Prior to Barack Obama’s winning the 2008 election to become President, many people in multicultural cities across the country were unaware that the Civil War still hadn’t been completely won. Back then, many believed that racism was a rotting fruit that was withering away.
Some have proposed that President Obama’s election reawakened racism as it represented the ascendancy of minorities and the descent of the concept of white superiority. What it may have done instead is pull back the curtain on the racism that was always there in America and the openly racist attacks that followed gave permission to others to be openly racist (while claiming victimhood when called racist).
Racist quotes by Right Wing politicians have become so commonplace now, they barely raise an eyebrow (even if seen as offensive by many). We have become accustomed to our black President being accused of being born in countries that aren’t considered “white”, shouted down in State of the Union speeches by white politicians, and in general, portrayed as a white-hating, America-hating black man.
Just last year in the 2012 elections, while Republicans in mostly Southern states tried to prevent minorities from voting by passing Voter ID laws, while their candidates vying for office cruelly attacked and denigrated minorities (both citizens and undocumented immigrants), while Southern states passed laws that attacked immigrant minorities and made schooling their children and even giving them a ride in a car crimes…Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was apparently counting the days until he could provide more protection for such people to continue doing so.
With the five Justices (now an ironic title) declaring that racism is no longer a bigger issue in the South than elsewhere in the US and therefore it is unconstitutional to require pre-clearances on racially targeted laws there, the Supreme Court has essentially poured gasoline on the embers of the Civil War and even seems a bit smug about it. Bet those five are disappointed that there’s no end zone in the courtroom for them to do a dance in.
Statistics, passage of laws, even taped conversations of Southern state legislators communally referring to black Americans in their state with nasty, racist terms, none of reality matters to this outrageously activist and ideological court. Instead they cherry picked isolated incidents in non-Southern states to justify the conclusion they already wanted. They simply do not care about the way things are, all they care about is the way they want things to be.
Of course, when all of these five justices went through their Senate hearings, they lied about respecting precedent and not wanting to legislate from the bench. John Roberts in particular made this a centerpiece of his nomination, he portrayed himself as a moderate and one who would respect the decisions of previous Supreme Courts and settled law. This decision only underlines the pattern that his term has reflected, that a man who lied and deceived our representatives under oath continues to lead the highest court in our nation.
Many on the Right were furious at Roberts because he didn’t overstep his legal bounds as hugely in the ACA/Obamacare case and some are now attacking people on the left for approving of his ruling then but criticizing him now for this decision (of course, they are Republicans so their hypocrisy goes unnoticed by them). The truth is that just because someone who is expected to kick a dog one day doesn’t so people feel relief, it doesn’t mean that when he does kick a dog on another day, that people are somehow disqualified from protesting it.
And truly, our laws that protect our voting rights, our privacy, our pursuit of happiness and equality no matter our race, religion, sex, etc., can’t protect themselves. They need a functioning government and society to do so and this two-pronged attack on Americans that these Republican justices are participating in, along with Republican politicians intent on hobbling the functionality of government, is focused on stripping Americans of rights while blocking their attempts at recourse.
Does anyone truly expect the Citizens United ruling by these Republican justices, which handed over the greatest influence in our elections to the super-wealthy (the top 1% of the top 1% contributed more than 25% of all money in the 2012 elections…that’s 31,400 people out of a nation of 314,000,000), to be changed by our Congress? Even though a solid majority wants that to happen?
And did you notice that after that activist, anti-public ruling, Roberts said that Congress could always make changes to the law…just as he’s said in this egregious case? Really, Roberts honestly expects the Republicans in Congress to support Progressive legislation to create “new criteria” to preventing racially oppressive and voter blocking laws by Republicans that are intended to reduce Democratic voter turnout from minorities? Really? This is a cynical and dishonest ploy by Roberts and the four other Injustices, something to use to try and blunt the blame that they deserve for undermining another major support beam of our democracy.
