Basketball and Voting Rights,By Louise Annarino,2-28-2013

Basketball and Voting Rights,By Louise Annarino,2-28-2013

My dad’s high school basketball team won the all-state championship in high school. I don’t recall a time we were not shooting baskets, both indoors and outdoors.If one opened my parent’s bedroom door outward it fell across a corner of the dining room creating a “basket”. Despite the fact that errant balls and exhuberant blocks broke several of Mom’s Heisey pieces displayed on the buffet,she allowed us to to shoot hoops there every day,inevitably joining in to make a few baskets herself. We also shot hoops into the basket positioned over the door frame between the kitchen and my brothers’ bedroom,being careful to keep the ball from bouncing into the suga and meatballs simmering on the stove.

Outdoors we played on a small poured concrete patio, the basket affixed to the garage roof edge. When we removed the cement block four-bay garage alongside our house Dad installed a full court with hoops at each end where the entire neighborhood gathered to play. Mom added an additional rule to the NCAA rules we followed,“no cussing”, which resulted in a technical foul for both teams and ended the game for the day. Mom did not allow rule-breaking and discourtesy among us. She understood how quickly relationships deteriorate,and a game can be ruined when common civility and rules breakdown. She inserted herself as the referee. Did the neighborhood boys appreciate Mom’s interference? Surely not, if one is to judge by their griping and whining,bowed heads and limp waves good-bye as they were thrown off the court and out of the yard. But, if they wanted to play the game,she insisted it be played fairly. What would have happened had we a Mother less astute, and less available to jump in when unfairness and manipulation of rules reared their ugly heads as they inevitably do?

Justice Antonin Scalia may have had an Italian mother, but she did not teach him the manners and sense of fairness my mother taught her kids and the kids in my neighborhood. The 1965 Voting Rights Act sets up the rules of the game for fair and non-discriminatory elections. Section 5 puts in place someone like Mom, the U.S. Departmenet of Justice,to assure the rules are followed. When Mom sensed a player needed more supervision because of prior violations of her house rules,that player had to seek her approval before re-entering the yard. She would never end the game her own children had a right to play in their own yard. However,she would assure the game was fairly and decently played,and did not hesitate to close down the game to the neighborhood kids,when her kids were threatened.

The yard was our yard;the court,our court. Neighborhood kids did not have a “right” to play there without Mom’s permission and our invitation. Justice Antonin Scalia seems to apply this same outlook to a citizen’s “right” to vote. Like Mom, he recognizes the voting rights of his kids. But, he sees African-Americans and other minorities as merely neighborhood kids, rather than family members. During oral arguments,he referred to Congress’s renewal of the Voting Rights Act as the “perpetuation of racial entitlement,” ensuring rights above and beyond those others are entitled to enjoy. But, African-Americans and other minorities are not simply neighborhood kids. They are entitled to the same rights of citizenship as the rest of us. Guaranteeing their right to vote doe not grant a right to which they are otherwise not entitlted.

In those states which continue to practice racial discrimination,which  continue to restrict or deny equal access to the polls, or which continue to deny full and equal import of those votes, Section 5 of the 1965 Voting rights Act rightfully acts as referee and ensures the rules of racial equality enshrined in our Constitution must be followed. Section 5 does not stop the game,nor send anyone home depriving them of their right to vote.It simply assures the game is fair. When Congress,with unanimous Senate approval, extended the Act in 2006, it did so after consdiering 13,000 pages of documented instances of racial discrimination. “Consider the simplistic suggestion from the chief justice that because “the citizens in the South are [no] more racist than citizens in the North” we can safely ignore evidence that Southern states still systematically discriminate against minorities”(http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/02/voting-rights-act). Indeed, one could argue that Section 5 should be expanded to northern states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio. In Franklin County (Columbus),Ohio GOP Chair Doug Preisse gave a surprisingly blunt answer to the Columbus Dispatch : “I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban—read African-American—voter-turnout machine,”  adding, a la Justice Scalia, in an email to the Dispatch “let’s be fair and reasonable.”

