Blackness is a constant fight

Imagine waking up to the realization above. That’s how my day has been so far. Last night was a pretty uneventful night at work with the usual routine at play. Everything was pretty unremarkable until I woke up this afternoon to the news about the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Arizona voting law case.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court’s six conservatives, said Section 2 requires equal openness to voting, not equal outcomes.

“It appears that the core of [Section 2] is the requirement that voting be ‘equally open.’ The statute’s reference to equal ‘opportunity’ may stretch that concept to some degree to include consideration of a person’s ability to use the means that are equally open. But equal openness remains the touchstone,” Alito wrote.

“Mere inconvenience cannot be enough to demonstrate a violation of [Section 2],” he added.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-upholds-arizona-restrictions-major-voting-rights/story?id=78182724

After taking the time to read through analysis of this decision, I came to a scary realization. My mother, at 48 years old in 1989, had more protection as a Black voter in America than I do at 48 in 2021. How did we get here?

The language Alito uses in his opinion is the same generic language used by politicians during Jim Crow times. When the Constitution was amended to outlaw racist voter disenfranchisement outright, white politicians switched to benign sounding legislation that had overwhelming impact on minorities, especially Black Americans.

So, here we are over 20 years into the 21st century, and we’re still fighting the same racist thinking that has existed in this country since its founding. What else do we as Black people have to endure before we are allowed to be Americans with the full rights bestowed by our citizenship?

I’m angry, I’m pissed, and I really cannot think of anything positive at this point. Not only do we have conservative America collectively undermining our rights as equal citizens, we also have moderate Whites trying to tell us not to be alarmed and shit. Of course they see no reason to panic because their rights aren’t the ones being screwed over.

Hard to believe that within the time I’ve been eligible to vote that I have witnessed such a full backsliding of rights, but here we are today. The SCOTUS has for all intents and purpose eviscerated the Voting RIghts Act of 1965. I can recall conservatives complaining that judges shouldn’t legislate from the bench, yet the SCOTUS has basically rewritten a law that was passed and had been renewed by Congress several times.

Maybe this country isn’t for me or my folks. Imagine what would happen to this country if every minority decided to pack our shit and leave for distant shores. I give America as a White ethno-state a maximum of 10 years existence. Once the manual labor and services provided for by minorities disappear, crops in fields would rot. All those mega farms in the Midwest that have depended upon migrant workers for survival would collapse.

I imagine that would create a cascade of failures ending with the collapse of America itself. America’s strength isn’t in White folks. America’s strength is in the ability for mutual coexistence and cooperation from everyone. I know if I’m beginning to get tired of fighting the same shit over and over, there are others who feel the same.

We minorities cannot fix this stuff. Racism and discrimination will end only when White folks decide to get off their collective asses and make it end. That’s the reality we face. No amount of marching and protesting is going to change a damn thing until White America decides to change. It’s not an indictment on everyone. This is simply using the same logic people use against Black people when it comes to crime.

The ball is in your court White America.