Selma Civil Rights March: Fresh Attack on New Racism
U.S. civil rights activists have organized a 1,385 kilometer march from Selma, Alabama to Washington, D.C. in order to attract public attention to what they call a “fresh attack on equal rights”
August 10, 2015
Turkish Weekly
U.S. civil rights activists have organized a 1,385 kilometer march from Selma, Alabama to Washington, D.C. in order to attract public attention to what they call a “fresh attack on equal rights”. The “40-day-and-40-night” march started at the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge and is expected to continue until September 15.
After setting out in Alabama, the marchers will pass through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia, eventually arriving in Washington D.C., making this march 16 times longer than the historic 54-mile Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches of 1965. The rally is being organized under the leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.
Fifty years ago, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson after having been approved by U.S. lawmakers. According to the measure, racial discrimination in voting was legally prohibited. With this piece of legislation, America’s racial minorities, especially the millions of blacks living in the southern states of the U.S., secured protection of their right to vote by way of federal government safeguards. The law was “born” from years of protests, civil demonstrations and bloodshed.
“We will not turn aside until Americans of every race and color and origin in this country have the same right as all others to share in the process of democracy” President Johnson said about the law.
However, activists say that the 2013 Supreme Court decision on Shelby County v. Holder has struck down a very important part, or even the heart, of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as it allowed 9 states to change their election laws without federal approval. The states affected here, primarily located in the South, are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.
Here, those who favor this Supreme Court decision defend it with the claim that racial discrimination is no longer a deeply rooted problem in the United States, as made evident in the election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first black president.
In spite of the fact that the election of Obama to serve two consecutive terms in office, to some extent, strengthened the belief that the U.S. had undergone profound change when it came to the application and acceptance of the universal principle of racial equality, the sense of discrimination among blacks in this U.S. is still strikingly high.
According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 88 percent of blacks think that discrimination against African Americans is still commonplace. Here, 46 percent of blacks surveyed say there is ‘a lot’ of racial discrimination, 42 percent say there is ‘some’ discrimination and only 12 percent believe that African Americans do not face discrimination. Indeed, 57 percent of whites say that African Americans are exposed to, either ‘a lot’ or ‘some’ discrimination.
Discrimination against the U.S.’s black communities has become an even more heated issue especially after the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson and as a result of the recent mass shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina which resulted in the deaths of nine churchgoers.
The identity and background of the gunman responsible for the mass murder in Charleston, Dylan Roof, has spurred discussions of ‘new racism’ in the U.S. considering that the perpetrator is a ‘white supremacist’. Eduardo Bonilla Silva, the Head of the Sociology Department at Duke University, states that after the approval of the Voting Rights Act of 1964, racism has continued in parallel with ‘white supremacy’.
In this respect, ‘new racism’ can be expressed in the economic, social and political spheres as primitive notions employing genetic arguments of blacks’ racial inferiority have come to be usurped by a way of thinking that is ‘justified’ rather based on traditional American values, especially that of individualism. In this way, new racism contends that the reasons for the bad conditions of blacks can be understood from their lack of discipline and commitment to hard work.
Today’s march from Selma to Washington D.C. can be seen as a successor to the pivotal Selma to Montgomery march led by Martin Luther King Jr. In 1965, such public response to racism prepared the grounds for the Voting Rights Act, yet it remains to be seen what gains today’s “fresh” response to new racism may achieve.
August 10, 2015
Turkish Weekly
U.S. civil rights activists have organized a 1,385 kilometer march from Selma, Alabama to Washington, D.C. in order to attract public attention to what they call a “fresh attack on equal rights”. The “40-day-and-40-night” march started at the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge and is expected to continue until September 15.
After setting out in Alabama, the marchers will pass through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia, eventually arriving in Washington D.C., making this march 16 times longer than the historic 54-mile Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches of 1965. The rally is being organized under the leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.
Fifty years ago, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law by U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson after having been approved by U.S. lawmakers. According to the measure, racial discrimination in voting was legally prohibited. With this piece of legislation, America’s racial minorities, especially the millions of blacks living in the southern states of the U.S., secured protection of their right to vote by way of federal government safeguards. The law was “born” from years of protests, civil demonstrations and bloodshed.
“We will not turn aside until Americans of every race and color and origin in this country have the same right as all others to share in the process of democracy” President Johnson said about the law.
However, activists say that the 2013 Supreme Court decision on Shelby County v. Holder has struck down a very important part, or even the heart, of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as it allowed 9 states to change their election laws without federal approval. The states affected here, primarily located in the South, are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.
Here, those who favor this Supreme Court decision defend it with the claim that racial discrimination is no longer a deeply rooted problem in the United States, as made evident in the election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first black president.
In spite of the fact that the election of Obama to serve two consecutive terms in office, to some extent, strengthened the belief that the U.S. had undergone profound change when it came to the application and acceptance of the universal principle of racial equality, the sense of discrimination among blacks in this U.S. is still strikingly high.
According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 88 percent of blacks think that discrimination against African Americans is still commonplace. Here, 46 percent of blacks surveyed say there is ‘a lot’ of racial discrimination, 42 percent say there is ‘some’ discrimination and only 12 percent believe that African Americans do not face discrimination. Indeed, 57 percent of whites say that African Americans are exposed to, either ‘a lot’ or ‘some’ discrimination.
Discrimination against the U.S.’s black communities has become an even more heated issue especially after the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson and as a result of the recent mass shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina which resulted in the deaths of nine churchgoers.
The identity and background of the gunman responsible for the mass murder in Charleston, Dylan Roof, has spurred discussions of ‘new racism’ in the U.S. considering that the perpetrator is a ‘white supremacist’. Eduardo Bonilla Silva, the Head of the Sociology Department at Duke University, states that after the approval of the Voting Rights Act of 1964, racism has continued in parallel with ‘white supremacy’.
In this respect, ‘new racism’ can be expressed in the economic, social and political spheres as primitive notions employing genetic arguments of blacks’ racial inferiority have come to be usurped by a way of thinking that is ‘justified’ rather based on traditional American values, especially that of individualism. In this way, new racism contends that the reasons for the bad conditions of blacks can be understood from their lack of discipline and commitment to hard work.
Today’s march from Selma to Washington D.C. can be seen as a successor to the pivotal Selma to Montgomery march led by Martin Luther King Jr. In 1965, such public response to racism prepared the grounds for the Voting Rights Act, yet it remains to be seen what gains today’s “fresh” response to new racism may achieve.
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