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White America is tired of racism.
They’re not tired of being racist, you know. But they sure are tired of hearing about it. Tired of thinking about it. I’m tired of hearing that systems built by white people to oppress everyone else still do exactly what they were designed to do.
In fact, they are so tired of racism that many have convinced themselves of it the Real racism is racism against white people.
And the Supreme Court? They are also tired, tired of pretending to care. They are tired of race-based solutions to systemic racism and are looking for a way out.
That is why the Court is ready to rule in a so-called case Louisiana vs. Callais that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act must be unconstitutional if compliance requires race-conscious solutions. This is the only part of the law with teeth left, and it requires efforts like, for example, looking at where black people actually live when drawing congressional maps.
If that sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is.
The case that could kill Section 2
Listen to oral arguments Callis on October 15 was furious. The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965 to give meaning to the Fifteenth Amendment, which had been ratified in 1870. It was intended to stop states from doing exactly what they’re still doing: finding creative new ways to keep Black people from voting.
Callis is actually a repetition of Allen v. Milligana 2023 case in which Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the liberals by ruling that Alabama’s racist electoral map violated Section 2 and agreeing with a lower court that a second majority-black district was required.
(Read more: You can blame John Roberts for our country’s legal shitshow)
Louisiana did the same as Alabama:cracked And packaged Black voters until a lower court forced a second-majority black district on them. That should have been the end.
Why is the Court reviewing this issue? Because conservatives on this Court cannot stomach the idea that anti-racism has no expiration date. They have decided that the real question is not whether black voters will be disenfranchised; what matters is whether resolving that disenfranchisement could hurt white feelings.
That’s the shift: recognizing race to undo racism now counts as racism. In their world, taking race into account to make things fair is somehow worse than centuries of using race to keep things unequal.
The Kavanaugh Clock
Enter Brett “Let’s End Racism” Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh is eager to put an expiration date on anti-racism. In his agreement MilliganKavanaugh basically said, “Sure, fine, we’ll let you deal with racism for now, but don’t wait too long. We can’t keep this up forever.’
“The authority to implement race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future,” he wrote, paraphrasing Justice Clarence Thomas — another surefire vote to undermine Section 2.
Now, inside CallisKavanaugh asks the question bluntly: When can we stop worrying about racism? During oral arguments, Kavanaugh mused about how long race-conscious remedies would be allowed. “Decades,” he said, as if this country has been attacking racism for years.
“[T]His Court’s cases in various contexts have said that race-based remedies are permissible for a period of time, sometimes for a long period of time, in some cases for decades, but they should not last indefinitely and must have an endpoint,” Kavanaugh said, before asking, “And what exactly do you think the endpoint should be?”
Translation: How long do we have to keep doing this anti-racism thing? How long before Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act can finally be repealed?
I’ll tell you Brett: 334 years. If that’s really what we’re doing – if we’re setting a timer for Black liberation – then let’s do the math.
The math
Two hundred and forty-six years of slavery.
Eighty-eight years of Jim Crow.
That’s 334 years of state-sanctioned white supremacy in the United States laws, policies and violence designed to prevent black people from voting, owning property, and even looking at white people the wrong way.
(Read more: White people’s performative ignorance is exhausting – opinion)
So fine. If we put the Voting Rights Act on a clock, it must remain in effect for at least 334 years. That means the Court could end Section 2 in the year 2299.
Until then, Judge Kanavaugh, would you kindly shut up the insinuation that race-conscious remedies need an expiration date.
Post-racial, my black ass
The Supreme Court has been working toward this moment for more than a decade. Callis is the sequel to Shelby County v. Holderthe 2013 case in which Roberts took a major turn in the Voting Rights Act. Roberts wrote a majority decision striking down Sections 4 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act — the parts that required states with long histories of racism to get federal approval before changing their voting laws — because, as he claimed, “things have changed dramatically.”
“Our country has changed,” Roberts wrote. “And while any racial discrimination in voting is too great, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to address that problem is appropriate to current circumstances.” He also said that “blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal orders are rare.”
Almost immediately that turned out not to be true.
Within days of the Shelby decision, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama announced plans to enforce strict voter ID laws previously blocked under prior approval. The Alabama, TexasAnd Mississippi laws remain on the books. North Carolina passed a voter ID law that the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2016 targeted “African Americans with almost surgical precision.” (That law remains blocked.)
It was as if the Southern states heard Roberts’ “racism is over” pablum, muttered to themselves, “The fuck it is,” and then went out and passed the most racist voter ID laws they could imagine.
In now CallisRoberts and his conservative minions are coming for what’s left of the Voting Rights Act. They’ve gone from “racism is over” to “solving racism is racist.” It’s the same logic, dressed in new robes: white ones.
Stop stealing our time
Do you want to talk about time? Let’s talk about all the time that white America has stolen from black Americans and never compensated.
Our time has always been subject to the whims of White America.
They stole it when they kidnapped us from Africa and dragged us here in chains. They stole it through centuries of forced labor. They stole it with poll taxes, literacy tests, and lynch mobs.
And they’re still stealing it: It takes black people in Georgia six hours to vote, while Chad McWhiteman waltzes in and out of his white community’s voting booth in 15 minutes. They steal the time it takes to calm ourselves before we walk into a boardroom, conference room, or classroom, wondering how much racism we’ll have to absorb before lunch.
They steal the time it takes to explain racism to people who pretend not to see it. They steal the time it takes to litigate these cases again and again, decade after decade, because the Supreme Court continues to move the goalposts.
And now they also want to put a timer on our liberation.
When Kavanaugh complains that it’s been “decades,” he’s not wrong: It’s been decades since the Voting Rights Act was passed. Six to be precise. But decades are not justice. Decades are just a blip in the lifespan of white supremacy.
Two hundred and forty-six years of slavery, and you complain about “decades?” Bitch, please.
Come talk to me in 2299
So if Brett Kavanaugh wants to talk about time, let’s talk about it. If John Roberts wants to pretend that we have outgrown racism, let him prove it.
Otherwise, until we have had 334 years without state-sanctioned inequality, white America cannot declare its work done. You can’t undermine the Voting Rights Act because you’re tired of racism. You can’t get over it. You don’t get tired of talking about it when you’re the reason we still have to. (And let’s be clear: 334 years without oppression is still not 334 years of freedom.)
But still I give you 334 years. That means you can end Section 2 in 2299. Hell, hell, get rid of the entire Civil Rights Act, because that’s what Conservatives are clearly so excited. But not until 2299.
Until then, keep your countdown clocks to yourself.
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