Second Class Citizens - The Daily Render by Nikolas R. Schiller

Photograph of when an innocent card game made me feel sad
|| 12/15/2009 || 4:56 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

Photograph of the card from the game Chit Chat asking what do you like most about the state where you live

I spent much of Friday’s opening in the office near my artwork so I could explain the map to people. Near the end of the evening someone got out a plastic cube from underneath a desk that contained an ice-breaking game called Chit Chat. The card above was pulled randomly from the deck and kinda made me a little sad, so I took this photo to document the moment. Although dropdown boxes on the internet might list the District of Columbia as a state, its not. Let’s ChitChat about that shall we?

The 23rd Amendment – Time Magazine – March 31, 1961
|| 2/14/2009 || 6:05 pm || + Render A Comment || ||

I found this article when I was looking up more information about the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution:

Thanks to a succession of oversights by the Founding Fathers and early Congresses, the residents of the District of Columbia have never enjoyed one particular constitutional right cherished by all other Americans: the privilege of voting. There was no reasoning attending the oversights; it was just plain neglect.† Last week Rhode Island cast the 36th affirmative vote for the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution, giving 746,000 Washingtonians the right to vote in presidential elections — and three electoral votes. Ohio and Kansas are expected to ratify the amendment this week, making the necessary two-thirds majority for official adoption (only one legislature—Arkansas—rejected the amendment outright, on the ground that 54% of the District’s citizens are Negroes).

But after 161 years, Washingtonians will be limited to voting for the President and Vice President. They will continue to have no representative in Congress, no voice in their municipal government.

†One segment of the capital gained the right to vote in 1846, when one-third of the District’s land area, now Arlington County, was ceded back to Virginia.

What this article shows to me is how racist America used to be….
In some ways, even with an African American president, it still is.
sigh

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