Felon disenfranchisement ... A new term for me !!

Gore argues that the efforts in Florida are similar to the ones that caused him to lose the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush.   He is correct in this assessment.

Al Gore says that the long lines are “un-American” and a disgrace.   He also says that it’s not an accident, but part of a strategy to keep certain people away from the polls.

“It is a strategy and it is a strategy that is a direct descendent of the racist Jim Crow tactics that were used in the wake of the Civil War to prevent black people from voting,” Gore said.

“It is more sophisticated now. It is dressed up in different kinds of language, but it is un-American, it is wrong, it is a disgrace to this country and there ought to be a bipartisan movement to say enough of this,” he said.

Now that Gore has dug up the scary concept of Jim Crow for the purpose of getting black people to vote for his party, let’s hope that he is also willing to use Jim Crow to take on the prison industrial complex.   If black voter disenfranchisement is problematic, then felon disenfranchisement is tantamount to a war crime against American citizens.

President Obama has won re-election, which could turn out to be a wonderful thing for the country.  I am extremely hopeful that the Democrats who showed up in every black church, community center and barbershop to get us to vote for them will be willing to go to those same locations to coordinate on strategies to end the prison industrial complex.   The prison system has destroyed millions of black families across America, and the degree to which Democrats pay attention to this issue will be a direct measure of whether or not they care about us as much as they expected us to care about them.

In the 2016 presidential election, the Dems will no longer have Barack Obama, their politicalMichael Jordan, to get black people out to the polls.  Rather than relying on politics of personality, they might actually have to do something to earn our vote.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition. He is also the creator of the Building Outstanding Men and Boys Family Empowerment Series. 

Al Gore is right about the mess at many of the polls. ROMNEY WAS SHOCKED that he did not win…BECAUSE HE KNEW THERE WAS A PLAN TO PUT HIM IN…LOTS OF FUNDS…LOTS OF LIES…LOTS OF BILLIONAIRES BACKING HIM. There was a planned effort by the GOP to do whatever they could to block votes, lower the number of Blacks and Latinos who vote…and make it more difficult to vote. They did all they could to keep Pres. Obama out of office…but they FAILED. Some of their plans caused the long lines — LONG BALLOTS that take 30 min. to read….filling out affidavits before being allowed to vote…only accepting certain forms of ID…and it goes on and on.