Listen, I’ve seen the seasons turn from the red clay of Kansas to the steel-grey skies of Harlem, and I have maybe at least learned one thing in my life:
Today the song of liberty sounds a lot like a cash register if you listen close enough.
Today, we’re living in a high-speed, digital age where the “Man” doesn’t just wear a top hat, he owns the server, the fiber-optic cable, and apparently, the very ink used to draw our voting lines.
The news out of the high court in Callais v. Louisiana isn’t just a legal footnote; it’s a modern-day blues. By striking down those majority-Black districts, the high folks in robes are telling us that the “Equal Protection Clause” is being used to protect the powerful from the persistent. They call it “racial gerrymandering” when you try to give a seat to the table to those who built the house, but they call it “politics as usual” when a map is carved up to keep a campaign donor’s favorite incumbent in power.
The Great Divide-and-Conquer
Corporate America and the politicians who keep their pockets lined have found a clever trick. They talk about “values” on your screen, tradition, borders, and “the way things used to be”, while their other hand is busy weakening protections like the Voting Rights Act. They want you looking at your neighbor, the immigrant working the late shift or the family in the city, as the reason your paycheck doesn’t stretch.
It’s a shell game.
While we’re busy “othering” each other over shadows, they’re dimming the lights on the ballot box for many. They claim to follow a moral compass, yet their actions point directly toward a bank vault which is only growing larger each passing day. They say they believe in “colorblind” maps, yet they’re perfectly fine with maps that see green above all else.
A Pragmatic Truth
I know my skin gives me a pass in rooms where others are stopped at the door. I’ve never asked for that pass, and I don’t put much stock in it, because a fence built to keep my neighbor out eventually turns into a cage for me, too. When we allow the law to strip away representation from some, we’re essentially saying that democracy is a luxury item, not a basic right.
If we don’t start seeing through the digital smoke and the campaign-finance mirrors, we’re going to wake up in a country where we have 500 channels of “choice” on our TVs, but not a single choice in our government.