The marriage of the white power structure in the South with greed-obsessed businesspeople has borne such “children”. In both cases, there is the mentality of the elitist, those who believe not only that they are superior because they are white and male but that this also entitles them to all that they want for themselves, especially when it comes to money and power. Many of these types are actually furious when they see money or power in the hands of someone who isn’t white or greedy (unless they are worshipers of the same elitism as Clarence Thomas is), it makes them mad to see non-white and unselfish people with power. Barack Obama’s election and re-election has made that crystal clear.
So, you have these elitist ideologues polluting our SCOTUS and expressing anger at the fact that white politicians in the South were prevented from passing laws that studies and even public statements from Republican politicians affirmed were aimed primarily at blocking blacks and other minorities from voting. Are we to believe that these five justices truly believe that voting fraud at the polls is a serious issue despite all the facts and numbers proving otherwise, and that there is any other purpose to these laws than disenfranchising minority voters from their Constitutional right to vote? They know that the law they have sabotaged blocked laws intended to prevent Americans from using their Constitutional right to vote…and they found that to be unconstitutional?
We’re well aware of the dance they do in their decision statements and all the slim branches of reason they reach for to try and spread over their footprints so they’re less visible but in such an anti-democratic decision, there really is nowhere for them to hide.
The racists have their court to protect and support them because they support the GOP and elitism. The corporations have their court to enrich and empower them because they support the GOP and elitism. It will take time and good fortune in upcoming Presidential elections if our Supreme Court is ever to once again represent the interests of the majority in this nation.
Adlib, maybe along with of a minimum wage we need a maximum wage.
I mentioned below that Anthony Kennedy rarely is the swing vote he’s often portrayed to be on big issues and I stand corrected today. The defeat of DOMA and this historic day for equality for LGBT Americans happened because Kennedy joined the four rational justices in this decision.
It really is fantastic!
I do think though that those saying the SCOTUS is showing flexibility between the horrendous VRA decision yesterday and this decision are missing the reality of the situation. Four out of five of the justices who protected institutional racism by states yesterday also supported DOMA remaining the law of the land. They nearly prevailed again in denying Americans their Constitutional rights.
The reality of where we are is that one man who mostly sides with elitists who are determined to take away or dilute the rights of most Americans in favor of the wealthy, powerful and privileged, occasionally sides with the four other conscientious judges. So we have a reality show environment where we know this supremely powerful entity is terribly flawed and we don’t expect it to do the right thing in each case…in fact, we know they could do terrible things, and we watch them with bated breath as they deliver their decisions.
It is and should be worrisome that at this point in time, one unelected man, Anthony Kennedy, has such enormous power over the fate of our democracy and society.
Our Supreme Court should be a collection of the best and brightest legal minds. They don’t need to be Progressive or Conservative, just smart, inquiring and deliberative.
Instead we have Clarence Thomas who equates Affirmative Action with slavery and Antonin Scalia who happily supports judicial activism when it furthers his petrified ideology but howls against it when it doesn’t (as he has today in the DOMA decision…wailing about how wrong judicial activism is in this case…one day after he voted to kill a key provision of a law that passed with a near unanimous vote in Congress and represents a vast majority of Americans’ opinion. What a massive douche!)
There is little respect for the Supreme Court, far less than there used to be after this corrupt clan of four and their usual enabler have made a mockery of what it means to be a person and have declared that states that oppress minorities’ rights to vote are having THEIR rights violated when prevented from doing so.
It will take years and good fortune to cleanse the SCOTUS of the individuals who are de facto unfit to make decisions for an entire nation…and it can’t come soon enough.
The times they are a changin’. There will come a time when the whites will be out numbered. They better hope that those they have discriminated against are better at forgetting than those that lost the Civil War or need a fence to protect the border. The Republicans can not win with only the white vote. Don’t think those in Congress don’t know that. Sure they can play games with their redistricting and such but they are going to need some people of color to win the White House again. All the Supreme Court has done is lite a fire under those same people that stood in line for hours in the last election to do it again. There is time to help those that need ID’s, as CL suggested, before 2014.
