A Leadership of Cowards?

More news stories on Anti-White Discrimination

Hans A. von Spakovsky, National Review Online, March 16, 2009

Attorney General Eric Holder calls the U.S. “a nation of cowards” because we “do not talk enough about race.” I find this ironic, since the Justice Department seems embarrassed about a recent judgment in its favor by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. U.S. v. Ike Brown is a major Voting Rights Act case involving intentional race-based discrimination by local officials in Noxubee County, Miss.

When the Fifth Circuit issued its decision on February 27, there was complete silence from Justice. The department typically issues a press release after any significant litigation victory, and the Civil Rights Division trumpets every success. But not here. The silence from the nation’s leading news outlets was also deafening: Not a word was published about the case by the New York Times, the Washington Post, or any other major publication. Why? Because the offensive conduct at issue did not conveniently track with the Left’s view of race discrimination.

The Noxubee County case presents a deeply disturbing account of some of the most egregious racial discrimination the Justice Department has encountered in decades. In Noxubee, 80 percent of Democrats are black; 20 percent are white. (There are some Republicans as well, but the number is negligible.) The chairman of the Democratic party, Ike Brown, is black, and he, along with the Noxubee County Democratic Executive Committee, set about to effectively disenfranchise white voters.

The court decision shows that Brown had his own local version of Tammany Hall, and local election officials followed his orders. This included publishing in the local newspaper a list of 174 white Democratic voters whose eligibility he intended to challenge if they tried to vote in an upcoming election. According to the court, Brown compiled the list based on the individuals’ perceived lack of support for black candidates. One voter testified that she was so intimidated she didn’t vote. Another testified that she was so scared she felt she couldn’t approach the polls alone.

The court also found that Brown took measures to ensure that absentee ballots from black voters were automatically counted even if they didn’t comply with Mississippi law, while absentee ballots from white voters with the same deficiencies were challenged and not counted. He even reviewed many absentee ballots the night before an election, placing notes on them saying which should be counted and which should be rejected.

One victim, whose absentee ballot was basically stolen by the defendants and whose signature on the application and ballot envelope were obviously forged, was brought in a second time to testify after she was confronted by a member of the local Democratic party following her initial testimony. The witness was told that “we black people need to stick together” and was urged to testify that she “probably didn’t understand what [she was] being asked” during the first go-around.

The court also found that Brown recruited black individuals to run for office against white incumbents despite knowing that they didn’t meet residency requirements; refused to appoint whites as poll workers; and sent out Democratic party members to give unrequested “assistance” to black voters, marking their ballots for them and telling them how to vote. All of this was intended to dilute the voting strength of white voters and to achieve his goal, which he openly expressed—“that all of the county’s elected officials should be black.”

Even after the lawsuit was filed and Brown’s lawyers told the federal court that Brown wouldn’t interfere in any ongoing elections, he continued his pervasive racial discrimination. In fact, he told a federal observer that “I don’t care what the court says. I am still primarily responsible for running this election.” That’s exactly the kind of defiance that white officials engaged in during the 1960s, when the Voting Rights Act was first passed.

None of these voting abuses in Noxubee County surprised the career lawyers at the Bush administration’s Civil Rights Division when they filed suit against Brown and the Noxubee County Democratic Executive Committee in 2005. Brown’s exploits were legendary. In fact, he had issued an open letter to county voters years before, urging them to “Keep Hope Alive [and] Vote Black in ‘95.” Yet the Clinton administration’s Civil Rights Division consistently refused to take action.

This is probably one of the worst cases of intentional voting discrimination that the Justice Department has prosecuted since the 1960s. But the lawsuit was filed only after a vicious internal fight in the Civil Rights Division. Left-wing career lawyers in the Voting Section made it abundantly clear that they didn’t want to use the Voting Rights Act to protect white voters, no matter how egregious the violations. The former Voting Section chief even deleted the recommendation to file suit from the memo sent up to the Bush political appointees running the division. Other partisan career lawyers refused to work on the case. One who went to Noxubee County as an observer admitted to another lawyer that if he had seen the same type of illegal behavior being committed against black voters, he would have been outraged. But he wanted nothing to do with a suit filed on behalf of white voters.

Fortunately, the honest trial attorneys on the case did their best to ensure that the division’s political leadership knew about Brown’s outrageous conduct, and litigation was ultimately approved. Thanks to their hard work, the court found that the defendants had “intentionally discriminated against the county’s white voters in violation of § 2 of the Voting Rights Act,” “engaged in improper, and in some instances fraudulent conduct,” and “committed blatant violations of state election laws . .&nsbp;. for the purpose of diluting white voting strength.” These trial attorneys endured significant criticism and abuse from their colleagues for their work on the case and probably jeopardized their career advancement.

If the races had been reversed, does anyone doubt this would have been front-page news? Or that Eric Holder would have been prominently quoted in a Justice Department press release calling attention to this outrageous discrimination? The Department of Justice should be proud of this victory. If Attorney General Holder is serious about talking about race, perhaps he could start with this case.

Original article

(Posted on March 17, 2009)

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Comments

1 — Question Diversity wrote at 6:03 PM on March 17:

And why is a Republican neo-con mag like National Review not supporting racially gerrymandered districts, when they help Republicans win Congressional seats? I have said it before and will say it again, gerrymandered districts ghettoize blacks in their own district so that white liberals don’t have a reliable voting base to beat white conservatives in the white districts.

