Louisiana Voice

My grandfather taught me at an early age to never take another person’s dignity from him. “A man’s dignity may be the only thing he has left and you have no right to take it,” he would say. I guess I must’ve heard that admonition a hundred times or more as I was growing up.

The echo of his words carries more meaning than ever now that the U.S. Supreme Court has done precisely that by ripping dignity from a marginalized people by delivering a gut punch to the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965.

What took generations to achieve by Lyndon Johnson’s affixing his signature to that document 61 years ago has been destroyed in a single blow by six members in black robes, a cruel substitute for the traditional white robes normally worn by racist terrorists.

The irony of the ruling is that it said:

• Compliance with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act does not automatically justify race-based districting;
• The state’s use of race in the 2020 redistricting creating a second Black-majority district was not a compelling interest under strict scrutiny;
• The map violated the 15^th Amendment, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting.
• The ruling restricts of the ability to create majority-minority districts solely to comply with the Voting Rights Act, reinforcing a constitutional “colorblindness” approach to redistricting.

While the name of the court case was Callais v. Louisiana, the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of Trump’s United States) could reduce the number of majority-Black and majority-Hispanic districts nationwide and could conceivably affect local and school board redistricting—and even the Fair Housing Act.

The decision fits nicely with the agenda of the Republican Party which has its own plan for redrawing congressional districts, particularly in Florida and Texas, so as to guarantee a Republican advantage in future elections at the expense of Blacks and Hispanics.

On of the six-person majority was critical of the 6^th District, represented by Cleo Fields, which the ruling stands to abolish because of the way it snakes its way from Baton Rouge to Shreveport through the central part of the state.

But apparently no one objected to a nearly identical 4^th District that existed back in 1995:

Or later, when the 5^th District snaked across parts of North Louisiana, all the way down along the Delta area and into the Feliciana parishes.

I suppose that was because no one had the audacity to provide one-third representation to a third of the state’s population 30 years ago.

Folks, if you can’t see this as collusion between Trump, congressional Republicans and six justices of the U.S. Supreme Court (and let’s not forget that our governor, Jeff Landry, is a part of this cabal), then I have some bitcoins to sell you.

I wouldn’t put it past these Republican autocrats and their oligarch supporters to eventually attempt to reinstitute poll taxes and/or literacy tests in further efforts disenfranchise minority voters.

If you cannot see the racism in this decision by the Supreme Court, you haven’t been paying attention.

I know if this gets to Cadet Bone Spurs, I’ll probably be labeled as a domestic terrorist, but since I’ve run out of seashells, perhaps the time has come for a resurgence of the 1960s Civil Rights marches.

But sometimes, you just have to dig your heels in and say, ENOUGH already!