Anderson@Large

Coding Is Fundamental

 

Voting Rights v. States’ Rights

Tomorrow, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Shelby County v. Holder, a case challenging Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A quick primer:

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) requires jurisdictions with a history of voting discrimination to receive preapproval from the Justice Department or a federal district court in D.C. for any voting change to ensure such changes do not discriminate against voters who are racial, ethnic or language minorities. In 2006, an overwhelmingly bipartisan majority of Congress reauthorized the VRA for 25 more years.

Those jurisdictions include the former confederate states of Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. What’s at stake for these states is an issue as old as the Civil War: states’ rights. Stateline reports:

But in asking whether a key part of the federal law is constitutional, the court also will reopen a debate that long predates the measure’s enactment in 1965. It’s an argument that was at the heart of the U.S. Civil War, and one that has seen resurgence in recent years as Republicans around the country bristle at what they perceive as meddling from Washington.

That debate is the battle over states’ rights.

On its face, the challenge to the Voting Rights Act is about how state and local officials run elections. But states’ rights have underpinned much of the opposition to the law since it was first enacted, and Wednesday’s hearing will feature familiar arguments.

The issue is Section 5 of the law, which requires all or part of 16 states to get any changes to election law preapproved by either the Justice Department or a federal court. That requirement, based on findings of discrimination and racism years ago, applies to most every aspect of elections, from technical changes to the high-profile issue of photo ID requirements that recently spawned court battles for states such as Texas and South Carolina. The challenge was brought by Shelby County, Alabama, and argues that the act’s preclearance requirement is unconstitutional on its face, no matter how it’s employed.

Civil rights leaders, Members of Congress and voting rights activists from across the country will rally at the steps of the Supreme Court.

For more information, visit ProtecttheVRA.org.

STEM Reality Check: 1 in 5 Americans is Illiterate

Zora Ball is Young, Gifted and Black

Sometimes good news does sell. The story of the first-grader who developed a mobile video game has gone viral.

Seven-year-old Zora Ball is a student at Philadelphia’s Harambee Institute of Science and Technology Charter School. Her teacher, Tariq Al-Nasir, told CBS Philly:

She was given very basic information. She transformed her screen into a nail salon! She found a picture of a ballerina, she found a picture of a jewel, and then another picture of a vampire. The game she created is called “Vampire Diamonds,” and the object is to get the diamond and avoid the vampire.

Little Zora, the youngest computer programmer in the country, was recently featured at an event hosted by STEM evangelist will.i.am. Awesome!

President's Day (and Nights)

 

2013 #SOTU Address

In case you missed it ...

STEM Puts a Dip in Your Hip, Glide in Your Stride

OK, not really. But the man who promised to put “more dips in your hips, more glide in your stride” reminded us that STEM is everywhere. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.

I grew up listening to Frankie “Hollywood” Crocker.

Back in the day, Hollywood went, well, Hollywood and appeared in five films, including Cleopatra Jones and Darktown Strutters.  In Five on the Black Hand Side, he played Rolls Royce, a numbers runner. Before state lotteries, folks played the numbers, the “poor man’s stock market”:

Once known as the “policy numbers game” in Harlem, playing the numbers was a way of making ends meet as well as a way of meeting other needs in the economically starved community. Playing the numbers, a game where players betted on a series of three digit numbers from 000 to 999, was considered the “poor man’s stock market.”

The numbers man carried the money and betting slips to the policy bank. Some were mathematical geniuses who didn’t need slips; instead, they memorized the numbers.

Today’s Black History Month lesson: From runaway slaves looking for the North Star to their descendants running numbers to make ends meet, STEM is in black folks’ DNA.