A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
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In what is being hailed as a landmark ruling, a federal court found that the criminal justice system is “infected” with racial discrimination. As a result, said the judges, disenfranchisement of felons is a violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Ruling Provides New Hope for Felon Voting Rights
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“The criminal justice system is 'infected' with racial discrimination.”
Mass Black incarceration touches every aspect of African American life – economic, cultural and political. The pervasive impact of the Black American Gulag is made even more devastating and intractable because its effects weaken Black people’s ability to change the system through electoral politics. 5.3 million U.S. citizens are barred from voting because of felony convictions – two million, or 38 percent, are Black.
Court rulings in cases challenging felon disenfranchisement have been all over the map. But last month, in a case from the state of Washington, a federal court decided that the hugely disproportionate effect of felony convictions on Black people’s voting rights amounts to a violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The case is being appealed, and is very likely to wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the state of Washington, 24 percent of Black men and 15 percent of African Americans overall are ineligible to vote because of felony convictions. Since Black mass incarceration has been a fact of life everywhere in the U.S. for two generations, the facts and principles of the Washington case apply to every state in the nation.
The federal court, in a two-to-one ruling, declared that there was “compelling evidence” that minorities are “more likely to be searched, arrested, detained, and ultimately prosecuted” than whites. In the courts words: “If those decision points are infected with racial bias, resulting in some people becoming felons not just because they have committed a crime, but because of their race, then that felon status cannot, under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, disqualify felons from voting.”
In other words, since the criminal justice system's behavior, at every stage of its interaction with Black people – from the stop on the street to the trail in the courtroom – is more likely to result in a felony conviction for Blacks, that racially biased system violates Black voting rights.
“The Voting Rights Act recognized that many discriminatory factors can combine to prevent effective exercise of one's rights.”
The court's conclusion flows from the reasoning of the Voting Rights Act, itself. In attempting to outlaw racist Jim Crow voting restrictions, the Congress took into account the wide range of racial practices that had prevented Blacks from exercising their voting rights, including poll taxes, literacy laws, and intimidation. The Voting Rights Act recognized that many discriminatory factors can combine to prevent effective exercise of one's rights. The federal court agreed that race was the reason that “minorities are disproportionately prosecuted and sentenced, resulting in their disproportionate representation among the persons disenfranchised....”
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund hailed the ruling, for acknowledging that the criminal justice system is “infected” with racial discrimination. That is an understatement. Mass Black incarceration has replaced Jim Crow as the principal American mechanism to subordinate and control Black people. Finally, a federal court has recognized that the racist infection has also vitiated the right to vote.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
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