Voter suppression in SC is very real, and black voters must protect their rights

On taxes

I just had my taxes done. I chose to itemize on my tax return, and I also used the new fuel tax option that our politicians passed because I assumed that would help me, too.

But while I had spent close to $3,000 on auto repairs and more than $1,300 for fuel on my vehicles; the new law states requires you to use the lesser of the two. When everything was said and done I received a $36 tax credit on $1,300 worth of purchased fuel — a small pittance compared to what I had spent.

What a joke! You might as well not save your gas receipts if you’re not going to really benefit from doing so.

To the lawmakers who thought up this stupid tax credit, I say this: “Thanks for nothing!”

Reginald Bodie, West Columbia

On voting rights

During the breathless horse race coverage of the South Carolina Democratic Party presidential primary, the issue of voting rights has often been overlooked. But the truth is that voting rights should actually be the No. 1 story of this primary — because voter suppression is a very real crisis facing black voters in South Carolina.

Currently nearly 100,000 black voters in South Carolina are listed as “inactive” on election rolls, which puts them at risk of disenfranchisement when they seek to vote in Saturday’s primary. And here’s what is really shocking: many of these South Carolina voters have been placed on the “inactive” list simply because they didn’t vote during the last two general elections.

Recently a six-member delegation from the Young Black Lawyers Organizing Coalition visited Columbia in an effort to raise voter education and awareness. During its visit, the delegation visited eight churches in Columbia and made contact with more than 1,500 black South Carolinians. In addition, the Young Black Lawyers Organizing Coalition has sent direct-mail postcards to 1,500 black voters in Richland County who have been classified as “inactive.”

Rather than putting up unfair barriers, South Carolina’s lawmakers and courts should be working to make sure that everyone who can vote is able to do so freely and fully. We are urging every black voter in South Carolina to check their voter registration status before Saturday’s primary vote — and to know their voting rights.

Throughout the 2020 election season, all of us should lend our voices to the fight to protect and empower black voters.

Abdul Dosunmu, New York City

Dosunmu is a law student at NYU and the founder of the Young Black Lawyers’ Organizing Coalition.

On Trump, Russians

South Bend City Councilman Henry Davis Jr. and Jorden Giger — the president of Black Lives Matter South Bend — recently co-authored an op-ed suggesting that if black voters support former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, they will only help to re-elect President Donald Trump. In their piece, however, Davis and Giger declared that during the 2020 election, “President Trump will try to suppress the black vote, possibly with help from the Russians.”

Yes, they actually said that!

The fact is that by providing no proof or evidence to back up their ridiculous, conspiratorial and paranoid proclamation, Davis and Giger are actually the ones working to suppress the black vote; they are implying that African Americans should avoid voting for a certain candidate — even if that person is the one they really want to choose — because something underhanded might happen if they did so.

Can’t we all just go to the polls, freely vote for the candidate we prefer and simply trust the process?

And can’t we just stop making outrageous claims about how much President Trump “hates” black people?

Sarah Eades, Lexington

On vaccines

As a public health educator and someone who once suffered because I did not have access to a vaccine. I beg all readers to support the need for vaccinations — and to oppose the Alliance for Natural Health’s proposal to free schools from requiring vaccination certificates from families before allowing their children to enroll.

When I was less than two years old, my mother begged a doctor to give me a whooping cough vaccination; the doctor said I was too young to receive it. Eventually I came down with an illness that had my whole body shaking with coughs; meanwhile, my mother was crying because she feared I would die — and my father was cooking horseradish candy because that seemed to be the only thing capable of reducing my coughing.

Fortunately I did not lose my life, as many others in my family did in the past because of illnesses that were unable to be prevented by vaccines. But this is no time to go back to those dark days, which is what groups like the Alliance for Natural Health want us to do.

Fran Reed, Hilton Head

This story was originally published February 28, 2020 at 3:25 PM.