Fifty-nine years ago, the #CivilRightsAct was signed into law. Today, House Democrats remain committed to fighting for equality and justice for ALL.
“A democracy cannot thrive where power remains unchecked and justice is reserved for a select few.” – Congressman John Lewis pic.twitter.com/Z0WUlYn0Xn
— Rep. Stacey Plaskett (@StaceyPlaskett) July 2, 2023
Joy Reid on fire, talking about her experience of going to Harvard because of affirmative action! Take a moment it’s from the perspective of someone who actually was there. pic.twitter.com/Nmnc3bzETK
— Mr. Reynolds (@MrReynolds52) July 1, 2023
[Reminder: Click on the url, not on the embedded tweet itself… ]
Despite what President Biden says, unfortunately, to most Americans this is a normal Supreme Court. https://t.co/UOcI80N9nN via @MitchSJackson
— Esquire (@esquire) July 2, 2023
… In his (6-3) majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “The Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause. Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points. We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today,”
Reading the Chief Justice’s words, one might think that systemic racism has somehow vanished from the citadels of academia, when even the least bit of critical inquiry turns up the truth that it’s been alive and thriving. Roberts need look no further for convincing proof of the endurance of white privilege than the very position he holds. Of the 17 Supreme Court chief justices in this country’s history, every single one of them have been a white man; not to mention, the recent ones were educated and Ivy-League universities (Roberts himself earned his law degree from Harvard). For yet more proof of the power of elite educations, he need look no further than the fact that, of his current fellow justices, all but one—Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett—were educated at Harvard or Yale. The problem is Roberts and his “conservative” affirming court weren’t looking forreal forreal. If they were, they would’ve found that there’s been no such thing as equal protection or access in academia.
Not Roberts’ nor anyone else’s legalese should obfuscate this obvious truth: The campaign and eventual overruling of affirmative action is an act of white supremacy.
President John F. Kennedy introduced the term affirmative action—its initial intent to address discrimination in hiring—in an executive order on March 6, 1961. The policy received criticism almost from the giddyup, and before long was the target of several challenges. In 2003, the court upheld it in Grutter V. Bollinger, which challenged admissions practices at the University of Michigan Law School. In her opinion in that case, “conservative” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote, “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.” O’Connor’s view was troubling, for not only did it set a clock on affirmation action, it suggested America would somehow, someway reach the utopia of post-race. (That’s the only America that wouldn’t need safeguards against, and reparations for, white power and privilege.)…
Once there was man named Noel Ignatiev. Ignatiev, a Jewish man, grew up in Philadelphia and as a young person was active in several social-political organizations. Ignatiev earned a Ph.D. in Education from Harvard in 1995. While in graduate school he studied racism, arriving at the wisdom that race is a social construct and not a scientific fact. Ignatiev wrote books about the subject (once pointing out the absurdity that a white woman could give birth to a Black child but a Black woman could never give birth to a white child) and founded a journal called Race Traitor to “chronicle and analyze the making, remaking, and unmaking of whiteness.” Ignatiev believed “ordinary Americans are drawn by the conditions of their lives in two opposite directions, one that mirrors and reproduces the present society of competition and exploitation, and another that points toward a new society based on freely associated activity.”
The whites championing and sanctioning the end of affirmative action are the former kind of Americans—the ones hoping to mirror and reproduce the competition and exploitation. And the most despicable and dangerous of those Americans are Throwback whites. Throwback whites want to regress us to the yesteryear when the only real competition they had was between themselves, and the rest of us were ripe for exploitation.
Throwback whites grabbed tiki torches and stomped through the Charlottesville screaming “YOU WILL NOT REPLACE US.” Throwback whites are championing book bans across the country. Throwback whites are fighting hard to gerrymander voting districts, scheming on other forms of voter suppression. A Throwback white, as the governor of Texas, banned diversity and inclusion departments and initiatives in state universities and colleges. A Throwback white, as the governor of Florida, billboarded his bigotry by gathering asylum-seeking immigrants in his state and dropping them in Martha’s Vineyard. One Throwback white, I swearfogod, is a Black man who’s squatted on the highest court for over 30 years, and all the while dedicated himself to jurisprudence that oppresses his skinfolk.
Be not lead astray—the Throwback whites are uninterested in ushering us to the utopia of equality and justice for all, rather in returning us to the days of the constitution’s penning, a time when I was 3/5th of a man, a fractionalized human who was forbidden an education.
