US Supreme Court leaves Minority Voters Unprotected

So much has happened recently, that I couldn’t decide what to write about for this blog post. The Wendy Davis ruling managed to get a few paragraphs written about it before I changed my mind. The privatisation of student loans nearly received a mention, but I think it’s a little too early for me to say anything concrete. I haven’t read enough on the “concentration camps” in Greece to write much, and the Stephen Lawrence/police spies overwhelms me a little. So I decided to write about something not so big here in the UK, the supreme court ruling in the US that meant a 50-year-old civil rights law was struck down by the supreme court, which will leave minority voters unprotected.  

If you’ve never heard of the law and don’t know what this means, like me until a few days ago, let me quickly explain. The 50-year-old law, which some say was the most important civil rights law ever passed by congress, prevented states with backgrounds of racial discrimination from making any changes to electoral rules without seeking permission form the federal authorities. For example, this meant they could not suddenly introduce literacy tests that would prevent many minority voters from registering .

The reason given for striking down the law was that racial discrimination in the south was just not significant today. On a completely unrelated note, loved and admired Southern TV chef Paula Deen admitted to using “n****r” more than once, and expressed a wish to throw a plantation-themed wedding party, complete with black slaves.

Gary Younge wrote an excellent article for the Guardian, where he puts into words so succinctly something I’ve been trying to express for a long time now; “racism is now more subtle, not that it has disappeared. They have taken down the offensive signs but continued the offensive practice”. I keep trying to tell people, just because the USA has a black president, and black people aren’t being lynched anymore, it doesn’t mean racism is effectively over. Replacing these old, racist practices are more subtle ones. You don’t call people “n****r” these days (unless you’re Paula Deen of course), now you introduce cuts and withdraw laws that just so happen to affect minorities as a by-product.

The impact of this issue has been rather cushioned by the Wendy Davis filibuster. Of course, it’s obvious why. Nobody stood on a podium and argued for minority rights for 11-hours, the offending party (the republicans) were not defeated. Here in the UK, the ruling barely made the news because it quickly happened with no opposition. Simply: “by the way, minority groups are no longer protected, racism is over, have a nice day” and that’s all the attention the case receives.

I can possibly pin down the reason for my being so annoyed as a result of my recent reading. For my dissertation I started reading Caribbean literature and about the experience of black people in the UK. As a result I’ve read about events like this new ruling happened again and again that were supposedly not racist. I’m annoyed because no matter how many times people say it, racism isn’t over. We can’t just forget what happened in the past, as I seem to see many people claiming in their “but slavery was ages ago!” speeches.

I did want to write about the Wendy Davis filibuster, as it was a big step in the feminist movement. However, I feel the minority ruling was so important to talk about, not because of any difference in importance, but because I felt that the media attention that case has received, and continues to receive, is already sufficient. Now, if Rick Perry goes ahead and somehow passes the anti-abortion law anyway, people will know about it. I feel that because the minority ruling deserves more attention, as I’ve seen very little about it here in the UK. If a state suddenly excluded a minority group from voting through a change in electoral rules, we’d probably not know about it unless we were the victims of it. And that, is a rather sad state of affairs.

-Khia

'Lincoln' vs. 'Django Unchained'

If you didn’t notice, two rather huge films were released recently, both dealing with the issue slavery. ‘Django Unchained’ I was anticipating for a long time, especially as a half-Jamaican girl with a keen interest in slavery. On top of that I was left wanting more after Inglorious Basterds, and Tarantino certainly delivered. 'Lincoln' was released quite recently (in the UK at least), and didn't really stir my interest.

No matter what critics say about possible racism in the ‘Django Unchained’, I always find myself in defense of the film. Sure, a film about slavery by a white man is going to be filled with flaws, and slavery is usually done wrong when dealt with by the mainstream. However, ‘Django Unchained’ is definitely far more progressive in dealing with slavery than Spielberg’s film ‘Lincoln’. 

Not often does a film leave me feeling disgusted and angry afterwards. For ‘Lincoln’ it wasn’t the fact that it was an incredibly boring dross, but the gross historical inaccuracy in painting Lincoln as some saintly leader who single-handedly freed the slaves. Lincoln was not a fierce fighter for equal rights. Lincoln frequently used the n-word, expressed racist sentiments and in fact wasn’t as fiercely opposed to slavery as we are made to believe. He wanted slavery to stop spreading, but didn’t want it completely abolished, in fact, he was in favour of sending the slaves to work elsewhere. He only became a fan of abolition when he saw how it benefitted white Americans in the civil war, as slaves could join the army.

In the film, the slaves play no role in their own liberation, once again an example of the portrayal of black people as passively waiting for a white saviour. This, like so many representations of slavery, blatantly ignores the fact that time and time again the slaves rose up. The slaves didn’t just sit twiddling their thumbs, they fought for their freedom, wrestling it from the unwilling hands of the state. This was what put pressure on the government to do something about slavery. Actually, slave revolts were rife (one example being the largely unrecognised Black Seminoles revolt in 1835-1838) and abolitionists lobbied much harder than the undeniably racist Lincoln ever did.

So while you could pick apart ‘Django Unchained’, at least we get a slave who actually gets up and takes action, as opposed to just waiting for Waltz to save his wife for him. In ‘Django Unchained’ they are undeniably in a partnership, both contributing equally to their cause. ‘Lincoln’ simply rattles a stream of lies about  the end of slavery and a massively flawed president. Of course, ‘Lincoln’ will pick up all the awards and be lauded as a classic because it draws upon the known patriotism of its American audience. Meanwhile, history will be rewritten to further obliterate the role of black people and racism will continue to preside in our society.