What else would you expect from a sate like Alabama, deep in the heart of the Old Confederacy? Especially after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act? The Legislature has been called back into special session to redraw districts to eliminate a voting area, primarily black, to elect another White Supremacist. It won’t be much different than what North Carolina did after the first VRA lawsuit over a decade ago.
But the white Justices, except Thomas, who thinks he’s white, betrayed the American ideal of equal justice in their decision to turn back the clock. Will we have Bull Connor again? No, the practitioners of racism are more subtle now.
Alabama along with Tennessee and Louisiana, is rushing to change the maps to make sure that minorities will stay where they were now that the Court – saying the South has changed -- has given away the store. Where have these so-called brilliant minds been for the last decade as Southern states have created districts disempowering minorities? In their shells, like tortoises.
Prayer for the Day
Where are you, O God, as we struggle for true equality,
And courts reflect little more than masked racism?
Why have you not come down from the heavens as before,
Leaving us to fend for ourselves in our struggles?
Help us, O Lord, to eradicate the scourge of inequality,
The curse of crushing some people for the benefit of others.
In the name of the One who is our help,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
To avoid the appearance of partiality here, we could, as per usual, opt to stay on the sidelines and take no position by applying our default procedures. But, today, the Court chooses the opposite. Not content to have decided the law, it now takes steps to influence its implementation. The Court’s decision to buck our usual practice under Rule 45.3 and issue the judgment forthwith is tantamount to an approval of Louisiana’s rush to pause the ongoing election in order to pass a new map
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissenting
O God, you have rejected us, broken our defenses;
You have been angry; now restore us!
You have caused the land to quake; you have torn it open;
Repair the cracks in it, for it is tottering.
You have made your people suffer hard things;
You have given us wine to drink that made us reel.
You have set up a banner for those who fear you,
To rally it out of bowshot.
Give victory with your right hand, and answer us,
So that those whom you love may be rescued.
Psalm 60: 1-5