Activism
COMMENTARY: The Push for Voting Rights Now Is the Fight Against Jim Crow 2.0
The inability to pass voting rights comes on the same week as MLK Day in America and serves as a reminder. Setbacks are all temporary, the fight is constant. The memory of Dr. King motivates us to stay true to the dream.
![Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. Listen to his show on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter @emilamok at 2pm Pacific M-F. Or on www.amok.com](https://www.postnewsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/emil-featured-web.jpg)
By Emil Guillermo
Because he was dreaming.
Joe Biden thought he could get Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to unite with 48 other Democrats to pass both the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
The Freedom to Vote Act would make voting a federal holiday and make voting easier, not harder. It would also make sure the redistricting process would be fair and uniform and reflect population gains. Asian Americans and other people of color wouldn’t be left out by gerrymandering.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act simply restores the teeth of federal oversight to make sure states don’t pass harmful election laws that cut minorities out of the process. We’re trying to get back to the ideals of the original law.
Both bills prove that the threat to democracy is real. Democracy is not an abstract ideal. You see it when you go to vote. And when you are stopped from casting a vote, that’s as real as it gets. You have been rendered voiceless and uncountable.
In a democracy, that shouldn’t happen. That’s why the proposed voting rights legislation should be a no-brainer.
In that Atlanta speech, Biden asked another no-brainer question: “Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace?”
Do you want to be with a person of love, or one of hate?
Hard to believe in 2022 that’s still a hard question for some.
Biden needed to get around the Republicans’ certain filibuster intended to block the legislation. That would require all 50 Senate Democrats to vote to change the filibuster rule.
And, of course, the same two people who blocked Biden on his baby “New Deal,” a.k.a. “Build Back Better” plan are in the way: Manchin of West Virginia and Sinema of Arizona.
Sinema this time supplied the dagger to kill voting rights.
“While I continue to support these bills,” Sinema said, “I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country.”
But, of course, in signaling she would allow the Republicans to filibuster, Sinema was doing just that: worsening the “underlying disease of division infecting our country.”
It’s unclear what Sinema wants in negotiation — beyond the power of a presidential takedown.
But it leaves Biden celebrating his first year in office with a party he can’t unite when he needs it, and a country that grades him with an approval rating in the low 40s.
Further, the inability to pass voting rights comes on the same week as MLK Day in America and serves as a reminder. Setbacks are all temporary, the fight is constant. The memory of Dr. King motivates us to stay true to the dream.
Vice President Kamala Harris had the best prescription moving forward: Expose the 50 Republicans in the Senate by name who failed to uphold your voting rights. And further expose Manchin and Sinema and any other Democrats who join them.
“I don’t think anyone should be absolved from the responsibility of preserving and protecting our democracy,” Harris told NBC News. “Especially when they took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution.”
Voting rights was the issue in Selma. And it’s the issue now. Biden called it Jim Crow 2.0. Sadly, in 2022, the fight continues. There’s still much to overcome.
Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. See his show on www.amok.com
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of July 24 – 30, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 24 – 30, 2024
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Activism
Oakland Post: Week of July 17 -23, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 17 -23, 2024
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Activism
Community Celebrates Historic Oakland Billboard Agreements
We, the Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition, which includes Oakland’s six leading community health clinics, all ethnic chambers of commerce, and top community-based economic development organizations – celebrate the historic billboard agreements approved last year by the Oakland City Council. We have fought for this opportunity against the billboard monopoly, against Clear Channel, for five years. The agreements approved by Council set the bar for community benefits – nearly $70 Million over their lifetime, more than 23 times the total paid by all previous Clear Channel relocation agreements in Oakland combined.
![The Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition.](https://www.postnewsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/economic-development-corporation-featured-web.jpg)
Grand Jury Report Incorrect – Council & Community Benefit
We, the Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition, which includes Oakland’s six leading community health clinics, all ethnic chambers of commerce, and top community-based economic development organizations – celebrate the historic billboard agreements approved last year by the Oakland City Council. We have fought for this opportunity against the billboard monopoly, against Clear Channel, for five years. The agreements approved by Council set the bar for community benefits – nearly $70 Million over their lifetime, more than 23 times the total paid by all previous Clear Channel relocation agreements in Oakland combined.
Unfortunately, a recent flawed Grand Jury report got it wrong, so we feel compelled to correct the record:
- Regarding the claim that the decision was made hastily, the report itself belies that claim. The process was five years in the making, with two and a half years from the first City Council hearing to the final vote. Along the way, as the report describes, there were multiple Planning Commission hearings, public stakeholder outreach meetings, a Council Committee meeting, and then a vote by the full Council. Not only was this not hasty, it had far more scrutiny than any of the previous relocation agreements approved by the City with Clear Channel, all of which provide 1/23 of the benefits of the Becker/OFI agreements approved by the Council.
- More importantly, the agreements will actually bring millions to the City and community, nearly $70M to be exact, 23 times the previous Clear Channel relocation agreements combined. They certainly will not cost the city money, especially since nothing would have been on the table at all if our Coalition had not been fighting for it. Right before the decisive City Council Committee hearing, in the final weeks before the full Council vote, there was a hastily submitted last-minute “proposal” by Clear Channel that was debunked as based on non-legal and non-economically viable sites, and relying entirely on the endorsement of a consultant that boasts Clear Channel as their biggest client and whose decisions map to Clear Channel’s monopolistic interests all over the country. Some City staff believed these unrealistic numbers based on false premises, and, since they only interviewed City staff, the Grand Jury report reiterated this misinformation, but it was just part of Clear Channel’s tried and true monopolistic practices of seeking to derail agreements that actually set the new standard for billboard community benefits. Furthermore, our proposals are not mutually exclusive – if Clear Channel’s proposal was real, why had they not brought it forward previously? Why have they not brought it forward since? Because it was not a real proposal – it was nothing but smoke and mirrors, as the Clear Channel’s former Vice President stated publicly at Council.
Speaking on behalf of the community health clinics that are the primary beneficiaries of the billboard funding, La Clinica de la Raza CEO Jane Garcia, states: “In this case, the City Council did the right thing – listening to the community that fought for five years to create this opportunity that is offering the City and community more than twenty times what previous billboard relocation agreements have offered.”
Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition
Native American Health Center | La Clínica de la Raza | West Oakland Health Center |
Asian Health Services | Oakland LGBTQ Center | Roots Community Health Center |
The Unity Council | Black Cultural Zone | Visit Oakland |
Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce | Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce | Oakland Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce |
Oakland Latino Chamber of Commerce | Building Trades of Alameda County | (partial list) |
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