# Hillary makes bogus claim of racism in Alabama. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 18, 2015, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983 "2015-10-18T05:35:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/141 "2015-10-19T02:39:46Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > This assumes first of all that you have a record of birth at all and know exactly what it is, which many blacks do not, as a legacy of the Jim Crow era where they may have been born at home and not in a hospital or their records otherwise not clear. Cite that “many blacks” don’t have a record of their birth. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/142 "2015-10-19T02:46:42Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > They are not issued from the hospital. You turn in a form at the hospital and they are supposed to arrive a month or so later. **Except hers didn’t arrive, and I needed one for travel and couldn’t wait longer.** Yes, everyone realizes that they are not issued by the hospital itself. “I couldn’t wait any longer” is hardly an excuse, though. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/143 "2015-10-19T02:48:04Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > How did you arrive at “refuse to participate” from “can’t find birth certificate”? Do you have one? It seems very strange that people are refusing to answer that question. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/144 "2015-10-19T02:49:42Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Back in 1965 Mrs. Clinton supported Goldwater if you want to bring up the politics of three generations ago. > Anyway, she’s always been just like Madonna, continually reinventing herself in order to remain relevant: and this — not uncynical — stunt is merely another example. Fortunately voters are too thick to connect permanent self-revolution to inauthenticity. Good Gawd, do you mean she’s actually changed in the last 50 years? Earth shattering finding **Claverhouse** , good work! ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/145 "2015-10-19T02:54:04Z")
FWIW, I’ve had a driver’s license for nearly 50 years, and up until last year, it was renewed automatically; I just had to pay the fee. But sometime in the last six years (my previous renewal was 2009), they changed the rules, and required a birth certificate. If I hadn’t checked on the internet first, I wouldn’t have known that, so if I had been a poor person, I would have wasted a trip to the DMV. But I wasted a trip anyway, because the birth certificate I had from the hospital was not acceptable. It was signed by the doctors, and it even had my baby footprint, but it lacked some kind of state certification that they demanded. AFAIK, it’s the only birth certificate I’ve ever had, so even a white guy born in a northern state doesn’t get what they wanted. I had to send a request to the state where I was born to get it, and it cost $35, and if I hadn’t had access to the internet, I wouldn’t have had any idea how to get it. So yeah, all these new hoops may be a minor annoyance to people with plenty of money and internet access, but they can be the difference between yes and no for someone with little or no money, education, or internet access. And IMO, anyone who can’t at least acknowledge that whatever the intent, the effect of this works hand in glove with all the other Republican attempts to make it harder to register and vote is being, at best, disingenuous. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/146 "2015-10-19T03:06:25Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Cite that “many blacks” don’t have a record of their birth. [DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Confronting Modern Barriers to Voting Rights in America](http://action.naacp.org/page/-/Defending%20Democracy%2C%20Final%20Version.pdf) > [@](#): > > While these requirements will impose burdens on all voters of limited means, **they will have a uniquely burdensome impact on elderly African-American voters, many of whom, because they were born when _de jure_ segregation prevented equal access to hospitals, were never issued birth certificates.** [sup]42[/sup] > > \ > > Millions of citizens do not have such documents. > > One study estimates that as many as 7% of U.S. citizens do not have access to these citizenship documents.[sup]102[/sup] In 2008, proof of citizenship would have thus presented a significant registration obstacle to more than 14 million citizens of voting age.[sup]103[/sup] **In fact, for many citizens, these documents simply do not exist.** Individuals born on reservations or outside a hospital, for example, may never have been issued official birth documents, or original documents may have been de- stroyed over the years. > > \ > > For example, citizens earning less than $25,000 per year are more than twice as likely to lack ready documentation of their citizenship as others, and **at least 12% of voting-age citizens earning less than $25,000 per year do not have a readily available U.S. passport, naturalization document, or birth certificate.** [sup]107[/sup] ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/147 "2015-10-19T03:08:09Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Do you have one? It seems very strange that people are refusing to answer that question. Right, because Dopers represent a perfect microcosm of poor blacks in Alabama. What are we hiding, hmmm? This thread has been very instructive for me. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/148 "2015-10-19T03:09:13Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Do you have one? It seems very strange that people are refusing to answer that question. Well, isn’t that something! I, on the other hand, don’t find _your_ evasion of _my_ question at all unusual! Son of a gun! ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/149 "2015-10-19T03:12:35Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Good Gawd, do you mean she’s actually changed in the last 50 years? Earth shattering finding **Claverhouse** , good work! This just in — 50 years ago, she thought Elvis was “dreamy.” ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/150 "2015-10-19T03:22:11Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Cite that “many blacks” don’t have a record of their birth. [Up to 13 million people don’t. Here’s one example of why it’s particularly difficult for black people born before the Civil Rights act.](http://articles.philly.com/2014-03-28/news/48634147_1_certificate-viviette-applewhite-south-carolina) (And before you kvetch that “oh big deal, people over 60-whatever,” remember that seniors are among the most likely to vote.) Some here might also sneer at a mere 7%. If they were among that 7%, they wouldn’t find it so amusing. But see, this concept requires imagining oneself in someone else’s shoes; not a skill that comes easily. The woman in this article doesn’t even know her correct age, for chrissake. As you’ll see, she qualifies for subsidized housing but because of a lack of a photo ID can’t apply. To mock $25 as being a trifling amount to poor people is revolting. > [@The Philadelphia Inquirer](#): > > **For decades, many low-income African American women in the South gave birth in family homes instead of hospitals, aided by midwives, said Nicole Austin-Hillery, director of the Washington office of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, a nonpartisan law and policy institute. The births often went unrecorded.