Posted on 12/28/2005 4:33:46 PM PST by freepatriot32
MACON, Miss., Dec. 28, 2005 — In overwhelmingly black and Democratic Noxubee County, Miss., everybody knows local Democratic Party chairman Ike Brown.
Officials at the U.S. Justice Department know Brown too; they're suing him.
Using the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the government has alleged that Brown and local elections officials discriminated against whites. It is the first time the Justice Department has ever claimed that whites suffered discrimination in voting because of race.
"When I read the letter, it was junk, you know, bogus," Brown told ABC News.
The Justice Department says Brown and local elections officials disenfranchised whites — challenging their voting status, rejecting their absentee ballots and telling voters to choose candidates according to race.
Brown says he has merely tried to keep white Republicans from voting in Democratic primaries. He says the lawuit is all political — an attempt to discredit him because the Democratic Party in eastern Mississippi has been doing so well at bringing new voters to the polls, which may mean someday soon that Mississippi, a red state, could turn blue.
"The Justice Department's become an arm of the RNC," Brown said.
The Justice Department would not comment, but county prosecutor Ricky Walker is a potential witness for the government. Walker was surprised when Brown recruited a black candidate who didn't even live in the county to run against him. Walker, after all, is a Democrat.
"Mr. Brown seems to favor black candidates," Walker said. "He's always encouraged blacks to vote strictly for the black candidates."
Unapologetic About Bias
Brown is unapologetic.
He says some local white Democrats aren't "true" Democrats.
"We support the black candidates because we're sure they're going to vote in the liberal interest," Brown said.
The case takes on added complexities given the state's turbulent history during and after the civil rights era, especially those struggles having to do with voting. Mississippi is where civil rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered, as were the three civil rights workers looking to register blacks to vote, as depicted in the film "Mississippi Burning."
The president of the Mississipi NAACP, Derrick Johnson, says there is still plenty of discrimination against black voters in the state, and he questions the Bush administration's priorities in bringing this suit.
"We've had several issues over the years of what appeared to be racial discrimination against black voters and the Justice Department has yet to come in and do a thorough investigation," Johnson said. "And for them to take on this case is highly unusual and very suspect."
But others in the civil rights community take a more circumspect attitude in the case against Ike Brown.
"Voting is precious. It's a right that people sacrificed for for years and years," said Leslie Burl McLemore, director of the Fannie Lou Hamer Institute at Jackson State University. "There is a way to encourage participation, and it can be done without having to discriminate against another set of voters."
Racial Divide
Like so many things in Noxubee's Macon community, opinions about the case divide along racial lines. Residents opined at Geneva's Kitchen, a local restaurant, over soul food and sweet tea.
"I think Ike's a pretty good man," local resident Alonzo Phillips told ABC News.
"I guess he do target, you know, the Republicans, and they are white. Most of them," said Geneva, the restaurant's owner.
On Main Street, whites express a different sentiments: "I think Ike Brown is a racist," said a white man.
"I think we're getting a little dose of our ancestors' medicine, if you want to know the truth," said another.
Those ghosts from civil rights battles past have never left Noxubee County, and they continue to influence the way the case against Ike Brown is viewed. But guilty or innocent, the Justice Department wants this case to be about Ike Brown, not the state's historical disenfranchisement of black voters.
[He says some local white Democrats aren't "true" Democrats.]
Hee, hee. I have watched as the liberal left has destroyed America and fixed elections nationwide; this is amusing to say the least.
And you believe this based on what? The numerous uprisings we've had lately? A little paranoid, are we?
I agree with this. Always have, always will.
Can you imagine this case being brought by the Clinton Justice Dept?
We may need Alito's vote sooner than we know.
I do not think it is paranoia. It's listening to individuals and seeing how fed up they are with the socialist democrats.
I am hearing things from middle class conservatives who are finally speaking out on subjects that they felt were taboo just five years ago.
I know it sounds like a cliche, but people are getting tired of it and will not put up with it anymore.
I have friends who are buying guns, who five years ago, would not have even considered having a firearm in their home.
I have friends who don't volunteer for anything related to social justice because they feel used by the people they thought they were helping.
I have friends who don't mind being called racists because they know it doesn't matter if they are or they are not. Frankly they don't care anymore.
I do believe that there will be a civil war in my lifetime. I never thought that was possible five years ago.
Yup...they finally just wore me out.
you owe me
Ike is his own personal Freedman's Bureau
Ike looks and sounds like a typical black Northern Mississippi/West Tennessee Southern NAACP Democrat to me. They are racist to the core. Folks on the left and right coasts and Northeast haven't got a clue about with what we in flyover country deal with on a daily basis.
Bookmark.
Yep, keep 'em on the ideological plantation. Even if you have to discriminate to do it. After all, diversity is good, isn't it? That is, except diversity of thought. We can't have that.
Fixed.
So he wants to disenfranchise White Democrats huh? Okay, well has the bigot considered if they disenfranchise the white votes that will completely destroy the already shrinking Democrat Party? Minorities may vote in large numbers for Democrats, blacks in particular, but white people still make up the majority of the voting base, even in the Democrat Party, and you kick them out forget about controlling the majority of this country. You'll get a few large cities, maybe a few rural areas, and that's about it. Then your quest for "ideological purity" is shot to hell.
We know there are many that are racist against black conservatives. It was only a matter of time till they aimed their bigotry at White Democrats. Pitiful legacy of the "new" civil rights movement. They aren't fit to warm Rosa Parks bus seat.
I've always tried to prepare myself for that possibility.
"Folks on the left and right coasts and Northeast haven't got a clue about with what we in flyover country deal with on a daily basis."
Try living in the metro Detroit area.
Memphis exported Marion Barry to Washington D.C. Detroit is not in the NE US is it?
I know of another discrimination case about to hit the fan, an employment case in which a newly elected black official stated at the first board meeting that a certain department needed to have more blacks in leadership; he got it started right away by firing the white person who was leading the department. For absolutely nothing. Installed a black instead, one who thinks like he does. What has for years been a smoothly operating department is now vitriolically divided along racial lines. Utterly ridiculous.
MM
You are absolutely right,. . . "if you do not pay the piper, you should not be able to tell him what to play"!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.