by J. Pharoah Doss
On April 29, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Louisiana v. Callais. The state’s new congressional map, which created two majority-Black districts, was invalidated. The court determined that the new map “relied too heavily on race,” creating an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”
Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion angered civil rights activists and Democratic leaders. He claimed that the Constitution “almost never permits the federal government or states to discriminate on the basis of race” and further stated that “racial disparities in voting are no longer a major issue” because “vast societal change has occurred in the South.” His conclusion was that race-based solutions, such as majority-minority districts, are no longer justifiable because minority turnout and participation have increased, implying that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has achieved its original goal.
The civil rights establishment and Democratic politicians accused the Supreme Court of gutting the Voting Rights Act of 1965, eliminating majority-Black districts, and ushering in a new era of Jim Crow laws that will disenfranchise Black people and leave Black communities without representation.
On May 13, Texas Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt made a few remarks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing that enraged the left-wing Black media.
Hunt stated that his colleagues on the left insist that Jim Crow would be revived in this country due to the Supreme Court decision and redistricting. However, being a direct descendant of a slave with a great-great-grandfather born on a plantation, I can promise you that slavery is over and Jim Crow is dead. There are no “White Only” signs wherever I go. I am a Black man who represents a predominantly White district in Texas.
Rep. Hunt stated two undisputed facts: slavery and Jim Crow were abolished; nonetheless, he was attacked as if he had said racism no longer existed in America.
On his podcast, Don Lemon, a former CNN host, said that Rep. Hunt had no historical or current knowledge of the state of America or race relations in the country. Lemon claimed that only a self-hating, delusional Black person could make statements like Rep. Hunt. Then he inquired, “How does Rep. Hunt look in the mirror, and what does he tell his Black kids?”
Lemon apparently believes that Black kids should be fed blue lies rather than historical facts.
When Tennessee state representative Justin Pearson described redistricting as “tools of White supremacy,” Black kids are expected to accept it as fact. When Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) stated, “There are people in this hostile anti-Black administration that would rather Black Americans pick cotton than pick the president, their congressperson, or a senator,” Black kids are expected to agree. And when the NAACP’s president called the Supreme Court’s latest ruling one of the worst in history, equating it to the Dred Scott decision and Plessy v. Ferguson, Black kids are expected to concur.
The first two remarks were nonsense, but the NAACP president’s comparison was insidious.
Legal scholars widely regard the 1857 Dred Scott decision as the worst Supreme Court ruling in American history, with the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision coming in second. The Dred Scott decision ruled that Black Americans were not citizens and that Congress lacked the authority to abolish slavery in federal territories. Plessy v. Ferguson legalized racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine.
The lone dissenting opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson came from Justice John Marshall Harlan, arguing that the constitution was “color-blind” and did not recognize or allow classes among citizens. Harlan was not referring to socioeconomic classes. He opposed legalizing racial segregation because he knew that “separate but equal” would be practiced as “separate and unequal,” creating first- and second-class citizens.
The recent Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais is like Justice Harlan’s dissent. It maintains that the constitution does not allow segregation or discrimination based on race, but the NAACP’s president compares it to decisions that denied Black Americans citizenship and authorized racial segregation. If Black kids embrace that blue lie, an entire generation may be deceived into believing that any policy purporting to be “colorblind” or “race-neutral” is racist while race-based policies are nondiscriminatory.
Thomas Sowell once stated, “When people are used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination,” but if Black kids are overfed these blue lies, they will forever view equal treatment as a weapon of White supremacy.