The supporters of partisan redistricting believe they are the heroes of their own stories. Their oft-repeated rationale is that they are stopping Black people from having greater or special rights when compared to themselves. These people get brave when commenting anonymously on the Internet.
“The only government-sanctioned racism is Affirmative Action. After over 50 years of preference, it’s time to level the playing field,” read one post.
“Everyone counts exactly the same now, for the first time ever. It is time to stop injecting special privileges based on the color of one’s skin. Anyone who believes we haven’t gone beyond what it was 70 years ago has no faith in the American people. I, for one, am glad that we all the same chance.”
Those who promote partisan gerrymandering push the narrative that white people, the most privileged people in the world, are suffering from reverse discrimination and Black people have been given special rights due to the existence of majority Black districts designed to ensure representation. They see no problem with splitting the vote in Black communities to create majority white districts.
William Spivey
From Chief Justice John Roberts to the lowest MAGA critter, if you support partisan gerrymandering, you don’t believe in American values, and by the way, you’re a racist.
Roberts has the nerve to say the preservation of voting rights is no longer needed because America is a better country now. He knew exactly what would happen in 2013 when Shelby v. Holder was decided, and it did. He knew exactly what would happen when Louisiana v. Callais was decided, and it has and is happening. Roberts may be smoother than Roger B. Taney, but he’s just as racist, even though we’ve never heard him say “nigger.”
On the lowly educated front, some of Trump’s favorite people may not appreciate the racist implications of returning America to pre-1965 standards before the Voting Rights Act was enacted. They aren’t historically astute enough to know that the districting process before the VRA favored white people. In the South, redistricting was one of the ways Black legislators were removed from Congress after Reconstruction. There wasn’t a single Black member of Congress from 1901 to 1929. Partially due to redistricting in Utah, there won’t be a single Black Republican in the House of Representatives after the midterm elections. The number of Black Democrats is likely to be greatly reduced.
Arguably, the point of mid-decade redistricting, which the Constitution only contemplated would happen every ten years after the census, was to increase Republican seats. That doesn’t mean the seats weren’t drawn in a manner to reduce Black representation, or that it wasn’t a happy by-product. It doesn’t make proponents any less racist if it was only the secondary thing.
While I write a lot about race, I seldom call out individuals as being racists. I describe racist actions and let readers judge the individuals involved. This time, I’m calling out John Roberts and his right-wing cohorts on the Supreme Court, including their token Black man, Clarence Thomas. I’m calling out Donald Trump, who kicked off all this madness in Texas. I blame the media that acts as if this is normal. It was normal in 1888.
These aren’t ordinary times, and we can’t adopt the normal response of hoping it will go away. We need to call out the racists for who they are, starting with those who thought Black people were receiving special rights.