** > > Tens of thousands of babies were born off the grid, real people with the status of ghosts. > > \*\*Quite often, the white establishment running records offices in the Jim Crow South weren’t all that eager to record the births anyway, Austin-Hillery said. > > And, in some cases, pregnant black women were denied entrance to hospitals, historians have written.\*\* More: > [@](#): > > As many as 7 percent of U.S. citizens - 13 million people - do not have access to the documents that prove their birth and citizenship, according to research by the Brennan Center. > > And people with low incomes are more than twice as likely to lack documentation such as a birth certificate that proves their citizenship, according to the center. > > That’s partly because of the Southern midwife problem. But even for people who can access their birth certificates, it costs money to secure documents, and poor people preoccupied with food, rent, and heat rarely have the cash to get their papers in order, Austin-Hillery said. > > Poor people are often transitory, having to move from place to place to survive, and it’s not uncommon for them to misplace their important papers or lose them to theft, experts say. According to [Politifact.com](http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2012/jul/11/eric-holder/eric-holder-says-recent-studies-show-25-percent-af/) as of 2012: > [@](#): > > Other collections of data do not touch on exactly the same points, but most indicate that **African Americans are less likely than whites to hold varied kinds of government-issued IDs, with percentages of blacks without such IDs ranging from nearly 4 percent to more than 26 percent** and percentages of whites having such an ID ranging from 1 percent to nearly 14 percent. Bolding mine, as in the earlier quotes. So let’s average those two figures from the range and say the number is 15%. That’s a pretty significant figure. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/151 "2015-10-19T04:59:14Z")
How does an adult woman not know her own age??? The Brennan Center is not exactly a neutral source, by the way. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/152 "2015-10-19T05:09:36Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > How does an adult woman not know her own age??? It’s actually _impossible_ to know your age unless someone else who knows it tells you, and some people grew up without access to anybody who knew exactly when they were born. I know it’s hard to believe, but not everybody was raised by their birth parents in a literate household with all of these documents that we take for granted today. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/153 "2015-10-19T05:14:01Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > It’s actually _impossible_ to know your age unless someone else who knows it tells you, and some people grew up without access to anybody who knew exactly when they were born. > > I know it’s hard to believe, but not everybody was raised by their birth parents in a literate household with all of these documents that we take for granted today. Agreed, Satchel Paige, who grew up in the Jim Crow South talked about how there was disagreement within his family as to when he was born. Somehow, I don’t think his was the only Southern African-American family which would have such a problem. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/154 "2015-10-19T05:21:19Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > It’s actually _impossible_ to know your age unless someone else who knows it tells you, and some people grew up without access to anybody who knew exactly when they were born. No, it’s not _impossible_. It’s called a birth certificate. Again, something like 97% of Americans were born in a hospital, where the issuance of a birth certificate is a matter of course. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/155 "2015-10-19T05:21:40Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > How does an adult woman not know her own age??? Her mother died of complications of childbirth because the local hospital was for whites only; her father was arrested for loitering and died in prison; her drunk of an uncle took her in, but put her to work in his field rather than enrolling her in school; she ran away when he started molesting her, and by the time she thought to ask how old she was, he had been shot in a bar, and she had no idea whether she had any other relatives. You’re like a teenage girl asking how can someone not know who Zayn Malik is. Because not all lives are alike, that’s how. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/156 "2015-10-19T05:25:01Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > Her mother died of complications of childbirth because the local hospital was for whites only; her father was arrested for loitering and died in prison; her drunk of an uncle took her in, but put her to work in his field rather than enrolling her in school; she ran away when he started molesting her, and by the time she thought to ask how old she was, he had been shot in a bar, and she had no idea whether she had any other relatives. None of that happened, let alone all of it. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/157 "2015-10-19T05:25:30Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > No, it’s not _impossible_. It’s called a birth certificate. Again, something like 97% of Americans were born in a hospital, where the issuance of a birth certificate is a matter of course. The information on a birth certificate is information _from other people_. Babies can’t fill out paperwork. But anyways, if you don’t have a copy of your birth certificate, you have to have at least a rough idea of the details that are on it. If you don’t know anything about your birth name, when you were born, or where you were born, you’re SOL. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/158 "2015-10-19T05:32:56Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > None of that happened, let alone all of it. Got any proof of that? ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/159 "2015-10-19T05:35:12Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > If you don’t know anything about your birth name, when you were born, or where you were born, you’re SOL. And who doesn’t know those things? Less than 1/4 of 1% of the population? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2015, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983/160 "2015-10-19T05:35:17Z")
I’d just like to bring up, that I grew up on welfare, and when I was young $25 free dollars wasn’t something trivial. We were out of money by the last week of each month, and when the first of the month came, it was like that Bone Thugs song, like literally. Well, except it was food and necessities instead of weed and 40s. Now imagine that $25 unbugeted dollars, is necessary to do something as symbolic as voting? It’s a real barrier, because voting is a luxury. It’s something you do when your kids aren’t hungry, and choosing between a birthday present for your kid, or school supplies, or gas for the car, or maybe just a pack of cigarettes to pass the time, and a birth certificate, so that you can vote a year from now, isn’t the sort of thing most people will prioritize. If you don’t understand what it is to be truly broke, good. It sucks. But just because you don’t understand it, doesn’t mean that those people are stupid and worthless and worthy of your derision. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hillary-makes-bogus-claim-of-racism-in-alabama/734983.md?page=9)