(ThyBlackMan.com) Along with “We the people of the United States” and “in Order to form a more perfect Union,” the U.S. Constitution might as well be inscribed, “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate“, or “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” because we as Americans, particularly African Americans, are in the lower rings of hell—with no divine comedic intervention in sight. Without immediate grassroots efforts, the right to vote will no longer be a sacrosanct and safeguarded principle if conservatives have their way, according to a panel led by producer Theresa Caldwell themed, “African Americans & the Constitution,” last Friday, September 23rd at the Washington Convention Center.
According to the ethnically diverse panel at Friday’s Congressional Black Caucus Foundation forum, which was electrified by the political orations of the ecclesiastical Rep. Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (D-IL), we as a nation are in a race to the bottom, in which our voting prerogatives are being attacked while 
conservatives re-write the constitution to diminish voting rights and shore up states’ rights.
According to the formidable constitutional law scholar Barbara R. Arnwine, Esq., who has commanded her post as Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law since 1989, a “voting rights wall of shame” is being erected in this country that could serve to massively disenfranchise minorities and the young in 2012.In a country plagued by looming government shut downs, record-high unemployment and foreclosure rates, where the very rich are getting richer—not to get too Apollo 13, but, HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM, even more climatic than Desperate Housewive’sfinal season! Mother Jones in its March/April 2011 on-line issue, briskly declared that “It’s the inequality, Stupid, ” that’s causing America’s downward death spiral, which MoJo intimates impacts more than just black people.
Additionally, a federal judge in Washington last week, in a 151-page decision, upheld the Voting Rights Act of 1965, ruling that the intentional voter discrimination that led to the passage of the Act, is still in existence today.
As a backdrop to past Friday’s voter suppression allegations, Arnwine asserted that “the average African-American household has lost 65% of its wealth,” and “one in three African-Americans has lost his or her home.” Directing the rapt audience’s attention to a “map of shame,” Arnwine noted that only 11 states have no existing photo voter ID laws or current legislation to undermine voting rights. The other states, according to Arnwine, have a law on the books or under consideration that would effectively diminish voting rights.
According to the panel, many conservative states are requiring or attempting to require a state-issued ID to vote—prohibiting the use of non-governmental identification such as school and employment IDs. This could serve to exclude those who are not licensed to drive, students who are transient, and the homeless, from exercising their constitutional right to vote. Therefore, according to panelist Frank Watkins, Co-Author of A More Perfect Union, the Constitution should be amended to make the right to vote explicit and not implicit, so that conservatives are not able to eliminate this fundamental right.
Michael Lind, of the New America Foundation, informed the audience that America is kamikazing towards impending disaster “in a race towards the bottom,” as more and more Americans become economically marginalized and businesses flee to conservative states, which like China, he said, lack sound labor and environmental standards, e.g., the Perry states. Rep. Jackson expressed strong support for Medicaid, Medicare, and environmental protections, adding that under the conservative Boehner Congress, he couldn’t even save a local post office within his district.
According to Rep. Jackson, unless we fight hard to preserve our entitlements, they will be lost. Those entitlements, Jackson instructed the predominately black audience, are “the only reparations that you’re going to get!”
Staff Writer; Joy Freeman-Coulbary
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