Some Questions About Voting and Photo Id

From Discriminations.us:

The Degradation Of Liberal Rhetoric

No, I'm not referring to Cindy Sheehan's calling President Bush the world's greatest terrorist, but rather to the charge that this or that proposal in the racial arena -- often, oddly, the call for colorblind equal treatment -- would result, as an OpEd in today's Washington Post puts it, in "Reviving Jim Crow." (I do not regard the question mark that follows the title to be a large enough fig leaf to cover the underlying charge.) The author, David Becker, identified as "a voting rights attorney and election consultant," begins his Chicken Little ("The sky is falling!" for those of you who don't recall) with the following sentence:

Any day now the Justice Department will render judgment on one of the single most discriminatory pieces of voting legislation of recent years: a Georgia state law requiring voters to present one of only six forms of photo identification before they can exercise their right to vote.

This is just the latest example of the running gag on liberal headlines: "World to End Tomorrow; Women and Minorities Hardest Hit."

Even if the premise that minorities, and blacks specifically, are unlikely to have photo id (oh, and congrats to the left for giving life to a new stereotype—minorities don't have photo id), is it really advancing the interests of those without identification to ensure that there is no possible reason for them to get photo id? After all, many normal activities in life require some form of photo id (renting an apartment, a car or even a video; admission to certain government buildings; boarding an airplane, writing a check, etc.). Wouldn't anyone, regardless of race, benefit from getting photo identification for use in not just voting but in these other activities? Shouldn't the efforts of these so-called rights advocates be on empowering people by helping them get these everyday tools rather than once again stereotyping minorities as helpless victims who cannot be expected to have photo id?

To add some context here, the Georgia Driver Services department issues FREE voter identification cards to poor, registered voters without any other acceptable proof of identity. Oh, and by the way, the closest Driver Services office from Downtown Atlanta is less than 8 miles away (not exactly an insurmountable distance, is it?).