Say Anything Blog

This discussion is getting to be a bit ridiculous...

Miami (CNSNews.com)

Joanne Bland, the director and co-founder of the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma, Ala., told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that the new computerized voting machines are going to intimidate black voters in Florida and elsewhere and suppress their vote in the November presidential election because many blacks are not "technologically savvy."

"The computers really terrify me. The electronic voting -- the new machines -- I think it will turn off a segment in my community, particularly the elderly. We are not as technically savvy, and we are afraid of machines like that, and they (African-Americans) probably won't go [to the polls] and they probably won't ask for assistance, said Bland, who spent the last week in Florida.

I know a decent number of blacks... and not one of them is incapable of figuring how to use an ATM machine. I have known very few PEOPLE (white, black, other) that had a hard time with a calculator. The color of your skin DOES NOT dictate your intelligence. To a large degree, your parents do when they instill, in you, the drive to succeed. If you have the intelligence to drive a car, then you have the intelligence to figure out an electronic voting machine. If you can't figure out the machine, then you probably shouldn't vote anyway.

Welfare is provided via a card now... Arguably, the LEAST INTELLIGENT people are the ones on welfare... yet they can figure out how to use the card machines at the grocery store.

When asked if she preferred low-tech punch-card ballots that produced the controversial hanging chads in Florida in 2000, Bland responded, "Now that was low technology to who? People that have been privileged to learn technology? There have been lots of changes in the United States, but if you look at the statistics, our biggest block of voters would be between 40 and 80, so when did those people have access to any kind of technology?"

Why does she feel the need to brand blacks as ignorant? If I were black, I would be offended as hell that one of my "Leaders" thinks of me as educationally ignorant.

African-American GOP consultant Tara Setmayer, who has worked on Florida congressional campaigns, called Bland's remarks "insulting" to black Americans.

"I think it's insulting to imply that African-Americans are unable to comprehend or assimilate modern-day technology," Setmayer said.

Believe it or not, but this quote is from the SAME article... CNS News has some fair and balanced reporting. They show both sides without taking a side.

I have to agree with Setmayer. I can't believe that blacks want leaders that condescend... Bland is Racists, calling blacks ignorant... odd that she's black.