In Callais v Louisiana, Justice Samuel Alito upended the Voting Rights Act (VRA), section 2  (1965 ) which had been the bulwark against white racist gerrymandering by state legislatures for generations.

Essentially, Justice Alito declared racism is now over as long as the legislative intent is not racist, it can gerrymander along partisan political lines which would allow for the happy outcome of legislative districts which are unintentionally white!

Louisiana has a population of around 5.5 million people. And it is declining.  The Black population is 38.6 % and it is rising. There are six congressional districts Pre-Calais, the VRA majority/minority map would allocate two black seats, proportional to that population. Post-Callais, the Louisiana legislature immediately carved out five white seats, leaving one Black seat —or 1/6 seats for 33% of the Black population. One can be forgiven for wondering why they didn’t take all six as you get the feeling they would if they could.

Justice Alito, a Trenton, NJ native and Princeton graduate is no doubt a smart man — but not a great man.  He is a soldier in the sixty-year assault on the American narrative made sacred by Abraham Lincoln who was a great man who said that the Civil War and the 700,000 war dead and million casual ties was the just due of 250 years of unrequited toil otherwise known as slavery; ultimately resulting in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the US Constitution.

And after a century various modalities of the Klan, Jim Crow, the Lost Cause, and   retrenchment, Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to address 100 years of racist engender voting/election abuses — the cornerstone of the Civil Rights movement. It is this foundational principle that Alito would destroy.

Soldier Alito would have us behave like the sheep in the Sheep Detectives — that we would close our eyes and count to three and make believe none of this is happening and everything is okay.

But it’s not okay and we won’t close our eyes and count to three and make believe it will all go away.

Our Eyes Are Open.