2 — Holm wrote at 7:00 PM on March 17:

Because he is a coward. Civil rights are for every American.

3 — sbuffalonative wrote at 7:41 PM on March 17:

Whenever a ‘civil rights’ has come up in the past, we were always assured that it was about fairness, justice, and equality.

This case only goes to show that when given the chance and the power, blacks just as racist and vindictive as they claim those who oppose them are.

“I don’t care what the court says. I am still primarily responsible for running this election.” That’s exactly the kind of defiance that white officials engaged in during the 1960s, when the Voting Rights Act was first passed.

You’d think that blacks who claimed historical injustice would understand injustice. Well, they do. Only when they come to power, they practice what they preach against.

4 — GenX in Oz wrote at 8:12 PM on March 17:

Just on the “nation of cowards” comment again, leftist website imagine2050 has run a smear piece on Paul Craig Roberts (some time Vdare contributor and ex Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Ronald Reagan administration).
Now contributing to Counterpunch.

CounterPunch Gives Platform to White Nationalism
http://tinyurl.com/dya7oj

If you bought a used car that only turned left, wouldn’t you just drive around in circles?

5 — HPA wrote at 8:51 PM on March 17:

The NY Times did publish this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/us/politics/11voting.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

6 — Anonymous wrote at 4:35 AM on March 18:

Most non whites I have met would drink ditch water if it meant that whitey was drinking it too.

7 — q wrote at 11:32 AM on March 18:

Real cowardice within the ranks of whites are the politicians who represent them, the writers and broadcasters who have talk shows, and the ones who have publications but are afraid to speak the truth, and all of them are terrified whenever any of those they serve speak the truth as well.

8 — A Reader wrote at 11:46 AM on March 18:

This certainly sheds some new light on the rationality of white flight. Those who flew must have collective wisdom to sense what was comming.

Not that it has been a good strategy. White fight is still more of a winning attitude than white flight. Because you can’t win a war by pullouts only.

9 — Anonymous wrote at 1:12 PM on March 18:

According to a “civil rights enforcer” in the “justice department (I wish I could remember her name) white males do not have “protection” under the “civil rights” laws. Since this is the case, I hereby “take back” my “freedom of association” which was “supposedly” taken away with the “civil rights act of 1964”. In addition, I will refuse to deal with people based on negative experiences with them. Public accomodation laws are no longer applicable or required of white males. Free at last!

10 — GERRY wrote at 6:28 PM on March 18:

This past election was the blackest period in American history. We had many situations of racism, threats, and intimidation against whites like in the above article. We had the fraud of a group called “Acorn”. Anybody that bore a McCain bumper sticker on their car had their windshield smashed, tires slashed, and paint job wrecked. We had “The New Black Panther Party” threatening whites with violence if they dared even approach the voting polls.
I saw a video of a small parade of people holding up John McCain signs simply marching in Manhattan while hoards of liberal thugs threw bottles and bricks at them while yelling foul obscenities. Children everywhere around the U.S. in schools were told to vote for “Obama” and if they did not comply were scorned, bullied, and intimidated by their classmates while the teachers looked on and did nothing. Hmmmm! I must re-think that last statement as many teachers were worse than the students and yelled and scolded those that dared say their parents were voting for McCain and drove many innocent children into tears with their hate and intimidation.
Then we have the intimidation of the Main Stream Media that protected their Mesiah Obama in every way while trashing the opposition in every way. They even said first hand that anybody who voted for McCain was a “racist”. This failure of the MSN to present the truth and then tell lies to promote their own agenda is nothing new and books have been written about it.
As the inauguration of Obama went on ( he still can’t prove he is born in the U.S. ) all I could do is hang my head in shame, not for me, but for all those that have trashed the constitution of the U.S.A., and trashed the values and traditions that made America great and in place of all that, made our country look like a scene out of South Africa.

11 — Whiteplight wrote at 3:50 PM on March 19:

“As the inauguration of Obama went on ( he still can’t prove he is born in the U.S. ) all I could do is hang my head in shame, not for me, but for all those that have trashed the constitution of the U.S.A., and trashed the values and traditions that made America great and in place of all that, made our country look like a scene out of South Africa. “

Posted by GERRY at 6:28 PM on March 18

I agree with your entire post as I noted all the above on my own. One thing however, Almost all the villains in the economic, bank and finance scandals are elitist Whites, many of whom are conservative Republican supporters who influenced their man, the former president, to loosen up every possible restraint he could. That must be admitted. The real shame is that a Black president has been elected for the purpose of cleaning up a mess that was largely perpetrated by Right wing conservatives. If conservatives were a little more caring towards others, and not actually criminally minded, they would have not allowed their business ethics to deteriorate so badly.

12 — Whiteplight wrote at 3:58 PM on March 19:

With Barak Obama in office, and his most significant appointment of Eric Holder as AG, the sort of practices that have brought South Africa to its present state are just beginning here in the U.S. By the time the second big crash comes in about 2015, we wil have effectively gutted the last of our wealth and international credit and the entire nation will be one big multicultural ghetto. The dream of equality will finally have been realized.

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