Term Paper on "American Freedom All "Realities" in This World"

Term Paper 5 pages (1613 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

American Freedom

All "realities" in this world are relative. There are no blacks and whites, just shades of grey. That is why it is easy to say that the United States of America is the land of freedom and equality. Compared to many, many other countries across the globe, this nation has the best thing going for it. The presidential election bore this out. Putting aside the fact that the electoral college may be questionable, every person over the age of 18 had the right to vote in this past election. In fact, 12 million more votes were cast in the 2004 versus the 2000 election. Those who supported John Kerry were not pleased of the outcome by any means, but the involvement by the American people during this election was quite impressive. Yet, just because America is one of the most democratic countries in the world does not mean that it is infallible. The shades of gray exist. There are still areas of this country where freedom does not ring as loudly as others.

Freedom can be defined as "being able to act without interference or control by another." Unfortunately, in this country, this has not always the case -- especially with people who have or not have fallen into certain categories. In 1776, white men had the right to vote and take part in government, but usually had to meet certain qualifications, like owning property. Six state governments eliminated all property requirements and gave the right to vote to all white males over twenty-one years of age, rich or poor. At the same time, three other state governments increased the property requirements, limiting the right to vote. In some states, the right to vote included the requirement that a person belong to a particular religious group.

By the 1840s, almost every state government had given all white males the right to vote. Only two states still had any significant property qualifications. Restrictions on voting by Catholics and non-Christians were eliminated. In a few states, even immigrants not yet naturalized were given the right to vote. The last state to change, North Carolina, abandoned the property test in 1856. After the Civil War, the 15th Amendment was added to the Constitution, which says: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Despite this Amendment, however, many states made it nearly impossible for blacks to vote because they could not pay a poll tax, were illiterate or were grandfathered out. Women finally had suffrage rights in 1920, and the Native Americans in 1924.

Yet it took until 1965 and the Voting Rights Act for every man and woman to be able to freely vote. This law did not guarantee blacks the right to vote; they had already held that right since the ratification of the 15th Amendment, but for enforcement of that right. There was one law on paper. Unwritten, there still remained pockets of this country where minorities were individuals were discouraged or refrained from voting or where votes were unknowingly destroyed.

Unfortunately, to this day, prejudice still remains in this country, which limits the amount of freedom or lack of interference and equality. This October, metro columnist Courtland Milloy of the Washington Post noted: "I must have been asleep because I had no idea that so many schemes were being hatched -- yet again -- to keep African-Americans from voting... And it is the 40th anniversary of the victory by residents of the nation's capital for the right to vote in a presidential election."

However, Milloy adds, he is seeing a backsliding to the years "been awakened to the reality of a backward drift into a century gone by, when suppressing the black vote was all the rage."

Republicans appear to be back to their notorious black-voter intimidation tactics, which were exposed and condemned by the courts in the 1980s. Meanwhile, the IRS is threatening to revoke the NAACP's tax-exempt status and has targeted the nation's oldest civil rights organization for an audit for criticizing Bush administration policies.

Prior to the presidential election, several actions occurred that did not sit well with African-American leadership. According to an Inter-Press Service News Agency October article, Republicans have long tried to suppress minority turnout specifically because of presumed allegiance to Democrats. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) cited an article published in U.S. News & World Report in which Michigan State Representative and Bush campaign official John Papageorge was quoted as saying Republicans could lose the state "if we do not suppress the Detroit vote." Detroit has one of the highest concentrations of African-Americans of any large American city (Lobe).

After the LCCR news conference, two young African-American Republican National Committee staff members issued a rebuttal. One of them made what was called a Freudian slip by introducing the other as "director of voter suppression." The spokesmen tried to recover, contending that the party poll-watchers were only going to weed out ineligible voters; not intimidate other (Milloy).

One of them cited registered voters whose addresses had been tracked back to hotels and vacant lots. A woman in a wheelchair responded at the press conference, saying she lives in a single-occupancy hotel room as well as in church basements and vacant lots along with many homeless people. "Since when does being poor mean losing your right to vote?" she asked (ibid).

On the Wednesday before the election, an Ohio federal judge ordered the Republican Party to temporarily halt hearings to challenge 35,000 voters in the state. U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott ruled in favor of Democrats who said Republicans were unfairly targeting voters registered by political groups backing Kerry (Lobe).

Meanwhile, Wisconsin Republicans announced plans to initiate what they called "background checks" on newly registered voters. There were reports that the Republicans planned to mount aggressive challenges against the credentials of voters in "urban areas," where minority voters were predominant (Lobe).

The National Association Against the Advancement of Colored People called such tactics intimidating. "They are designed to induce fear on the part of newly registered voters, particularly in minority communities. They should work with us to empower minority communities, not deny them their fundamental rights" (Milloy)

On election day, there were also close to five million individuals who could not vote because they had felony records. This includes not just prison inmates, parolees, and probationers, but also a large number of people -- one third of the disenfranchised in all -- who are off parole and supposedly free Krajick).

This may not sound unfair, considering their prison background, but given the number of minority men who have been imprisoned compared to those who are white, it sounds biased (ibid).

Many approaches in the mid-1800s, were created to bar blacks with even minor criminal records from polls. Today manner relates not only to the South, which retains the most repressive statutes, but in states such as New York, where ex-parolees are supposed to get their rights back, but in truth encounter local election officials who demand discharge papers that do not exist, give misleading information and find other reasons to turn them away. A class-action lawsuit in New York charges that this system bars so many voters in high-crime neighborhoods that the districts effectively have lost their voice. In Florida, where many felons are barred forever unless the governor personally decides otherwise, 8% of adults cannot vote -- including one in four black men.

Reported Tristam of the Lakeland Florida Ledger several years ago: "We don't have gulags, but the proliferation of our jails and prisons forms an archipelago of punishment more vast and more costly than any in history, anywhere." With almost 2 million… READ MORE

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