The Supreme Court last week gave a final, mortal blow to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Et tu Roberts. The Court’s majority opinion, penned by Justice Alito, argued that America has changed since the 1960s, that the racial animus predicating the denial of black and brown people from voting or having the chance to be represented in Congress, had magically evaporated.
The Louisiana congressional district map, which was at the heart of this recent case, was therefore unconstitutional, according to six of the justices. Voting districts, per the Court could be gerrymandered to reflect political favoritism toward a political party but not race. To add insult to injury, the Court then granted Louisiana the immediate ability to change the map. Normally, there is a month’s long grace period giving the losing side an opportunity to prepare arguments in lower courts before the ruling comes into effect.
The central premise that America has changed is facile and flawed and misguided. Yes, America has become a more pluralistic society, black and brown representation did increase since the late 1960s. However, in many deep south states with large black and brown populations, white’s continue to be overrepresented in state houses and the House of Representatives. It ignores repeated and continual attempts to disenfranchise black and brown voters through ostensibly race neutral laws.
On another level, the racial animus towards black and brown folks is as strong as ever. Take Trump’s words that immigrants from ‘shit hole’ countries are polluting American blood, or that Haitians eat folks’ pets, or that Somalis are low IQ, or that non-white immigrants are destroying western civilization. I don’t think these thoughts are outliers in MAGA world, or for that matter in the minds of some of the Supreme Court justices.
A week before the riots in Charlottesville in August 2017, in which Heather Heyer was murdered and dozens more were injured when a white supremacist drove his car into peaceful protestors, I posted this essay. An essay about my community here in Louisa. Given the Court’s decision last week, I believe the essay deserves a repost. I repost it in its entirety below followed by a brief postscript:
Four ladies were sitting in a pie and coffee joint. In walk a priest, a rabbi, and an Imam. Naw, in walk my wife and I. What follows, disappointingly, is a true, but sad story. As we walk in the four women were playing bridge and conversationally engaged. As I ordered coffee and tea, a slice of rhubarb pie, and a muffin, at the counter my wife selected a table cattycorner from this bridge quartet, well within earshot, especially as they spoke in upturned voices.
Given the closeness of the tables, it was impossible not to be encompassed in the conversation, even as detached, unwilling silent witnesses. Eavesdropping into the conversation mid-way found us somewhere in a conversation about church business followed quickly by a lamentation that a friend, who apparently was pictured in a Ku Klux Klan photograph, was being unfairly associated with the racism. “Guilt by association” chuckled one woman slightly. It was like walking into a Kafka soliloquy. This tête-à-tête then veered onto the hot local subject of the removal of a confederate statue from a nearby university town. All expressed bitterness, with one speaking out loud for their little group, that it was a disgrace, that you “can’t change history.”
She’s right, but apparently, she can’t fathom or acknowledge that the South’s history is more than about white heritage. Then, in a deeply submerged psychological association, the statue controversy was instantaneously linked to the public schools — think 1954 and Brown v. Board of Education declaring racial segregation unconstitutional – when one exclaimed in the next breath to mutual concord, that “We provide them with a free education” and if ‘they don’t take advantage of that, it isn’t our problem.’ Oh, that set me off. We and them. WE and THEM! That basically sums it up. At that point my wife shot me that ‘not now’ look with a little Mona Lisa smirk, part threat, part calm down. I mumbled aloud about walking into a ‘daughters of the confederacy’ meeting.
My back was to this bridge playing klavern and I was facing out the pie shop’s picture window taking in the Mayberry-like main street, named of course Main Street. Across the street was the antebellum circuit courthouse, a little red brick jail stood off to the left of the courthouse. A statue of a confederate soldier stands a silent vigil; his gaze forever fixed towards the northeast watching over the town square and all who approach. Sheriff Andy Taylor or Atticus Finch may walk by if you close your eyes for a second. This American circuit courthouse was a facilitator of slavery and racial oppression. No doubt, slaves seized from indebted planters were most likely sold just yards away. Wills that directed the selling off or gifting of slaves, breaking up families, were filed in that courthouse. I wondered too about the little jail and imagined whether slave traders, with their coffles of slaves heading down from Alexandria to Richmond, and then on to New Orleans, would bed down their walking inventory in the local jail overnight for a small fee.
I am not sure the irony of their conversation juxtaposed so close to slavery’s ghosts was apparent to these card players. Nonetheless, the carefree and unguarded manner the conversation played out in a public space underscored, I think, the impulsive racist bigotry that pervades many American towns. It is as natural as breathing it seems. The fact that they spoke in raised voices like it was 1859 or 1955 leads me to believe these women intuitively assumed, that because my wife and I are white, we automatically subscribe to their philosophy.
Shamefully, I sat mute, halfway between cowardice and rage, sipping tepid tea, but felt my anger and words would not change what has been etched in these women’s minds since before their mothers’ mothers were even born. Their banter was wide ranging and not all about race. At some point one commented about CNN “yapping on” about the “Russia thing,” “brain washing of liberals,” and what to do about North Korea. On North Korea, at least, there was disagreement. While it isn’t fair to put all the white folks in this corner of the South into a box and label it “toxic bigots, handle with care” racism’s complexities remains deep in this part of the woods and the women playing bridge no doubt have already infested their children and grandchildren with their septic views of race, supremacy, and obligation. At least the muffin was good, but the conversation left a bitter, sad after taste.
On reflection, “WE and THEM” is at the heart of America’s political divide. It always has been. At its core is the fundamental question about “whose America is this?” America belongs to the descendants of African captives forced into generational slavery, the new African citizen, the fifth generation Mexican American, the Coptic Christian immigrant from Egypt, the Shia Muslim from Syria, the offspring of Puritan New Englanders, the Chinese Americans whose ancestors helped build America’s western railroads, native Americans. And yes, even the fearful daughters of the confederacy who indifferently sip the tepid tears of those lost to slavery while playing bridge, should have equal access to a piece of the American pie.
Post Script: The Supreme Court made another decision antithetical to American democracy and misjudges the residual racial animus and antipathy still much alive in this country. This decision highlights the need for every vote this November. A democratic majority in the House and Senate will put a dead stop to Trump’s rule by decree. The Senate will ensure no more supreme court justices appointed by Trump are confirmed should any retire or die during the last two years of Trump’s term.