And for white folks who exist on a continuum between “hella hopeful” and “disillusioned,” know this: The Court’s opinion is not some fringe perspective. It’s thinking aligned with figureheads who own a reasonable shot at becoming our next president.
zhena gogolia
Joy Reid is great.
TriassicSands
Speaking of “rights,” the WA Supreme Court has issued a ruling that says that collective bargaining agreements take precedence over state law. So, if a corporation can manage to get a contract agreement that will at some point be in conflict with state law — the corporation wins. The issue was a woman trying to use vacation time to care for a sick child after she had exhausted her sick leave. Vacation time has to be scheduled far in advance and, of course, no one plans when their kids will get sick (Damn those kids!)
Suzanne
Speaking of rights, Elmo floated the “idea” that only parents should have the right to vote, as he believes they’re the only ones who do anything valuable for society.
Forced reproduction is not far out of their minds, y’all.
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne: Oh, because he goes spilling his seed everywhere? That makes him a contributor to society? I feel so sorry for those kids.
Dan B
It’s the totality of decisions othering people and blaming thr victims – people choose their religious beliefs but LGBTQ don’t “choose”. People choose to deny black people equal opportunity, black people don’t “choose” to be given fewer opportunities. The prejudice is staggering
I think the Upside Down in Stranger Things is an analogy for the Sickening Six. In their souls is the DemaGorgon. How dare the weak challenge my power!
Alison Rose
Damn, that clip from Joy Reid was great. She’s exactly fucking right, and it makes me angry for her that she had to endure that bullshit, that any person of color has to.
Alison Rose
@Suzanne: So people who have kids and then abuse them or neglect them or kick them out for being gay get to vote, but I don’t? Christ, what an asshole.
Anne Laurie
But only for the
Whiteright people, of course!Although Musk probably envisions a carve-out for non-pallid folx who are willing to carry his sperm-blessed surrogates, I guess.
Suzanne
@zhena gogolia: He’s so, so terrible.
There is much of the right wing that hates women with careers who either don’t have/want children, or who have only one. Of course, they also hate single mothers. Women having their own money and control of their reproduction is anathema.
ETA: He says, “The childless have little stake in the future.”
Cacti
With the notable exception of the Warren court, SCOTUS has historically been a patrician, reactionary institution, preserving upper class privilege at all costs, and rarely passing up an opportunity to punch down at the plebs.
Rich2506
Did another photoessay looking at Philly’s reaction to the Moms for Liberty.
https://t.co/dsAKE1zw3V
Sure Lurkalot
@Dan B:
1000x hell yes.
I wish that plaintiffs who profess that accommodation violates their deeply held religious beliefs, would have to document them in some manner. Why just believe them? I don’t have to have faith in their faith,
Eolirin
@TriassicSands: What the actual fuck. How the hell can contracts take precedence over state or federal law
If the collective bargaining agreement says that management can murder their workers can they be tried for murder when they actually do?
TriassicSands
@Suzanne:
Yes, because overpopulation is entirely the fault of childless adults who never do anything worthwhile for society. We all know that having a planet suffocating under the burden of more than eight billion people is a good thing and more people will only improve the situation. If you happen to belong to one of the countless species that is being forced into extinction because of habitat loss, more people is always a cause for celebration.
sdhays
@Suzanne: He’s not only awful, but just so, so stupid. Pathetically stupid.
Another Scott
Speaking of rights, ICYMI, Circuit Judge Carlton Reeves decision in US v Bullock (77 page .pdf) (from 6/28/2023) – it’s brilliant, and scathing:
He goes on to point out that the SCOTUS doesn’t apply expansive definitions to Constitutional rights for habeas corpus or speedy trials or even voting rights.
The current RWNJ SCOTUS is – and has been – just making crap up, and other judges are calling them on it. This opinion by Reeves deserves as much visibility as possible.
It’s well worth a read.
(via [email protected])
Cheers,
Scott.
Princess
And civil rights are an economic issue.
TriassicSands
Note to Joy Reid: Joy, you don’t understand the formula.
White, maybe stupid, but superior.
Black, maybe smart, but inferior.
Places in elite universities must be reserved for those who are superior. Everyone else should wait or bus tables, mow the lawns of their superiors, or go back to wherever they “came from” when someone kidnapped their ancestors and forced them to come to America.
Hey, it was the founding design of this country and “originalists” want to keep it that way.
sab
@Anne Laurie: I am well past menopause and was in 2016. I was furious and hurt, but so many of those youngsters of reproductive age and female stayed home because they just didn’t like Hillary.
