Now that 12 Years a Slave has won the Oscar for Best Picture, maybe -- just maybe -- it can persuade those governors who have signed legislation restricting the opportunities to vote in their states to re-consider their actions.
Perhaps such governors regarded the passionate defense of the Voting Rights Act by people like Congressman John Lewis as just another exercise of "predictable Democratic rhetoric." Similarly, supporters of restrictions on voting rights might regard any statement or action by Attorney General Eric Holder as also just another instance of Democratic politics.
But, how can ANYONE who has seen 12 Years a Slave and has even minimal knowledge about our Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13 Amendment abolishing slavery and the 14 Amendment's effort to create a level playing field for African-Americans following the abolition of slavery, still not take a pause and reflect about the suppression of voting rights legislation enacted in various states?
Whether one is a member of the Tea Party, the Republican or Democratic parties, an independent voter, black, white, LGBT, male, female, religious, agnostic, atheist, Asian, Hispanic or Native American, is irrelevant. What matters is that we, as a nation, should collectively commit ourselves, once and for all, to cease our hypocrisy related to race relations in America, and commit our selves to insure that, we, the successor generation to 12 Years a Slave, will never, ever seek to limit the voting rights of the ancestors of those slaves who were the subject of this Academy Award-winning motion picture.
Can I get an Amen?