FORUM
Our civil war
and theirs
; Bill
Turner
Guest
Columnist
Many
Americans
defend the
preservation
and display
o f
Confederate
themed
statutes and
flags and other varied and sundry - and
sordid - signs of the strained historical
relationships between blacks who were
once slaves and whites who were not.
The shadows and symbols of the time
when Americans were at war with them
selves have re-emerged, revitalizing con
flicts; but it could be worse.
On the other side of the world, the
group ISIS, which stands for the Islamic
State in Iraq and Syria, justifies the literal
blowing-up and sledge-hammer smashing
of similar antique monuments in their
homelands that link them with events from
their past. One of the American South's
best writers, William Faulkner, spoke well
for both groups when he said, "The past is
never dead. It's not even past."
The ISIS enthusiasts - who say they
follow the teachings of the Prophet
Muhammad - are shattering all manner of
statues, using the logic that any religious
representation, icons or figures that do not
represent what they call "True Islam" must
be destroyed. Likewise, there are some
diehards in America's Dixieland and
beyond, who, with jihadist-like reasoning,
see the removal of Civil War battle flags,
colonial and slavery-themed murals and
monuments to KKK founders from public
spaces in the USA as the equivalent to the
loss of their Confederate caliphate.
The controversy over what is unpleas
ant in hindsight leads to the same ques
tions - and how they are answered -
whether faced by Americans on different
sides of the issue or by the Sunnis or the
Shiites, who are shooting it out in the
streets around Damascus and Baghdad.
When it comes to the bad parts of history
and what is inherently disgusting or hate
ful - or if it is "heritage, not hate" -is not
only in the eyes of the beholder, it is also
in what they do with what they see.
We are taking a fresh new look at the
highways and byways in the American
South that are named for eminent
Confederate
soldiers. We
are being
introduced ?
for the first
time ? to the
many men
standing
regally or on
horses in the
rotundas of
some state
p 9 n i t a 1 c
Soon after the Charleston church massacre
of nine blacks where the Confederate flag
showed up in the deep background,
[South Carolina] Governor Haley called
for, and got the flag taken down from the
statehouse courtyard in Columbia. Major
retailers pulled the products from their
shelves. Many think such objects and
reminders should not be removed, and a
large segment of the American white pop
ulation is now raising bitter counter
demonstrations.
On the whole, however, we have sepa
rated ourselves from ISIS by evidence of a
civil and quite reasonable tog of war over
these mementos. Citizens and their elected
representatives are finding ways to educate
ourselves about the Civil War, what some
say was a battle over states' rights, not a
treasonous rebellion, not a cause to sustain
slavery.
Compared to those pulverizing statu
ary they don't like in parts of the Middle
East where civil wars are in full swing, we
are, by contrast, stopping to think what it
means to have at least 188 U.S. public
schools named for Confederate generals.
Public tributes in our nation's capital to
President George Washington now have
big footnotes: that he kept 316 slaves at his
Mount Vernon estate, a very popular
tourist site. Rather than defacing the mon
ument to President Thomas Jefferson,
Americans arc learning more about his
some 600 slaves - one of whom, teenager
Sally Hemings, he fathered six children.
Founding fathers with faults.
In our world, thankfully, we are not
being called to pulverize images of past
nobility or things that symbolize a move
ment, such as we see in Baghdad and
Damascus. Those who guard the doorway
to the American future think differently
about what is - and what is not - impor
tant enough to threaten our collective exis
tence. As we fight over interpretations of
the past, far better it is that we choose to
chop into pieces the systems that keep peo
ple of color at the bottom of the economic
well. We won't, I hope, flip the real script
and make a monumental mistake!
Dr. Bill Turner is a noted educator,
writer and thinker who called Winston
Salem home for many years. Reach him at
bill-turner? comcast net.
William H. Turner (c) 7/27/2017
Voting
from page Al
received a new 57-page
version of the bill that
would radically change
voting in North Carolina.
He said he had little time to
research it, but was still
able to present statistics
that showed African
Americans used early vot
ing at a higher rate and
would be disproportionate
ly affected by the voter ID
requirement. The bill
passed both the House and
Senate in only two days, in
a process that Stein said
was unusual.
