By Michael Kennedy
Last week, the Muhammad Ali Institute at University of Louisville celebrated Peace and Justice Week by placing yard signs on campus highlighting a number of social injustices, as they see them. Unfortunately, a couple of the signs were absolutely preposterous.
One of these signs said: “Did you know…The U.S. is one of the 11 nations in the world that do not provide an explicit right to vote in the Constitution. That ain’t right!!!”
That is true, the Founding Fathers left it to the states to determine the qualifications to vote, and currently, all 50 states allow their citizens to vote. Voting in the United States is technically a privilege, and not a right.
However, according to this Constitution, states may not deny any citizen over 18 the right to vote based on age, race or sex, thanks to our 26, 15 and 19 amendments, respectively. The right to vote is implicit in our Constitution, and it’s not really even an issue, so I’m not sure why “that ain’t right.”
Another such sign informs us: “About one of every three people who lived in the areas hit hardest by hurricane Katrina was African American. By contrast, one of every eight people in the nation is African American. That ain’t right!!!”
Tell that to Mother Nature. What is this sign saying? Natural disasters seek out African American communities? Incidentally, about seven of every 100 people hit hardest by the F-3 tornado in Owensboro two weeks ago was African American. Natural disasters happen, and they’re always a tragedy, regardless of the racial demographics of the community.
A third sign declares: “West Louisville has a ratio of one grocery store to 20,000 people, whereas the ratio for the rest of Jefferson County is one and 6,000. That ain’t right!!!”
What would the Ali scholars propose be done about this? Kroger is a publicly traded corporation who needs to do what’s best for its shareholders. A company won’t participate in a market if it’s not profitable to do so, and apparently Kroger doesn’t find West Louisville to be profitable. That’s like complaining about Los Angeles having three Ferrari dealers, while Louisville doesn’t have any.
Lastly, there was another sign that read: “Sudan ranks #1 in with danger of collapsing in The Failed States Index: Most Vulnerable Countries in 2007. That ain’t right!!!”
Poor grammar aside, I’m not sure what’s so wrong about this. Wherever there is a ranking, something is #1. If it weren’t Sudan, it would be someone else.
The Ali Institute had good intentions with their signs, and many of them, such as the signs highlighting domestic abuse, did well to highlight concerns plaguing society today. However, they were really trying to stretch with these four issues, and they came up a bit short.