And, as I said somewhere else today to those in TX that jumped with glee with this ruling. I can’t wait for those people of color to over take the whites in TX and impose voting restrictions against the whites that they can’t vote until they have mowed the lawns of those they discriminated against back when. Pay backs can be a bitch.
AdLib, great article as usual.
Thanks Sally!
My concern is that as Repubs see their extremist white vote is shrinking more and more, they’ll try everything they can to keep power, oppress others and damage our democracy.
When they can no longer win a state, they may try to do what failed in PA, assigning electoral votes to districts instead of winner take all for a state and using gerrymandered districts, hold onto power despite getting a minority of the popular vote.
I don’t doubt the conniving that the Roves and Kochs and ALEC members are up to in trying to undermine our democracy (for example, running phony Dems with millions behind them to deceive the public).
The longer the SCOTUS keeps gutting our democracy and rights, the more concern I have for being able to right our democracy once whites are not the national majority.
IOW, I am calling out to all aliens within the sound of my voice, please take Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and John Roberts away in your space ships for some painful and prolonged anal probes as you travel to another dimension and drop them off on a parallel Earth where everyone is black.
That should do it!
Right to the point Adlib. I was perusing Theocracy Watch and I found this quote from Chip Berlet:
Today’s hard right seeks total dominion. It’s packing the courts and rigging the rules. The target is not the Democrats but democracy itself.
D James Kennedy of Coral Ridge fame once said, “all we really need is majority on the supreme court, the rest is just icing on the cake” (paraphrasing a bit) and I guess he was right. I want to know why no Republicans are ever assassinated? At least not since Lincoln. Not that I want them killed, I just find it very peculiar. I have for years now. Their hate of anything not “anglo-saxon” is palpable even though they are not anglo saxon either. I just shake my head all day long.
Sue, sadly, it makes perfect sense.
When you think about the three branches of government, there is only one branch that in today’s America that can act to change whatever they want about the country with no threat of having their will blocked or reversed.
And it is just five unelected people that have so much power over 314 million citizens. That’s not what the Founders intended, it’s just not right.
With Republicans installing the filibuster in the Senate as a full time blockade and controlling the House, there is no recourse to a SCOTUS decision at this point.
So if the Dominionists and extremists control the SCOTUS, they do control the most powerful and unstoppable entity over our society and democracy.
This is why it becomes crucial for us to stay activated and fight to change the House to blue, keep The Senate and pressure Reid to corral the filibuster and keep electing Dems as President until we can replace one of these elitist white men in the SCOTUS with a person of true morality and character.
Hey Ad Lib…I submitted an article as well….more matter of fact than your very carefully dissection of the decision and of these justices, but just as passionate.
I am not at all surprised by the results. I have followed Roberts history since his service in the Reagan Administration and the George H. W. Bush administration in the Department of Justice and the Office of the White House Counsel. In both he was a strong critic of the VRA. Now he has the prize he has been reaching to grasp for such a long time. Shame on him and shame on his four fellow justices.
I do not know if any of these Justices are racists….I actually wonder about Thomas in that regard, oddly enough….
But what I do know is that their ruling today will provide fodder for the racists who have now moved in five states to impose new measures on voting immediately…..will hoods and burning crosses follow on?
Angry, you bet.
HP has the largest number of comments on one story since election night and the emotion can be cut with a knife.
Your article is set to be published tomorrow morning, this is such a profound issue with so much to discuss, it’s very appreciated.
Agreed, the result is not as surprising as it is offensive. Roberts, Scalia and Thomas have been open foes to civil rights of the people (if you’re a corporation, that’s a different story), Alito has repeatedly proven he is a RW ideologue with little morality or maturity and Kennedy is deceptively right wing, having repeatedly been called the swing vote but rarely if ever is on the moderate side on big issues.
Even though these five white male privileged Injustices could hardly be imagined to come down on the side of minorities on any vote, seeing a car accident, no matter how predictable, is still a shock.
I do not know with certainty that any of these five justices are racist but if one makes determinations about people based upon their choices, which I believe is the only accurate way to appraise people, I think it is a harder case to make to say that these five believe in equality.
