Dismissal of Black Panther Voter Intimidation Case 'Racially Motivated' Charges Former Justice Department Lawyer

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

J. Charles Adams, a former Justice Department lawyer who now practices law and blogs in Virginia, is accusing Attorney General Eric Holder of dismissing a case against a group of Black Panthers due to racial motives.

The incident involved a group of members of the New Black Panther Party who were videotaped outside a Philadelphia polling station intimidating voters and displaying weapons. A Voting Rights Act case was filed against the Black Panthers, which was eventually dismissed by the Obama Justice Department in May 2009. A separate criminal complaint has proceeded successfully.

J. Charles Adams is charging that the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder will not prosecute voting rights cases when the victims are white. Adams ascribes the policy to an atmosphere of reverse racism that pervades the Justice Department and the Obama administration as a whole. Like President Obama, Attorney General Holder is African American.

A Justice Department spokesman has denied the charges, maintaining that all voting rights cases are pursued regardless of the race of the victim. However, both the United States Commission on Civil Rights and Republican members of Congress remain unimpressed, and the former is investigating.

Indeed, the charges that have been levied by J. Charles Adams would be, even proved true, mind-blowing in their implications. Racially motivated justice was a common occurrence decades ago, before the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s, when African Americans were regularly discriminated against in the courts and in encounters with law enforcement.

That the federal government would revert to those kinds of discredited practices, only this time change the ethnic background of the victims, should be a cause for great concern. What would motivate such behavior, besides sheer bigotry, is unclear.

Some race theoreticians have, in the past, suggested that African Americans cannot, by their nature, be racist because they lack political power to enforce such racism. What power has to do with attitudes and beliefs is unclear. Certainly, by a threatening demeanor and the display of a deadly weapon, the Black Panthers in Philadelphia had plenty enough power to enforce their racism. In any case, in an era in which the President is African American, the Attorney General is African American, and past Secretaries of State and a Chief of Staff of the Armed forces have been African American, the argument has become somewhat threadbare.

Even the whiff of racism in the Justice Department, no matter who it is directed at, needs to be investigated and, where found, rooted out. Otherwise, there is no such thing as equal justice.

Sources:

Former Justice Department Lawyer Accuses Holder of Dropping New Black Panther Case for Racial Reasons, Fox News, June 30th, 2010

"Black Panthers" Intimidate Voters in Philadelphia, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, November 4th, 2008

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5541734/dismissal_of_black_panther_voter_intimidation.html?cat=17

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Who should be surprised about this? Maybe only your, quote, "typical White person", unquote "acting stupidly" who didn't catch the nuance of the beer summit.

DUH!

This is the bizzaro WH.