If it quacks like a (D)uck...

I choose to highlight a story I read about a week ago that seemed innocuous on it's face but as I delved into it further, I saw a broader point and a very clear misuse of power.

Where to begin...

Let's start in Kinston NC and the story of hope and change brought to a grinding halt by Eric Holder and the DOJ.

Kinston is a town of 23,000 residents, of whom 14,000 (62%) are African-American and the town is overwhelmingly Democrat. A recent referendum to switch to non-partisan elections was approved by a 2 to 1 margin. This simply means that candidates would run without a party designation next to their names and win an election based on a simple majority. It's not some right wing tactic to skew election results or some liberal scheme to disenfranchise the voters. It's actually fairly commonplace throughout the country and especially in North Carolina. Several cities have switched to non-partisan elections with no adverse effects. Seems like the perfect answer to the negative connotation that party affiliation can sometimes breed and it allows the voters to view the candidates by stance, character and record. In Barak Obama's post-partisan, post-racial America, Kinston has seen the light and decided that character, not party affiliation, counts most to them.

Not so fast.

It would appear that while Kinston is a majority black town, that majority does not tend to vote as often as the DOJ thinks it should. This gives them a "technical minority status". The DOJ subsequently threw out the referendum and ordered the town to continue it's old way of electing candidates because,

"Removing the partisan cue in municipal elections will, in all likelihood, eliminate the single factor that allows black candidates to be elected to office."

Put another way, African-American voters would not be able to recognize a Democrat well enough thus diminishing their ability to be elected. Put even more simply, African-Americans are just not smart enough to know who to vote for unless we put a big, fat (D) next to a name.

This says two very important things about the DOJ.

One: They assume that all Democrat candidates are black.
Two: They assume that all black voters will vote Democrat.

One other stunning admission by the DOJ in their letter to the city council in Kinston that struck me as horrifying was this,

"In Kinston elections, voters base their choice more on the race of a candidate rather than his or her political affiliation, and without either the appeal to party loyalty or the ability to vote a straight ticket, the limited remaining support from white voters for a black Democratic candidate will diminish even more."

Did you catch that? Stunning isn't it?

In that one sentence, the DOJ acknowledges that elections in Kinston are primarily race based but they only seem to have a problem with whether or not white voters will vote for a black candidate, not the other way around, or both for that matter.

The decision, made by the same Justice official who ordered the dismissal of a voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, has irritated other locals as well.

Stephen LaRoque, a former Republican state lawmaker who led the drive to end partisan local elections, called the Justice Department's decision "racial as well as partisan."

"On top of that, you have an unelected bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., overturning a valid election," he said. "That is un-American."

Not only is it un-American, it's just downright patronizing. It assumes far too much of the voting public in Kinston. Local residents blame voter apathy for the low turnout of African-Americans in municipal elections. The DOJ sees a darker, more sinister force at work in Kinston where none exists. The measure passed by a clear majority to hold non-partisan elections. The people spoke through a valid vote and were were summarily overruled by a government entity that thinks it knows better.

"To begin with, 'nonpartisan elections' is a misconceived and deceiving statement because even though no party affiliation shows up on a ballot form, candidates still adhere to certain ideologies and people understand that, and are going to identify with who they feel has their best interest at heart," said William Cooke, president of the Kinston/Lenoir County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Now, if the NAACP doesn't have a problem with it and the ACLU hasn't reared their ugly heads as of yet, then why would the DOJ even bother with the matter?

To protect the power base is why. To guarantee that the divide remains firmly in place so that they can point their bony fingers and say either, "That Republican is trying to harm you." or "That white person doesn't have your best interests at heart."

I chose to highlight this story simply to illustrate two very key points. One is the erosion of our basic liberties at an alarming rate and the other is to show the ability of our new President to crow loudly about leading the way to curing our ills where racism is concerned...

and then allowing it to continue.