Michaux, North
Carolina's longest serving
legislator, said that he felt
the intention of the bill was
to suppress the vote, partic
ularly among African
Americans. He said evi
dence of the negative
results of the bill toward
black voters was clearly
presented to his Republican
colleagues. Every
Republican present voted
for it, while all Democrats
voted against it.
"The whole
Democratic caucus, after
the bill passed, stood up
and bowed their heads in a
moment of silence," said
Michaux, who was the first
black U S Attorney in the
South since Reconstruction
before becoming a law
maker.
On cross-examination
by state attorneys, both
lawmakers said that while
the process was unusual,
no legislative rules were
broken.
No Republicans testi
fied about the legislative
process because they've
invoked legislative privi
lege to prevent themselves
from taking the stand or
releasing emails about the
bill.
The plaintiffs also
called N.C. State Board of
Elections Director Kim
Starch to the stand. She tes
tified that more than
96,000 people might not
have been able to vote if
early voting in 2012 had
been shortened from 17
days to the current 10 day
period under the new law.
She was also asked
about the lack of evidence
of fraud in same-day voter
registration, which has
been eliminated under the
new voting law. She did
have concerns about same
day registration, giving an
election mishap in
Pembroke as an example.
Pembroke, which has a
population of 3,000, had a
tight town council election
in 2013, with one seat
being tied at 300 votes
between challenger and
incumbent. Nine young
men in town for a basket
ball program used a lease
as proof of residence for
same-day registration and
voted. It turned out they
didn't live in town and a
lease didn't qualify as a
proper proof of residence,
thus their votes were ineli
gible. This was among the
factors that led Pembroke
to redo the election in
2014.
Daniel Donovan, one of
the plaintiffs' attorneys,
said the real problem
wasn't the same-day regis
tration, but an election offi
cial's mistake. Starch
admitted that the election
official was mistaken in
using the lease as part of
the registration.
Lorraine Minnite, a
Rutgers University politi
cal science professor,
agreed with that in her tes
timony and said there was
no clear evidence that the
basketball players intended
to commit voter fraud. She
said that it was a myth that
same-day registration is
susceptible to fraud and,
because the voter is appear
ing in person with the iden
tification required to regis
ter, it's actually a more
secure way to register to
vote.
Minnite said voter
fraud is almost non-exis
tent in the state. She said
the N.C. State Board of
Elections
provided
legisla
tors with
evidence
showing
just two
referrals
for voter
imper
sonation from 2000 to
2014, a time period when
more than 35 million votes
were cast. She felt restric
tions in House Bill 589
actually undermined the
election process.
"In a democracy, the
integrity question is an
access question," she said.
"You have to have both. If
some have less access, then
the electoral process
doesn't have as much
integrity."
Attorneys for the state
refuted those claims by
calling expert Janet
Thornton to testify that the
black turnout was higher in
2014, after the law went
into effect, than in 2010.
She also said people regis
tered to vote at a higher rate
between 2012 and 2014
than the period between the
previous presidential and
midterm elections in 2008
and 2010. Trey Hood, a
political science professor
at the University of
Georgia, concurred with
those findings, saying the
statistics show that the
shortened early voting peri
od didn't have a negative
effect on voter turnout.
Blacks continued to use
early voting at a higher rate
than whites in the 2014
election.
RealClearPolitics
Senior Elections Analyst
Sean Trende testified that
black voter turnout has
been increasing nationally,
and that the election laws
that each state has doesn't
have a significant effect on
black turnout.
The state's argument is
that the voting law is race
neutral, hasn't discouraged
voting and that all North
Carolinians have had an
equal chance to adjust to its
Stein
Have a Story Idea?
Let us Know
news@whrofiiclejcom
' 'P
#9flI
/?
^PJmBK ^ ^^^^^^^QP^^^^^^^QSyU|3^K^UgU?lsiHls^U?MliIa
A SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS
winston-Salem $1
Federal Credit Union lj|
VILLAGE ifTAVERN*
a i!ii m cmm
\k lilJ FMDU0"
1JT" BBS
MUHMNNT
M#?i* CwivUintt I / (J//
... r >-*w
^Harris Teeter
?
JBoutljtt funeral fcertoitri
THE GREENSBORO TIMES ,
j?
AARP
ritULIANT
^ b fiier.11 ( red it I'nmn
mm