• Voter ID statement akin to race baiting

  • Editor, the Record:
    • email print
  • Editor, the Record:
    I have to take exception to the Jim Crow statement by Liz Forrest, Democratic candidate for Rep. Rosemary Brown's (R-189) seat, in the Oct. 5 article, "Voter ID delay wins thumbs up from Monroe County Democrats" by David Pierce.
    "I was born and raised in Virginia with segregated fountains and restrooms. I think I know a Jim Crow law when I see one and this is exactly what it became."
    Is there a law that prevents blacks and other minorities from obtaining a driver's license, a passport or some other ID?
    Is there a law that, based on your skin color, bars you from obtaining a driver's license, passport or some other ID?
    I saw the remains of the segregated fountains, movie theaters and other things when I lived in Norfolk, Va., during the mid-1980s.
    However these places were segregated based on skin color, something you are born with and cannot change, not on the basis of something everyone can change.
    It is a disgrace and insult to those who were actually subjected to Jim Crow laws and segregation — based on skin color, religion or something else they were born with or without — to try to make this equivalent with those things. Those people couldn't go to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation center and change their situation in about an hour by obtaining a voter ID?
    Let's call this what it is: race baiting, which is just a different type of racism.
Reader Reaction