There was zero merit to the argument that these modern day Jim Crow laws Repubs have been passing in states were anything other than legislative bigotry, there is no proof of these laws being needed to address anything else (especially the BS of voter fraud) and yet, these five justices concluded that racism is not an issue in these very states.
One could call it blindness or ignorance but with the very issue being about protecting the rights of minorities and the explanation of the decision they made asserting that they don’t see anything unusual about these Southern states that are proven to seek disenfranchisement of minority voting rights as recently as in our most recent elections, leads me to believe that there is indeed a resentment and disrespect towards those who are not part of the white privileged class.
These five are insensitive to the oppression of minorities and say, “They can always sue,” while showing such concern for the rights of the wealthy white men who own and run corporations that they will invent personhood for them and demand that their freedoms be enshrined and protected…if it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.
TX just fast tracked their anti-black\anti-Latino voter laws, just hours after the decision. Expect the same to happen throughout all the states that used to be restricted under the VRA.
One would have to think that these five justices were utter morons if they weren’t elitist ideologues, they say that the pre-clearances aren’t needed anymore in the Jim Crow states and right after they gut the VRA, these states begin voting in their Jim Crow laws. It was no surprise to us and it’s no surprise to them, they knew exactly what they were doing, their loyalty is not to the Constitution or the people of the United States, it is to the GOP and their elitist, oppressive agenda.
The corruption of our democracy has never been more apparent and it is nauseating.
OK all – let me weigh in here with a bit of hope.
One thing the states instantly deciding to impose ID and other laws upon voting have missed was the EARLIER decision that, well, they can’t. In the hoopla today they think they won – they did not, and the 8-0 ruling in favor of the federal voting laws that trump state wackadoodle will put paid to a lot of this crap.
The VRA is NOT dead. What it has done is made enforcement a heavier lift. It will be perfectly OK for anyone to prefer suits and charges against any Good ol’ Boys ANYWHERE such as, oh, Kacich? The DOJ can and will act at that point. Section 4 made it vastly easier to monitor places such as Shelby AL – but maybe these are NOT the only places needing oversight?
I agree with Melissa Harris Perry that the vastly better way to go would be expanding inclusion of assholes rather than the exclusion of everyone on the presumption they suddenly are choir boys. But even as they sent the oversight list back for Congressional review, they did NOT – did NOT – gut the act itself. That’s important for us to keep hold of. Reporting jerks trying to restrict voting is the new activism of the new Freedom Riders. The DOJ does NOT have to have Congress give them a blanket groups to review – it does need all of us to be eyes and ears.
It’s heavier lifting. No doubt about it. But it is NOT over, VRA is NOT dead, and we CAN make this work. The critical issue however is that what Congress we elect in 2014 and onward depends on all of us not throwing up our hands and deciding we cannot vote.
The ONLY way we take back democracy is voting. There is no excuse for anyone not voting. NO EXCUSE. In the meantime – if you live where voter ID is now being demanded – get in your car and help someone who needs it get it. Pay for it if you must. And then drive that person to the polls next election. No use ever saying we can’t thwart the SOBs. We have. We can. We will. We must.
Nice balance. I agree with much of what you have to say here. Let me add that this decision is another one of those that makes it clear how opposed the GOP is to so many of our fellow citizens’ needs and agenda. I saw an interview this afternoon with a very well spoken, clearly well educated, affluent young businessman (30’s) who is also black. I wrote down this quote from the interview: “It is becoming clearer and clearer to me and to my friends that while the GOP holds to policies that I might like from an economic point of view, it also supports a series of beliefs and measures that work against other equally important interests. Today is just another example that the GOP wants us on their terms and they are losing that battle every day.”
First of all, thank goodness for our Choicelady, always bringing light to the darkest days.
I would say though that this decision creates a situation where Repubs can get elected by suppressing the minority vote THEN the case may be decided against them. What then? Wouldn’t they still get to keep their stolen office and the decision would just prevent future occurrences of that particular type of law…while they and ALEC just develop a different plan of attack?
