Never Has Voter Rights Suppression Been So Nakedly Racist

And Never Has Calling Racism on a Supreme Court Decision Been So Deserved

Those essay titles are really saying a lot right there. And I guess I’ve gone too far. It can hardly be those early decisions from the first century and a half of the Supreme Court upholding slavery and the right to own others or creating a ‘separate but equal’ system for blacks would count as “better”, or fairer, than the recent one just made in the last released decision in July 2021. Sure, it’s not fair, some ‘small’ numbers of votes were lost in Arizona in the 2012 election, but justifying the acceptable loss of a few “small” number of votes worse then continuing slavery and separating the races?

But of course, it’s the emotional immediacy of the feeling the decision and reading it that makes me feel the outrage. It’s that we are living in one of the most openly racist times in my lifetime. It’s a time when voter suppression is on the minds of many (on the left), the Big Lie is all over the media, and Texas lawmakers fled the state to stop the over-the-top voter suppression bill from being voted on. One that would enable poll watchers to roam around at will and even go straight up over the shoulder while you are voting, according to one female black Texas lawmaker who fled, Rep. Senfronia Thompson who is in her 25th term and earns only $13 a day as a lawmaker.

Alito minimizes the impact and trivializes the hardships of minorities by making the loss of a few votes seem like an acceptable rounding error.

The Supreme Court issued a 6–3 decision along party lines and propped up Alito to write the wishy-washy comments that blanket their racist intent. It’s not Don Junior screaming out two racist comments in a week. His first one laughing at the black Caucus congressional chairwoman Representative Beatty who was arrest during a protest. Don Trump Junior tweeted with perhaps intended sarcasm upon hearing their arrest, “This is terrible. I had no idea that Black Women couldn’t vote. How is this not a bigger story?” (I’m not sure what the capital letters mean on black women.)

Equally disgusting, Junior Trump mocked the mural of George Floyd hit by lightening (or at least the building was and the mural suffered for it). He says on Instagram, “…objectively speaking, given [George Floyd’s] history I’m not sure turning him into a deity and a role model for our children is exactly the right idea either.” Of course, it’s doubly horrific he mentions Floyd’s “history” meaning his drug history to mean that Floyd could have been a nice person or human with any worth, referring to how poor black men can’t possibly be exemplified or stand for a symbol of repression.

What does he mean exactly by “objectively speaking?” I assume he talking about the objectivity of rich white men who judge blacks? Honestly, I heard the tape of Floyd walking around in the store just before he got killed and thought what a friendly nice man he sounded like. He became greatly humanized listening to his voice and how he was treating people. Trump Junior on the other, well, he always sounds like an aggressive privileged white male whose dad gave him a job. The kind who kills tigers in Africa for sport.

But the minimization of the suffering minorities go was outlined by Justice Alito, who for some reason I can’t recall I had an opinion of before this decision as the most racist member of the Court. Alito uses the word “small” to describe the disparity of votes and doesn’t bother to note that this minor difference in the Arizona case if just over 10,000 votes, or around the margin of victory for Trump in 2016 (though the case is about 2012).

More importantly, that those people making up that “small disparity” who were “inconvenienced” or had issues were almost exclusively minorities (native Americans, but others as well). Alito minimizes the impact and trivializes the hardships of minorities with making them seem like an acceptable rounding error. The other five silently consent to his opinion, showing the emotional smartness of hiding behind his dress (or black robe, but it looks like a dress, and it’s a such a “small” difference in words, a synonym really — like using small in place of minor or minority).

All the Supreme Court decisions in the weeks leading up this ‘big one’ seemed to be purposefully “balanced”. It was like the Republican Justices had known this last one would cause ire in the middle of all these horrific voting rights bills up for vote in nearly half the states. But Like they knew it would also encourage and embolden those state Republicans to push passing them. Save the best for last. Then pull the curtain down, take off your dress, close the doors for the summer and retreat into hiding.

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