Supreme Court VRA Decision

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

I was asking whether your legal profession is the only exposure you have with diverse socioeconomic, cultural, and ethnic environments. Unfortunately, yes, you only have such exposure through the legal profession.

It's a pretty intimate level of exposure. Culture is often a big tool for me in choosing the most compatible services for my clients. For example, if my clients are Latino, I have a number of Latino-focused resources. If they're black, I tend to send them to service providers who are also black. The tribes kind of have their own thing going and YMMV from tribe to tribe, so woriking with NA folks is always interesting. When providers are culturally competent though, the outcomes tend to be better. Not to mention the fact that our service providers can often recognize cultural incompetence with regard to our child welfare workers, which in turn makes life easier for me.

The "if they can do it, anyone can do it" logic does not work with every social outcome. I know people with terminal degrees, extensive resume', and a vigorous voting record who came from impoverished environments.

heh.. NONE of my parents have terminal degrees. Some barely speak English. Others are addicts or criminals. They can get IDs. So yes, if they can do it, so can anyone. I work with the real down and out folks. Especially when I'm doing my pro bono work.

Are people saying a large segment of poor people and minorities are inept?

That seems to be what you're saying... I'm not buying that. There's just not an excuse for not being able to come up with some form of ID that I'll accept. If there's a will, there's a way. If people are responsible adults and maintain basic identification paperwork, they won't have problems. If they're irresponsible, they might miss an election or two and if they care, it's not a huge deal to get things straightened out. At least not here. If I was reading another post and saw that the state of Texas was requiring folks to physically present themselves in Austin to obtain paperwork, yes, that's a ridiculous and significant barrier and is totally unreasonable. Someone on a fixed income can't just travel from, say Amarillo to Austin on a lark.