By Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher of The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint
While some of us are spending our time watching the news or wondering how we are going to survive the pandemic, now is the time to understand the battles we are in and determine what we must do individually and collectively.
Here are the issues:
(1) We must be clear that we support a conviction in the George Floyd murder trial. Nothing less is acceptable. We must voice our call for a conviction in all our media outlets. There can be no cover up or acquittal.
(2) We must look closely at each state that has a Republican Governor or legislative majority seeking to pass voter suppression laws such as limiting days and times of voting, reducing ballot drop boxes and the number of precincts available in our communities.
We can’t wait to litigate. We must follow the example of the state of Georgia and register every voter possible, secure voter identification cards or help voters obtain them in advance of the state laws that are going to pass with Republican majorities in the legislatures and organize voters against Republicans seeking office or re-election in 2022 so that they don’t get a majority in the U.S. Congress or the U.S. Senate. Georgia set the example, now let’s follow it in every state.
(3) We must urge the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, H.R. 1.
The Bill has passed the U.S. House of Representatives, we must now find the five or 10 votes needed in the Senate to add to the Democratic votes necessary for passage. Every Senate and Congressional District has people seeking to replace the incumbent. We must find those people and support them if they support us. The late Julian Bond once said, “No permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests.”
We must study the White Nationalists, and the Republicans who no longer care about the American people, only maintaining their “White Privilege” at the expense of the rest of America. In the midst of this, we must reassess our spending habits and our loyalties. We must know who financially supports those who are against voter participation, those who support police unfair treatment of Blacks, in particular, and people of color in general and those who oppose America helping the most needed and most vulnerable among us. It sounds like a big task, but we start where we live and build from there.
Let’s get busy.
