Review the NAACP's Questionnaire and a Legal
Scholar's Study of Candidates' Campaign Stances
The NAACP and legal scholar Vernellia Randall, of the
University of Dayton, Ohio, have done the national discourse a great service
through dint of hard work and attention to what has been almost totally lacking
in the Democratic presidential primary process: attention to the issues.
Both efforts were exhaustive. The NAACP submitted 37
questions to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, asking them to explain for the
record their positions on issues ranging from Affirmative Action, to
Reparations, discrimination in so-called "Charitable Choice,"
Election Reform, Voter Re-Enfranchisement, Voting Rights for DC, Federal
Judgeships, and Immigration.
The questions and the candidates responses can be accessed
at:
The
NAACP 2008 Presidential Candidate Civil Rights Questionnaire
http://www.naacp.org/news/press/2008-02-01/RESPONSES.
Clinton_Obama.pdf
Prof. Randall looks deep into the candidates' views on how
race affects the legal system, and what can be done about it. In her words, the
assessment "is not
about which candidate's platform is best, but which
candidate does more than acknowledge the existence of racial
inequalities, but includes a plan to eliminate those inequalities."
She reviews
the candidates public statements on "eliminating racial inequalities" in the
justice system, their failure to acknowledge inequalities, or their admission
that inequalities exist, but failure to propose ways of eliminating racial bias
under the law. Her topics range across the entire spectrum of reality in which
the legal system impacts the fates and fortunes of citizens, especially African
Americans.
Prof.
Randall's surveys of Clinton and Obama are found at:
Clinton's
Platform on Eliminating Racial Inequalities
http://academic.udayton.edu/race/2008ElectionandRacism/Clinton/
Clinton00.htm
and,
Obama's
Platform on Eliminating Racial Inequalities
http://academic.udayton.edu/race/2008ElectionandRacism/Obama/
Obama00.htm
We urge
those who are serious about politics to review and save these two valuable
studies. We at BAR have found they confirm what we, as journalists, have long
noted: there are exceedingly few substantive differences between Obama
and Clinton. Virtually all that separates them is their styles of public performance and
rhetoric - and both are largely bereft of ideas for true "change."
But check
it out for yourself.
- The Editors
The People’s Summit vs. G20 and the International People’s Tribunal recently took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to counter the G20 Summit that occurred in the same city. Black Agenda Report…
The settler colony known as the United States inflicts violence upon Black people as a function of its existence. But the murder of a mother and her infant daughter by Missouri police officers…
The domestic expression of imperialism has once again been made clear with the installation of a new cobalt refinery in an Oklahoma town. Through the extraction of raw materials from the global south…
Nonprofit organizations of all orientations are under attack, with threats of withholding funding, for their association with Palestine solidarity activities. Climate justice organizations have…
Harry Haywood’s work is a guiding light to help Black people analyze our position in the U.S. and rethink how we might engage in electoral politics. Are we building power toward revolution or are we…
