American Blackout

I recently watched “American Blackout”, a documentary film depicting the utter racial discrimination faced mainly by African Americans and Latinos during the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. I suspected fishy happenings in Florida (2000) and Ohio (2004) but never knew that the actions of the election directors in these respective states were so blatantly undemocratic.

How was front-page news not made when Jeb Bush , Governor of Florida, and Katherine Harris, the Secretary of State, hired a private firm to create a list of 90,000 supposed felons (using misdemeanor records from the state of Texas, of course) in order to blacklist these “criminals”? Choicepoint, the privately contracted company, was informed that names on this list only needed to be 80% matched in order to block a registered voter from casting their ballot in the 2000 presidential elections. So in the state of Texas if you had a misdemeanor charge and your name happened to be John Smith, a registered voter in the state of Florida by the name of John Smyth could have been cut out of voting. No questions asked. Choicepoint was ASKED SPECIFICALLY to provide an UN-VERIFIED list of banned “felons”. Turns out that 97% of these American citizens whose civil rights were destroyed were INNOCENT. How ironic that not only were 75-80% of those listed as apparent “felons” African American, but also that statistically African Americans tend to vote 9 out of 10 times for a democratic candidate! This black list (pun intended) blocked approximately 90,000 legitimate American citizens from voting and the state of Florida (as we all know) went to George Jr. by a mere 537 votes.

Do the math.

The documentary also followed sketchy happenings during Ohio’s bit of the 2004 presidential elections in which election machines were pulled in dozens of inner city precincts in which thousands more citizens were registered to vote than the 2000 elections. Camcorder footage shows empty gymnasiums in the suburbs contrasted with people in the inner city areas who waited in the rain 4 hours to cast their ballots. How can the Elections Committee of Ohio possibly explain the numbers when “Blackout” clearly shows that machines were ONLY pulled from the poorer areas of Ohio’s larger cities (in areas where registered voters were up 27% from the 2000 elections); NO machines were pulled from suburbia? Logical? Only because the Republican government was well aware of the lengths it needed to go to in order to keep their puppet in power. Embarrassing? YES.

Last but certainly not least, “Blackout” follows the story of ex-Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (of Georgia), a progressive African American woman dedicated to pulling the truth out of war-mongering politicians on the hill, who was sacrificed and labeled as “un-American” for asking questions about 9/11, the war in Iraq, and the debacles of the past two presidential elections (she started asking these questions back in 2000 and to this day has not been dissuaded from her quest for truth). The Republican powers that be banded together to force McKinney out of office when her truth-telling went “too far”. Where are we as a democracy when we’re chucking politicians like McKinney out of power? When did it become un-patriotic to ask questions which DESERVE answers?

It almost seems like the Republican leaders of our country have something to hide!

Let’s do some justice to honest politicians like Cynthia McKinney who are actually working for the people rather than the system, who believe in democracy in its truest sense. Let’s start asking REAL questions and DEMANDING answers. 2008 will not be another regression to the pre-civil rights days. Take action and believe in change!

Let’s get those insurgents off Capitol Hill!