Race In America: Paula Deen Will Have Her Revenge
In 1943, the state of Georgia became the first of the United States to lower its voting age to 18; well ahead of the 26th Amendment (1971) mandating suffrage to all citizens who were at least 18-years old. How progressive you were, Georgia. And so in 1965, an 18-year old, lily-white Georgian named Paula Deen had the unequivocal right to cast her ballot. A number of her fellow citizens, distinguished only by their non-Caucasian status, were getting a little more interference.
Indeed, things had become pretty dire by 1965, but not without the attention of the Congress, the President, the people, the Courts, and really anyone with a television set. The right for non-white people to vote in the United States -- unfettered by threats and intimidation as well as government-supported fraud and chicanery -- was greatly in peril. People were getting murdered. Laws were being passed at the State, county and local levels that were so blatantly oppressive and designed to exclude a significant portion of the populace that action, real action needed to be taken. The previous approach to take every instance on case-by-case was proving to be futile. Those in power were growing in their resolve to stay ahead of Courts and Congress, offering newer and more insidious ways to make sure that non-whites couldn’t vote no matter how many times they were shut down.
That was the basis of Congressional action in 1957 (creating the Civil Rights Division within the Department of Justice and the Commission on Civil Rights), then again in 1960 (permitting federal courts to appoint voting referees to conduct voter registration following a judicial finding of voting discrimination) and then again in 1964 (requiring that voting rules and procedures be applied equally to all races). 1964 also saw implementation of the 25th Amendment, which eliminated poll taxes, which were commonly regarded as a de facto exclusionary measure for poor (but mostly) non-white voters. Of course this was all against the backdrop of the 15th Amendment (1870), which protects the right of male suffrage without regard to “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” (The ladies, of course, came on board with the hard-fought 19th Amendment in 1920).
Yow! That’s a lot of Amendin’ and Congressin’ just to ensure that in a democracy – every person gets a vote! And yet, things were still remarkably shitty especially in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, 39 counties in North Carolina, and a few counties in Arizona and Hawaii, and, yes, even Paula Deen’s Georgia. So shitty, in fact, that a 1965 march to Selma, Alabama, lead by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to demand more comprehensive and effective voting rights led to police violence and the murder of several marchers. The movement galvanized and the vaulted Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) was finally signed into law. The following year, the United States Supreme Court in upholding the Constitutionality of the VRA had this to say:
“Congress had found that case-by-case litigation was inadequate to combat wide-spread and persistent discrimination in voting, because of the inordinate amount of time and energy required to overcome the obstructionist tactics invariably encountered in these lawsuits. After enduring nearly a century of systematic resistance to the Fifteenth Amendment, Congress might well decide to shift the advantage of time and inertia from the perpetrators of the evil to its victims.” (South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 327-28 (1966)).
Wow! Perpetrators of evil. Like Iran and North Korea. Fucking South (and parts of Arizona and Hawaii).
And so began 48 years of protection and by all accounts, unparalleled success in righting some pretty heinous wrongs and quashing some messed-up evil-doers. That isn’t to say that there wasn’t litigation and more Supreme Cases – there were actually a ton. For the most part, though, evil was beat. All the old shit, finally abandoned and after a few re-ups of the VRA (1970, 1975, 1982, 2006), Congress tweaked, expanded and extended the “temporary measures” of the mother Act.
See, the whole thing was supposed to be temporary. Sunset provisions. There was never a thought that after five decades of strict adherence to such a sweeping act, that this kind of voting hanky-panky could ever happen again. I’d imagine that there were some who thought that perhaps racism, itself, at least institutional racism would too go the way of the fads of free love and the Nehru jacket. Nonetheless, extend and extend it went since there was still a problem here or there and everyone seemed to be okay with that, well except for the original problem places and the couple of add-ons over the years, most notably – Arkansas, New Mexico & Texas (and some other counties and towns scattered across the country).
But on June 25, 2013, the United States Supreme Court held that the VRA was no longer needed, thus heralding triumph of good over evil (finally). Wait, isn’t that what the decision said? No, no. In fact the decision is based on some made-up precedent called “equal state sovereignty” that ignores the prevalence of racism in the South (and parts of Arizona and Hawaii). No, no, we just need Congress to take it all up again so that we can sort though it.
Confusing, of course. Most new decisions by the Supreme Court are. But a careful reading of the 5-4 opinion should draw focus to two things: preclearance and bail outs. Preclearance is the idea that the bad (nee: evil) places need to get an a-okay from the Department of Justice (or a panel of judges) before they make any significant changes affecting voter participation. Bailing out means that this burdensome mandate of preclearance (which has vastly diminished over the years to almost negligible levels) can be lifted if you meet certain requirements. Unfortunately for those places that have been evil in the past, it’s really, really hard to get off Uncle Samta’s naughty-asshat list. In fact, only a handful of places (jurisdictions within Virginia, New Hampshire, North Carolina and little ol’ Sandy Springs, Georgia) have successfully bailed out, but it took a lot of time, money and even litigation.
What the latest decision by the Supreme Court essentially says is: yes, there is still racism in America and yes, we’re keeping all the great laws available to fight any effort for that to infect universal suffrage, but whoa, maybe the Congress should revisit who is actually evil these days and who amongst us can’t be cured by existing laws. After all, the U.S. has come a long way from the cops unleashing dogs on dark-skinned American’s just for trying to vote to the universal condemnation of a portly pork-pusher from Georgia for using the N-word in her past. Even Wal-Mart dropped Paula Deen – I mean Wal-Mart !
That’s not to say that some bastard legislators haven’t been chomping to try some new flim-flamery to get fewer minorities voting (talking to you, Texas and Mississippi), but voter ID laws of marginal Constitutionality aren’t brutal and secretive Jim Crow laws, and frankly, the South ain’t alone in trying to get voter ID laws on the books. The Democrat secretary-of-State of Nevada (poised and anointed by most for higher office) has proposed voter ID laws in a State where, wait for it, zero cases of actual in-person ID fraud have been committed without detection since… ever.
While the Supreme Court’s logic this time around is arguably weak and wonky (and cynically, an attempt by Justice Roberts and his brood to aid the much maligned GOP to get to a better place now and in the future), the purpose actually seems… reasonable – make Congress better define what it means to be voted in (or how more fairly to be voted out) of the 2013 voting rights hall of shame. After all, no provision, even preclearance was declared unconstitutional; further, all the key provisions making all the bad stuff that people used to do and may try to do again in all its forms absolutely and correctly survives. And even before this new decision – crap like Florida, 2000 still happened! All that was practically done in this new opinion was kicking it back to Congress to air the laundry (including Florida, 2000) and make a real update given the current data. To me, this is a perfectly equitable request.
Within hours of the hit on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) by the Supreme Court on Constitutional grounds, the so-called Respect for Marriage Act was reintroduced with the sole purpose of repealing the remainder. Now that’s action. Despite the hand-wringing and the fear-mongering that voters will be oppressed, Congress is yet to get to work on making a new preclearance determination since they last kicked the can in 2006. Of course, whether they do or not, Voter ID laws, gerrymandering and redistricting (i.e. the kinder, gentler evil) will be still be challenged in the Courts and likely still be challenged.
America loves comebacks. The Paula Deen may very well rise, again. Few in 1965 would have predicted the strides towards racial equality, but few would be surprised it hasn’t completely been fixed. Congress has their mission – maybe the racial issues left lingering will finally be addressed and America will have completed its comeback from the depths of 1965. Hate to wait another 48 years for that…
