and laws that work for us.  I know, Good luck with that.  Maybe we should turn the weapons used against us back on them, shame them for leaving our children in poverty or that the men act like spoiled brats.  We need to try just about everything in this fight if we would not lose ground, or lose the war.