Yes,let’s be fair and reasonable,to every player in the game. Justice Sonia Sotomayor fairly and reasonably pointed out to the attorney arguing on behalf of plaintiff Shelby County,Alabama who alleged racial discrimination was no longer evident in his county, “You may be the wrong party bringing this suit,”calling Shelby County the “epitome” of the reason for keeping Section 5 in place. She cited 240 discriminatory voting measures recently blocked by Section 5 and Section 2 challenges. She said she accepted that some portions of the South had changed, “but your county hasn’t.”(http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/12-96.pdf)

Yes,let’s be fair and reasonable. College basketball was integrated in 1947 when Coach Wooden played an African-American for Indiana University,violating the gentleman’s agreement barring African-Americans from the Big Ten Conference. In 1961, Loyola broke the gentleman’s agreement  not to play more than three African-American players when it played four at one time. Loyola also became the first team in NCAA history to play an all-Black lineup in 1962. In 1963 Loyola started four African-American playes in the NCAA Tournament and Championship game. The NIT and NCAA had integrated ten years earlier,relying on those gentleman’s agreements to limit and restrict African-American participation.It seems they agreed as gentleman to allow African-American participation,so long as such participation was miniscule.

Yes,let’s be fair and reasonable. in the 1949-50 season,following the merger of the Black Fives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Fives)with white professional basketball leagues, led by the National Basketball League/NBL, they joined to form the National Basketbll Association/NBA. African-Americans were finally signed to play professional basketball on formerly all-white teams,but relegated solely to the roles of rebounding and defense. It wasn’t until the 1960‘s that Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain were the first African-American pros allowed to fully display their skills.http://en.wikipedia.org/wikiBlack_participation_in_college_basketball

Once we recognized the excellence and success of African-American players, rule-changes were inevitable to contain them. Gentleman’s agreements were no longer sufficient restraints.In the 1964-65 season lanes were widened from 12-16 feet to contain the great Wilt Chamberlain.(http://www.nba.com/analysis/rules_history.html). Later,the dunk shot was prohibited,for similar reasons.  Equally inevitable once African-American Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, was the effort to change election rules to restrain the African-American vote. Republican Governors and Secretaries of State elected in 2010 off-year election expected to derail Obama’s re-election. However,his excellence and skills were sufficient to assure an incredulous (to Grover Norquist among others) second term despite the billions of  private donor and SUPERPAC dollars,political,and overtly racist attacks on the President and First Lady. A determined and strong response by the Justice Department using Section 5 of the Civil Rights Act, public sentiment fueling an ever-increasingly strong ground game, and the sheer determination of African-Americans to stand in voting lines for long hours to cast a vote no matter what shocked Shelby County and those who believe the election game is theirs alone.Efforts to treat African-American voters as merely neighborhood kids failed. Not every African-American is a Wilt Chamberlain nor Barack Obama;but,white reaction to full participation in basketball or politics would make one think so. Are we still so blinded by our racism? Yes.

Regardless of how the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the Shelby County,Alabama case it is clear we are entering a new era of civil rights activism, led by those too young to remember or to have participated in the marches, sit-ins and protest demonstrations of old. This case will reinvigorate the effort to organize,register and get to the polls all citizens who believe in a fair game, and a fair poltical process. Whether one is African-American, Asian,East-Asian,Latino,LGBT,or female the game is now much clearer. We must elect those at every level, city-county-state-federal, who will protect and defend the rights of all citizens. Unfortunately, we have to wait out the far-right conservatives on the Supreme Court blocking  until more fair and reasonable justices can be appointed; but, we can put in place a president who will appoint judges and justices willing to uphold equal rights for all, and a Congress eager to approve such appointments. Elections matter. It is time to organize now for 2014 when we can elect fair and reasonable candidates to the House and Senate, and to state and local offices. The Shelby County’s suit reminds us, as did Thomas Jefferson, that the “price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” Be vigilant and vote. That is how we protect our civil rights. No one can stop us from voting unless we allow it.

ADDENDUM:

It has been brought to my attention that it was grossly unfair of me to  speak of Mrs. Scalia, Justice Antonin Scalia’s mother, when she cannot defend herself. This is very true. I could have discussed the poor behavior of Justice Scalia with no mention of his Mother and should have done so. I fell into my own writer’s trap when I compared someone I do not know and have never met, whose opinions I have never heard, and who is not a public figure as a counterpoint to balance my own mother. I was completely wrong to have done so. I sincerely and abashedly apologize to Mrs. Scalia,her family,her illustrious son and my readers.