Fwd: Don't believe the hype

If you haven't already gotten the e-mail, word on the street is, "In the year 2007, Congress will once again convene to decide whether or not blacks should retain the right to vote (crazy, but true)."\nAnd in other "e-mail news," Tommy Hilfiger told Oprah he doesn't want black folks wearing his brand; Timberland Boot Company is owned by the Ku Klux Klan; and if you look hard enough at an old Snapple Iced Tea label, you'll see a slave ship, slaves and teeny, tiny Klansmen.\nThe truth is, Tommy Hilfiger has never been on "Oprah." Timberland has been owned by a Jewish family since 1952. The ship on the Snapple label is one from the Boston Tea Party.\nAnd as for Congress deciding the fate of the black vote in 2007 -- it's "crazy, but" not true. \nNow I'm not gonna front. The first time I got the e-mail, I was a trifle bit concerned. History proves that U.S. law hasn't always been very kind to black folks. And disenfranchisement is no joke.\nBut after a little bit of digging, I found that the black vote "expiration date" was about as real as those rumors about Homey the Killer Clown.\nRemember?\nThink hard because it was a long time ago. \nAt the time, the Tootsie Roll was the hottest dance; J.Lo was just another fly girl; and if your neck of the woods was anything like my neck of the woods, "In Living Color" was the talk of the playground.\nBack in those days, I was breaking hearts in a brown plaid jumper, totally focused on the next kickball game, when out of nowhere, a message came: Homey the Clown was on the prowl, cruising the block in a cargo van, lurking about schoolyards, searching for another unsuspecting second-grader. \nFor a whole three days, I refused to play outfield for fear of a floppy-shoed, sock-toting psycho killer driving an Astro.\nBut I digress.\nLet's get back to the voting thing.\nIt's true that the Voting Rights Act will expire in 2007. But it is not the be all, end all of black voting. In fact, it's not even the legislation that guarantees black folks' right to vote. \nAccording to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, "African-American voting rights were granted by the Fifteenth Amendment, which was passed immediately after the Civil War. Expiration of the Voting Rights Act will not terminate the rights granted under the Fifteenth Amendment."\nSo unless somebody pulls the plug on the Constitution, I'll be going to the polls this election, the next election, the election after that one ... you get the idea.\nAnd thanks to the Voting Rights Act, nobody's going to hand a Chinese newspaper to me and challenge me to prove my ability to read. (Yes, that really happened to some black folks in Selma, Ala., according to www.tourbus.com .)\nThe Voting Rights Act, which was passed back in 1965, following nearly a century of grandfather clauses and literacy tests designed to keep blacks from voting, offers three key provisions:\nFirst, it "requires that states with a history of discrimination show that any change in their election laws does not have a worsening effect or intent on minority voting strength or their opportunity to elect candidates of choice." \nSo that means no breaking up majority-minority (i.e., mostly black) districts to dilute the vote.\nSecond and third, the act requires voting districts with large numbers of non-English speaking people to offer bilingual ballots and allow monitoring of the elections. \nThese are issues Congress will need to reauthorize in 2007. Hopefully our legislators will take a note from the column William Jelani Cobb wrote for www.africana.com . Cobb breaks it down, saying that if minorities are more likely to be convicted, then they are more likely to lose their right to vote. \nIn fact, in New York, 80 percent of the disenfranchised felons were black and Latino. Crazy, huh? PLEASE PASS THIS ALONG TO A FRIEND.