Born of an American mother and a Kenyan father, Barack Obama has definitely led an international life of sorts. He grew up in Hawaii, lived in Indonesia for a period of time (with his mother) graduated from Columbia University, then Harvard University in 1991. When he won a seat as a democratic senator from Illionois in 2004, he was only the 3rd African American to do so since Reconstruction.
His background is extensively rooted in civil rights. After graduating from Harvard, he went to work as a civil rights lawyer, and as a senator he helped push through earned income credit for working families in Illinois. When he saw that numerous death row inmates had been exonerated due to new DNA evidence, he helped work with law enforcement to create a bill to mandate that interrogations be video taped. He has also worked diligently to create an expansion of early childhood education in Illinois.
Now that we have our short bio of who the senator is, let’s look further at what he says regarding various issues:
Civil Rights–Given his background, it would make sense that one cause that Obama is passionate about is Civil Rights. He speaks out on a number of issues regarding civil rights. Here is a list of just a few of the changes he would like to make:
*Strengthen civil rights enforcement by enforcing fair hiring practices within the Civil Rights Department.
*Obama favors the Fair Pay Act and will work to overturn the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that curtails racial minorities’ and women’s ability to challenge pay discrimination.
*Obama wants to strengthen federal hate crimes legislation.
*Obama will sign into law his legislation that establishes harsh penalties for those who have engaged in voter fraud and provides voters who have been misinformed with accurate information so that they can vote.
*Obama will ban racial profiling and provide federal incentives to the state and local police departments to prohibit the practice.
*Obama wants to use federal monies to provide job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling to ex-offenders so that they are successfully re-integrated into society.
*Obama will eliminate the disparity between sentencing for crack and powder based cocaine substances.
*Obama is also interested in changing the drug law so that where appropriate, first time, non-violent offenders have a chance to serve their sentence in a drug rehabilitation center. (In studies, these programs have been proven to work better in terms of changing behavior rather than a prison sentence.
It is clear from his experience and his profile that civil rights is of utmost importance to Barack Obama. Come back soon for more information on his political platform.
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