Broken Watch

John Tanner has himself in a bit of hot water.  The chief of the Voting Section at the Department of Justice apologized yesterday for making a series of racially charged statements, including his suggestion that black voters are not hurt as much as whites by voter identification laws because "they die first."

His full quote:
"minorities don't become elderly the way white people do; they die first." Well gee, John.

I guess AfAms don't need any constitutional protections from onerous "proofs of identity" because, well, according to him, most of us won't live to see our prime years, let alone anything over sixty. (Oddly enough, that appears to be the age at which black folk vote, statistically, more often than white folk of the same age).

On a deeper level, for the purposes of argument, Mr. Tanner's verbal gaff supplies some grist for the argument mill, so to speak. I know I'll get some hate mail, but he's right: we do die way too early, and our voting rights don't have to be taken away through any surreptitious means. We're abdicating them, which is actually worse.

In his own boneheaded way, Mr. Tanner has touched on two things that perhaps we as intelligent people of certain economic means and complexion might take note of:

1. That black folk on the whole, have generally shorter life expectancies, the result of a number of causes.
2. That black folk on the whole, tend to view voting with some apprehension, something I find odd, since we fought tooth and nail to obtain the right.

While it's obvious that Mr. Tanner wasn't making some grand sociological statement, it's interesting to me that some folks in the mainstream, either subconsciously or not, associate us with some combination of apathy, and death.

How did that happen?

Better yet, how does one remove such a stigma from a whole people?

I sense that on some levels, for some members of society, his comments were received with glee. But from a black male perspective, it pains me to no end to think that much of society looks at AfAms as if we're disposable. More to the point, I think many people see us and believe that WE see ourselves as disposable.

So perhaps anger at Mr. Tanner is indeed well-placed. But more important than anger, perhaps we can use his words as some sort of catalyst to reinvigorate our communities. If only our collective community took every nasty, contempt-filled statement and redirected it as source of motivation, I suspect we'd be in a better place.

While I know I am preaching to the choir to some extent, let's take Mr. Tanner's ill-conceived words, and create something beneficial out of them:

1. Vote. Encourage family, friends, coworkers, and associates to do so. Dissuade people from thinking that voting only means jury duty. (It used to but not anymore). Remind people that those who don't participate in our republic have no basis on which to complain.
2. Reach out to a young person. Tell him or her flat out "There are people who don't expect and don't want to see you live long enough to be considered a real OG -- an Old Guy or Old Girl" Encourage them to practice safe sex, avoid violence, steer clear of the drug game, and encourage them to actually shame those that glamorize such lifestyles. Respect given is respect earned.

If we do such things, and see positive results, we'll give lie to Mr. Tanner's remarks. Maybe at some point, we can even thank him for his impetus. Along the way, perhaps we can remind him that even a broken watch is right twice a day.