The Ku Klux Klan has promised to “monitor” polling places in Harlem, the South Bronx, Bushwick, Bedford Stuyvesant, and East New York, all predominantly black areas of New York City. “We want to make sure there’s no voter intimidation,” said Mark Rollins, Grand Kleagle of the Northeast Chapters of the Knights Templar of the KKK. “White voters have been intimidated for long enough and we want to make sure that they know they’re not defenseless in these neighborhoods.”
The outcry has already been swift and widespread. Al Sharpton, ever the even-tempered man, exploded in a fit of anger. “You’re going to have KKK members monitoring polling places? How is a person of color supposed to walk past these people and vote without fear of repercussions?” Sharpton would comment no further on the issue, but promised he would pursue the issue in court, on the streets, with police officers, and by any other means deemed necessary by the National Action Network, Sharpton’s organization.
You can’t imagine this happening, right? The reason you know this is complete and utter crap is that you know that if the KKK, a known racist organization, had planned on doing such a thing as monitor polling places during an election, there would be outrage, court cases, marches, and governmental investigations, and to a degree, rightly so. If I was a black person, you wouldn’t catch me going into a polling place guarded by some tool in a white robe.
But what happens when the shoe’s on the other foot and it’s a black racist organization that’s “monitoring” a polling place? And what if those racist organization members were carrying weapons? What would happen then?
Well, first the story would be dismissed as white paranoia, and then politically correct judges would find a way to squash the case.
What, don’t believe me? Frankly, I don’t care because the example isn’t hypothetical; it actually happened. Meet King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson who shouldn’t intimidate you at all; there’s nothing intimidating about them whatsoever.
Yep. Those guys are just innocent poll monitors. Here’s video of them innocently monitoring the polls and not being intimidating.
Let’s see… Two Black Panthers, caught red-handed on video menacing people at the doors to a polling place. Surely this would be a cut and dried case, right? It shouldn’t take more than two seconds to work out what’s going on here and do something about it.
Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.
The incident – which gained national attention when it was captured on videotape and distributed on YouTube – had prompted the government to sue the men, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring would-be voters with the weapon, racial slurs and military-style uniforms.
Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as “the most blatant form of voter intimidation” that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago.
The lawyers also had ascertained that one of the three men had gained access to the polling place by securing a credential as a Democratic poll watcher, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Washington Times.
The career Justice lawyers were on the verge of securing sanctions against the men earlier this month when their superiors ordered them to reverse course, according to interviews and documents. The court had already entered a default judgment against the men on April 20.
That’s right, folks. Eric Holder’s Justice Department squashed the case. Apparently, despite the plethora of evidence, the charges were dropped and the case dismissed.
I’m open to suggestions as to how this is not national news and a huge scandal. I’m even more open to anyone who says this isn’t intimidation explaining to me how the opposite (as theorized in the opener of this post) would be received were it to happen instead?
Update: No sooner do I write this when I find that Lamar Smith, Ranking Member of the House Committee on the Judiciary, has asked for clarification from the Attorney General’s office on the dismissal of this flagrant and obvious case of voter intimidation.
Here’s the letter as written by Rep. Lamar Smith (R. Tex):