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  A Leadership of Cowards?
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ContributorImperator 
Last EditedImperator  Mar 17, 2009 06:30am
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CategoryPerspective
News DateTuesday, March 17, 2009 12:00:00 PM UTC0:0
DescriptionAttorney General Eric Holder calls the U.S. “a nation of cowards” because we “do not talk enough about race.” I find this ironic, since the Justice Department seems embarrassed about a recent judgment in its favor by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. U.S. v. Ike Brown is a major Voting Rights Act case involving intentional race-based discrimination by local officials in Noxubee County, Miss.

When the Fifth Circuit issued its decision on February 27, there was complete silence from Justice. The department typically issues a press release after any significant litigation victory, and the Civil Rights Division trumpets every success. But not here. The silence from the nation’s leading news outlets was also deafening: Not a word was published about the case by the New York Times, the Washington Post, or any other major publication. Why? Because the offensive conduct at issue did not conveniently track with the Left’s view of race discrimination.

The Noxubee County case presents a deeply disturbing account of some of the most egregious racial discrimination the Justice Department has encountered in decades. In Noxubee, 80 percent of Democrats are black; 20 percent are white. (There are some Republicans as well, but the number is negligible.) The chairman of the Democratic party, Ike Brown, is black, and he, along with the Noxubee County Democratic Executive Committee, set about to effectively disenfranchise white voters.

The court decision shows that Brown had his own local version of Tammany Hall, and local election officials followed his orders. This included publishing in the local newspaper a list of 174 white Democratic voters whose eligibility he intended to challenge if they tried to vote in an upcoming election. According to the court, Brown compiled the list based on the individuals’ perceived lack of support for black candidates. One voter testified that she was so intimidated she didn’t vote. Another testified that she w
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