Whiteness: big bubble surrounds me

It happened Tuesday, February 19.  Four days later and no mention in major media that comes into my apartment in New York City.  Surfing, I happened upon this march in Texas at Bitch PhD, a feminist blog who got it via Pandagon, another feminist blog.

You see in the photo 2,000 students at historically black Prairie View A & M University as they march over 7 miles to exercise their voting rights.  Because?  The number of early registration sites near the campus--where there are 3,000 students registered to vote--had been reduced in the county around the school from six to one.

Their banner reads, “It’s 2008. We will vote.”*  No one makes it hard for me to vote.

A YouTube video of the march is HERE at the Burnt Orange Report, a blog focused on Texas politics.   Besides learning more about this significant voting rights event at Texas A & M, I read other sites new to me.  With all the excess of narrow coverage on the primary races it was at Black America Web that I learned of the discordant exchanges between Obama and TV commentator Tavis Smiley--and responses to that in the African American community.

*The Rev. James E. Orange, a project organizer in SCLC and aide to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, brought young people like himself into the movement, died at 65 last week.  It is his legacy that these Texas students continue.

CORRECTION:  The school is Prairie View A&M University not Texas A&M--thanks to Virginia for noticing the error.

Comments

[Virginia]

I must correct your information about Texas A&M being historically black. The college you are talking about is Prairie View A&M, which is now a member of the Texas A&M system. It's located a few miles from Houston.

The main Texas A&M campus is in College Station.

Beyond that correction, I can only say "Go, Prairie View!"

[M.E.]

Important information. Let the word go forth!

[Judith Shapiro]

Thanks for the link to Bitch PhD. It's Bitchin'.

[Kay Dennison]

Good stuff!!!!!

[sahara]

I'm thankful everyday for black media and blogs, and anyone willing to burst their bubble. There's a lot going on out there. As belonging to an ethnic group, if it weren't for our own media, we'd (practically are) rendered invisible.