We would need the Republican House and Republicans in the Senate to create the expansion of the VRA and that just isn’t going to happen so MHP is just making wishes, not very realistic at all. As I mentioned above, Repubs in Congress won’t allow Citizens United to be reversed nor will they allow this damage of the VRA to be addressed.
The SCOTUS mows down parts of our democracy and the Repubs in Congress prevent it from being rebuilt.
Your call to voting arms is exactly what’s needed. We do need to make this a rallying cry for retaking the House and getting voters IDs and to the polls. It absolutely is much harder now for our side, now forced to navigate around the racist obstacles the SCOTUS now encourages but indeed, we must. There is no alternative, we must.
As always a good one, AdLib. One of the factors that always has me shaking my head (or worse) is the fact that the President, as an inter-racial man, referred to as “black” is unable or perhaps unwilling to address the issues that surround this nation’s growing racism, a racism that never died, but appears to be ready to explode in all our faces.
Thanks.
Parsifals, nice to see you.
As far as racists are concerned, they believe that anyone who has any AA heritage is black and only the pure white are white. So they don’t see a bi-racial man. And they’re the ones who Obama or anyone else needs to get through to.
I was talking with a friend this week about Jackie Robinson and the movie 42.
When you’re the first, you end up taking more abuse and you have to worry about how you react to hatred. Do you take it on head to head or not? Would that in the end lead to the ultimate conclusion you seek or inflame things, entrench and motivate your enemies and make things worse?
I really don’t know but it is a lot more frustrating to have to watch the racists take swings at our society and President and not have him swinging back just as hard. I don’t know, maybe taking the higher ground will be the better path (I was frustrated in 2008 when he wouldn’t push back on Hillary who was hammering him on the racial, Rev Wright garbage but in the end, he won so maybe he’s right about taking that path).
I do think that he sure has the public support now to lead a fight for a renewed CRA and a confrontation of racism.
Also, wouldn’t be the worst time for a public speech on race, as he gave in the 2008 primary. It’s been allowed to fester too long thanks to our craven and greedy MSM, it’s about time for someone to step up big time against it.
Thanks, AbLib, for your reply.
The NY Times had an interesting piece today about Brasil & Turkey, the general outbreaks across other nations, and the fact that these two, and others have been “leaderless.” I think it was Cohen’s piece.
With some leadership like Martin L. King, or someone with gumption & brains, we might all be on the Streets again or crossing bridges to win back the rights within the bloody Constitution that SCOTUS seem to neglect reading or refreshing their memories on.
Even with my tired feet and advanced age I think I’d (I’ll) join them if it goes into force.
As for the President it is likely that he weighs & measures, measures & weighs his words and how they are received, especially and inasmuch as if he blinks, he is criticized. So…I’ll give him some more rope, but not too much more because rope can be dangerous with these folks.
Parsifals, that is very interesting, look at the Arab Spring, a successful series of protests that overthrew governments but without leaders, the revolutions were co-opted and stolen from the people.
Leaders are so critical to the full realization of a movement.
Very cool that you are already volunteering, I will do so as well and I think many more would join in as well. This is all reaching a tipping point, where the people see so starkly that there are those in power who are intent on oppressing the majority.
Clever closing line, too!
As you say, Obama has no margin for error when he speaks, the RW, their media arm and even the MSM are poised to knock him down at the slightest misstep. Makes you think about just how brilliant he’s had to be to navigate this den of vipers so successfully to this point.
See at the Bridge, AdLib. 🙂
AdLib, All I can say right now is that I am so pissed I can’t see straight. When I become somewhat sane again, I hope to comment further.
Sabreen, I understand, it’s almost beyond belief that such elitists rule over our laws and could sanction…even protect racism and oppression!
In America? In the 21st Century? And how are we, the majority of Americans, supposed to overrule these elitists with racist Repubs blocking everything?
This had better be the last straw for reasonable Americans, it’s now more urgent than ever to put Dems in control of The House and keep electing Dem Presidents until we can replace at least one of these corrupt judges with someone of reason and humanity.