A GOP win by any means necessary.

Do you remember how hard it was for black folks to register to vote back in the day? States like Alabama (shout out to the great blog "Left in Alabama"), actually had poll taxes, and "literacy tests" that had to be taken before poor people of color could register. These tests, of course, were often administered by the all white local county officials, and enforced by the local police departments. Can anyone say "White Citizens Council" ? Anyhoooo, that was such a long long time ago, and A-merry-ca has come so far since then, that your friendly neighborhood field Negro is just mentioning it to give you a little history lesson. Right? Wrong! I know the Supreme Court said such things were improper, and that the folks in the old "Jim Crow" South were wrong to do these things. But the new Supremes, made up of....well, conservative republicans, tend to disagree. They ruled, just this year, that it was alright to suppress people's right to vote, in order to do away with fraud. Look up Crawford v. Marion County Election Board if you think I am lying. And read this excellent article in Newsweek Magazine from Jonathan Alter, to understand exactly what is going on here. Voter fraud my ass, that's just a smoke screen to keep black folks from voting. Mr. Alter, of course, thinks it's the GOP being political and not racial; I tend to disagree. (What came first the chicken or the egg?)

Now I am trying to be respectable and not demagogue this issue, lord knows I catch enough flack from my republican friends (yes I have some) for staying on their party as much as I do. But come on now, when they do things like this, how can I? Hey, you rethugs have a history when it comes to this kind of stuff, so don't go crying a river when people call you out on it. Let's keep it real folks: the rethugs are the ones bringing back those days, and they are the ones making my little history lesson seem more like current events.

But I promised myself and Mrs Field that I was going to stop getting so worked up over little issues like the suppression of people's right to vote. It's not good for my pressure. No one else in A-merry-ca seems to give a damn, so why should I? You would think the folks in the democratic party would be making a bigger deal about this, but they are not. I guess they don't want to be seen as the ones crying racism. That is so una-merry-can and so unpatriotic. After all, there are no racist in A-merry-ca anymore, just different points of views as to how to move the country forward.

Anyway, as I did with the last election; as election day draws closer, I will be posting some links to help folks in some of these key battle ground states, so that they can understand their legal rights when it comes to voting.

It's important. The White Citizens Coun....whoops, I mean the republicans know it, and so should you.

CHANGE?

I just can't escape Obamamania no matter how hard I try.

This morning I tried to put all things Obama far behind me. But as I rode on the train and read the editorial from one of my hometown papers (The Daily News), this is what I saw:

"FROM 'WHITES ONLY' TO OBAMA'S SOUTHERN VICTORIES
WHEN SUPER TUESDAY commentators called it "no surprise" that Barack Obama had won the Democratic primaries in Georgia and Alabama, we thought that Sens. Herman Talmadge and Richard Russell, those Georgia segregationists who for so long stood in the way of civil rights, must be spinning in their graves.

A little historical perspective.

Just 50 years ago in Alabama and Georgia, or anywhere in the Old South, Barack Obama's parents, a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, could not have wed - interracial marriage was against the law. For even flirting with a white woman, Obama's father could have been taken from his home and lynched, as were thousands of blacks in our nation's history.

A presidential campaign by a black man? Unthinkable. Blacks had a hard time even registering to vote. Mississippi Freedom Summer was years away. No Freedom Rides yet. No sit-ins. Although Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision desegregating public schools, was handed down in 1954, schools in Alabama and Georgia were still segregated.

Fifty years ago, Jim Crow was the law in the South. If Barack Obama were campaigning in Georgia or Alabama, he wouldn't have been served in a "white" restaurant. Couldn't have stayed in a "white" hotel.

Would've had to wait until he found a "colored" toilet. Wouldn't have been permitted to drink from a "whites only" water fountain.

Segregationists used every tactic they could, including violence, to stop the civil-rights movement. The Ku Klux Klan rode through the night spreading terror, with the tacit complicity of the local sheriff. White Citizens Councils openly retaliated against blacks suspected of even questioning segregation. Tenant farmers were kicked off the land they worked, others found themselves unemployable for the same offense.

Alabama and Georgia elected officials were virtually all segregationists. And all Democrats.
Today, blacks are a significant percent of the electorate in Georgia and Alabama. The Old South has hundreds of black elected officials - sheriffs, legislators and members of Congress.
And Barack Obama got the votes of blacks AND whites in Alabama, Georgia and elsewhere.
WE KNOW THERE'S still a long way to go in race relations in this country.

Much still needs to be done. But to say that it's "no surprise" that an African-American won state elections for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, in Alabama and Georgia in particular, is to forget how far we've come.

For those of us who have been around long enough to know both ends of this continuum, it is awe-inspiring. Barack Obama is campaigning on the idea of "change." In many ways, he's already succeeded.* "

Now who am I to argue with the powerful editorial writers at The Daily News?

To them, the "O" man has already changed A-merry-ca, and I suppose in many ways he has.

But is he any different than Oprah, Tiger, Will, Michael, and all the other race neutral lovable blacks that A-merry-ca has embraced? Maybe. But just maybe. After all, he is a politician and not an entertainer. He has a charge to do more serious things, and the office he seeks is reserved for just a few people in a very exclusive club.

I am still cynical, and I am still not too sure about this new A-merry-can spirit that every one keeps talking about. I mean I hear all the nice speeches, and I see all the love but....

Hey, all I can say is that my Johnson is starting to move again. And I have all you damn Obamaholics, and editorial writers to thank for it.