Election 'mistakes' are no accident
"The omissions by the city's two newspapers, The Lexington Herald and The Lexington Leader , weren't simply mistakes or oversights, according to local civil rights leaders and former employees of the newspapers. The papers' management actively sought to play down the movement." As the article written by Linda Blackford and Linda Minch pointed out, those decisions "hurt the civil rights movement at the time, irreparably damaged the historical record and caused the newspaper's readers to miss out on one of the most important stories of the 20th century." The newspaper's honesty, even decades after the fact, illustrated how the sin of omission can be a sin of commission. Not just an inadvertent error or a mere mishap, but a deliberate act -- in this case, to diminish someone's relevance, an intentional push to stifle progress and ensure that less powerful folks stay that way. That approach is how Gov. Bush's administration has handled voters' rights in Florida. That approach has disenfranchised mostly African-Americans. The state calls that a coincidence. [more]
- UnderCurrents: We Will Watch What Happens in Florida [more]