Wednesday, 29 April 2015

African Americans in Democracy

Kentucky, Florida and Iowa prohibit the African American charged with a felony from casting votes for the rest of their lives. The foundations of a democratic country are based on equal voting rights, but the African Americans are still deprived of their freedom to vote even after serving their sentences in the aforementioned states. As a super power united states of America always has pitched in when it comes to world issues, but there is one realization of its own, which is hidden that the debt has been paid if a criminal serves his sentence, though not allowing him to vote is out of the question. And as such the banning of the Africans Americans charged with felony or have been charged with felony comprises of a huge discrepancy in the voting poll.


According to billmoyers.com one out of 13 African Americans cannot cast their votes during elections, which makes up to a lot of votes not reaching to the poll and this is a loophole in the way democracy operates.

How can the counting of the votes be a justified one when so many voices are shut down? One vote can make a difference in the counting, and it had to be an African American vote to miss out the poll.

Disenfranchisement sees the majority of African Americans suffering, even after the fight for voting rights in Selma, Alabama there is still a lack of transparency in the voting system.
The major cause of banning the African American from voting is felony charges. Other causes include the discrimination due to the mindset where it is believed that the African Americans are people, if less value who are cold hearted and illiterate.

Most the African Americans are in the minority and the major part of the minority votes for the democratic party. 98% of African Americans voted for the democratic ruler Barack Obama. This gives Republicans an advantage because not only are the minority of African Americans are in the states they are in the whole country and as such the white voters are more powerful and comprise the majority. Such statistics also gave rise to the debate that the black community should also cast their votes to the Republican party so that instead of blaming about voter fraud, there would be a majority of Americans who would fight for the minority that is the African Americans by getting the attention of the Americans who vote for the Republican party.

The belief that disenfranchisement is going to bring down the crime is a bogus one. Because so far it has done no good to the rate of crime in the united states. What is worse is the fact that disenfranchisement weakens the society as a whole because of the consequences the African Americans face after the felony charges and some of which include  not being able to get a job because of prison time as well as not being able to have better living arrangements. As such there are more slums full of unemployed African Americans who have been banned from voting. 

It seems as though the United States of America has to still fight the war against discrimination of the colored people. The super power whose government system is based on democracy has its millions of African American being discriminated even today. The three major states ban the African Americans charged with a felony for the rest of their lives which translates to a lot of voters unable to reach the poll. A democracy cannot reach to its full potential when a major amount of votes is missing from the poll. A democracy doesn't serve its purpose when its minority communities have not access to the basic rights and freedoms and one of which is voting.

Resource: Fly ABS

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