Oh well, too bad. Welcome to my youth. We got you out of this and you didn’t care. Live on in the world you allowed.
I have knocked on doors for years (actually decades.) Last time I went out an unleashed dog attacked me. I have dog charisma. Dogs almost always like me. This one didn’t. Didn’t hurt me but yikes. New problem.
Why should I risk dog bites when the kids can’t even bother to vote? Never again in my 69 year old life will I need an abortion, or even birth control. Not my problem.
HumboldtBlue
I wasn’t even born when the Civil Rights Act was signed. Hell, my next older sister hadn’t been born yet.
Eunicecycle
@HumboldtBlue: okay now I feel old.
sab
@HumboldtBlue: You are younger than my baby sister.
Suzanne
@TriassicSands: Once again, this is all part of the effort to drive women back to the traditional role of mothering-housekeeping, and get them out of public and professional life and back under the financial, sexual, reproductive control of men.
There are a lot of men who have not married or had children, or they don’t make enough money to attract a partner, or they cannot maintain relationships. They are angry and Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan and Elon Musk and Andrew Tate and Donald Trump and Ross Douthat and the crazy psychos at First Things all tell them that women’s place is in the home.
sab
@TriassicSands: Don’t we have a lot of excelkent HBCUs that need funding? My college, which was quite affordable as a private college when I went there, is now the most expensive college in the US. What the fuq? That was their choice. As an alumna I give eslewhere.
Jackie
@TriassicSands: Since Dobbs, Texas has produced a 5% increase in future Democrats //
I say this because a lot of these future Democrats are products of Forced Births.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/30/texas-abortion-johns-hopkins-study/#:~:text=In%20December%202022%2C%20more%20than,didn't%20go%20into%20effect.
sab
Everyone says men aren’t nurtering. But I remember early in my married life when our living room was filled with lost boys who didn’t like their own father, but hung out in our living room because they liked my husband who let them hang out and watch sports on tv.
I didn’t like any of this but I just retreated to my room with a book. And then fed them.
Years later some of these boys say his support was life saving.
HumboldtBlue
@Suzanne:
I have never married and fathered no children, and while I’ve always been relatively poor, I have had the good fortune to attract the attention of some wonderful women.
It’s quite obvious those fellas who have not had the good fortune to attract wonderful women are very angry about it. They thought being a male, having a job — much less a well-paying job/career — would automatically lead to the attention of said women, but alas, those wonderful women were all too busy getting educated and finding well-paying jobs/careers of their own and living their best lives and dating guys like me.
Sucks to be them.
sab
@HumboldtBlue: When I was in my twenties the major goal in my life was to have kids. Didn’t happen. My older sister got pregnant every time she looked crosswise…i.e. birth control didn’t work for her. She was insanely fertile.
Her two younger sisters not so much. I desperetly wanted kids and never had a safe space to have them. Apparently ( according to my fertile friends) the world doesn’t care if you have a safe space to have them. I didn’t get pregnant so it wasn’t meant to be. I kind of agree with that.
pluky
@Alison Rose:
Got called on exactly the kind of shyte Joy Reid went through my Junior year. My rebuttal was a point-by-point comparison of SAT scores, AP credits, and current GPA (mine in a more demanding major btw). Need I say I beat the legacy troll on all counts?
Suzanne
@HumboldtBlue: The traditional markers of adulthood are harder to achieve. Increasingly, marriage is concentrating amongst the college-educated class, and those are mostly dual-income families.
An economic policy that helped young people get a low-cost college or trade school education, get them into homeownership earlier, and give families enough financial flexibility to live on one income for a while would go a long way to helping these men achieve more with their lives, and thus be more satisfied. And it could be far less patriarchal than in the past, and much more equitable.
But Elmo and the others don’t want less patriarchy and more equity. For them, the control of women is the point.
HumboldtBlue
@sab:
I think we come from an era where that was quite common. All four of my sisters are mothers, three of them at least two kids or more, and even I, in my 20s, figured that at one point I’d meet that lady, we’d give it a go and kids would follow.
By the time I was 30 — closer to 27-28 — I knew I was never gonna be a dad (at least not on purpose, and I am the other half of two abortions both before 23 years old), at least not on purpose. I do wish now I had done more in at least one past relationship to make it far more long-term than it was. But alas…
Alison Rose
@pluky: Fuck yeah. I hope it made them feel like shit, even if only for a minute.
Steeplejack
@Rich2506:
Cool—thanks!
