Some Americans Today Still Do Not Have Equal Voting Rights

As I was watching an episode of “Last Week with John Oliver,” an interesting topic caught my attention. Around 4.1 million American citizens today still do not have equal voting rights. These are the citizens of our American island territories: the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Northern Marianas. Even more troubling, the law that forbids these citizens to have equal voting rights dates back to 1901 and was created because the islands were inhabited by “alien races,” as 98.4% of the inhabitants are racial minorities. The law was written by the same man who wrote the separate but equal decision in Plessey v. Ferguson, Henry Brown, but even he said these exceptions to the constitution should only be temporary. A century later, these American citizens are still discriminated against.