TriassicSands
@Suzanne:
And the key to limiting population is empowering women. I studied with an anthropologist who worked with hunter gatherer tribes in East Africa. When the British took over in Kenya, being Christians, they wanted to outlaw female mutilation (yes, a horrible practice, but one that was a part of limiting population). But the Brits had nothing to offer. In the end, what did limit population growth was educating women and having them find work.
It’s ironic, but women are actually so much more important now than men are. Long ago, the role of the bigger, stronger male in protecting the group (and females) was important. But, today, that role is obsolete. However, men don”t want to let go of that dominant role.
As a friend pointed out the other day — if all living men on the planet died today, human life would continue, because there are pregnant women who would give birth to both male and female children and life would go on. If every female living today died, that would be the end. Oh, we could try to get by with frozen embryos, frozen ova, and artificial wombs, but what would the chances of success be? I’m a man and I’m not in favor of either sex dying off, but I do like the idea of equality, not just for the sexes, but for everyone.
I have not had children, because looking ahead i decided that I didn’t want to a) add to the population problem and b) bring a child into “this” world. That is a personal decision. Among my best friends, some have had children, some have not. Those are personal decisions.
Jackie
@TriassicSands: “…some have had children, some have not. These are personal decisions.”
Until they are forced decisions.
HumboldtBlue
@Jackie:
Touché
Frankensteinbeck
@Suzanne:
In Elmo’s case, I wonder if his actual thinking is more that his children don’t respect him, but doesn’t being a father mean he’s the truly responsible and valuable person? Plus, relatively few trans folk have or will have children*, and I’m sure in Musk’s mind that’s ‘none’.
*I assume he means biologically rather than adoption.
Citizen Alan
@TriassicSands: I have not fathered any children for several reasons, but one of them is my firm belief that it’s a sin to bring children into the world if you think there’s a good chance they’ll be living in Thunderdome by the time they’re 40.
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
Of course, forced reproduction is on their list
Aussie Sheila
@TriassicSands:
That is simply lawless. Terrible. No wonder the US working class endures such brutal conditions. How is this even constitutional? A fucking collective agreement overrides state law? WTF. State law should set a high floor that collective bargaining agreements must meet before they are legal!
Christ almighty, I am continually amazed there isn’t rioting in the streets over US Labor conditions and standards.
Chris T.
Someone might mention to His Muskness that only people who have a functioning uterus can have children. Those who produce sperm can help to create children, but they cannot bear them and thus cannot have them.
So I guess he means only women should be able to vote.
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
Instead of telling them to improve themselves, they tell them that it’s the woman’s fault for being so Independent.
rikyrah
@HumboldtBlue:
What you think are wonderful women and what they think are wonderful… I believe is a chasm.
These are guys who are maybe 5 or 6’s who think that they are entitled to 9’s or 10’s women.
They completely ignore the good 4’s, 5’s, 6’s women who would go into a relationship with them.
And don’t let their attitude that the 4’s , 5’s, 6’s should be GRATEFUL slip through and those women, having self-respect, tell them NO THANK YOU. I would rather be alone, with my own peace of mind.
The bitter, hateful anger towards those women?😠😠😠
Anne Laurie
Many years ago, I came to the conclusion that some people have the Parenting gift, but many / most… do not.
The world would be sooo much a better place if the Procreation gift was more tightly linked to the Parenting one!
MisterDancer
Um. Not so much? From the transcript of this video:
One of the things I think drives Conservative fury around Academia is how the latter keeps pulling the rug out from under the cultural signposts that makes up The Right . The more we study, and take off cultural blinders as we do so, the more fascinating and complex the actual world turns out to be!
evodevo
@sab:
You often don’t know what a difference it made until 10-15 yrs down the road, after you’ve lost touch…a couple of boys I had contact with when my son was a teenager have by chance been in contact and said stuff like this. I didn’t have a clue at the time…
UncleEbeneezer
@Anne Laurie: Have you seen The Lost Daughter on Netflix starring Olivia Colman? One of the rare films that makes this point pretty clearly. It’s not that some people hate kids, but that some people just aren’t made for parenting and their lives (and the kids’ lives too) are effectively ruined by their choice to have them.
UncleEbeneezer
@MisterDancer: What?! Say it ain’t so. Next thing you’ll be telling us that Alpha Males in nature don’t actually get their status through physical domination and intimidation…
StringOnAStick
Thunderdome was pretty clearly on the table when I was an undergrad, so at age 23 I got my tubes tied and had to fight hard to do so. I think that unless you are someplace very blue and you find a feminist gynecology practice, it’s very difficult to do this.