The Supreme Court Has Gone "Colorblind" and Just Killed the Voting Rights Act

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]Welcome to today's Qualified at the Intersection. Feeling a little better.

[00:00:05]Again, not sure if it's cold or or allergies.

[00:00:08]But um I wanted to hop on the video because all right. So, there was a person that person's name was me who wrote an op-ed for Salon uh and it was published November 24th, 2024.

[00:00:26]And I have a link to it in uh below.

[00:00:29]And the title of that article Trump's plan to dismantle DEI on day one is a quote color blind color blind path to Jim Crow 2.0.

[00:00:40]So, here's the thing about that. I take no pleasure in being right. In fact, it is devastating, heartbreaking, and terrifying to be right. But when I wrote that op-ed in November 2024, what I said specifically is that it is about erasing decades of progress and reinstating systemic racial barriers under the guise of equality.

[00:01:07]And that this would not be neutral policy but the blueprint for a modern-day Jim Crow 2.0.

[00:01:15]So, the reason I said that is because you could see where things were headed.

[00:01:20]And today, which will be tomorrow when you see this, uh the US Supreme Court has um people are saying eviscerated, gutted, demolished key provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

[00:01:33]Now, I said at the time that I wrote that op-ed that this court, the majority in this court, gave me Plessy versus Ferguson vibes.

[00:01:43]And for those of you who don't know, Plessy versus Ferguson is the case that instituted Jim Crow by saying separate but equal was okay.

[00:01:54]And it's very resonant to this court because um Plessy versus Ferguson actually argued that um racial separation wasn't necessarily wrong.

[00:02:06]Um and if black people felt harmed by it, um it was a result of their own faulty thinking, their own erroneous thinking. I'm not kidding. That's Plessy versus Ferguson.

[00:02:17]And what was interesting to me at the time was John Roberts in the case um regarding affirmative action at Harvard said something very similar about the affirmative action case in Harvard where he said, quote, "They have wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual's identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned, but the color of their skin." Now, they have wrongly concluded.

[00:02:44]So, once again, just like that Plessy court, if we, stupid fools that we are, every day see ourselves being discriminated against, it's our faulty thinking. It's not the fault of race or discrimination or hundreds and hundreds and years of systems designed to oppress us.

[00:03:03]It's just our faulty thinking.

[00:03:05]And so, um you know, the Supreme Court's decision again, they they include language that is absolutely crazy. It's crazy.

[00:03:16]Um Samuel Alito, it was a 6-3 decision.

[00:03:19]Samuel Alito says allowing race to play any part in government decision-making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context.

[00:03:31]This is insane. The Constitution was designed with us to be not fully human. So, how can it be a departure when the Constitution did not consider us?

[00:03:43]And the Constitution allowed discrimination against us. So, we're we're what? You know? And and then you have the situation where you have a Pete Hegseth who is openly discriminating against black people specifically and women in the military. But that's not Racism, according to them, is pointing out that he is discriminating.

[00:04:08]And trying to come up with systemic solutions to stop it. That is racism.

[00:04:13]But him firing women and people of color, that is not sexism or racism.

[00:04:18]You see, so when I wrote this article almost two years ago now, I was preparing to launch this book and uh my book Qualified, and I could see where we were headed and it was it it's a lot like being in a scary movie and seeing the monster and being like, "Hey, hey, hey." And no one's really listening to you.

[00:04:40]Um And so, um Justice Elena Kagan uh wrote that the court was dis demolishing uh the Voting Rights Act. And um she said that it uh nullified another major provision in the law that required places with a history of discrimination to get changes pre-approved by the federal government. She says, "Under the court's review of section two, a state can, without legal consequence, systematically dilute minority citizens' voting power."

[00:05:15]Uh uh and uh you know, so she wrote the dissent for uh Sonia Sotomayor and uh Ketanji Brown Jackson.

[00:05:25]She says the majority claims that by updating our section two law as though through a few technical tweaks, it eviscerates the law.

[00:05:36]So, you know, here we here we stand. And when you cumulatively put these things together, so I'm going to put lay them out for you. You have um Pete Hegseth resegregating the the military, which was which was a beacon of racial integration, which brought in racial integration in the country, in the workplace. That military integration bled over into the workplace integration, private sector. So, you have him reestablishing segregation in the military. You have Andrea Lucas, who I wrote about yesterday at the EEOC, trying to reestablish race-based segregation in the workplace by elevating white claims, white people. If one white person doesn't have a job, it is discrimination against white people.

[00:06:20]So, you could not be more race-based than that. And then you have the Supreme Court eviscerating the Voting Rights Act and using language similar to uh Plessy versus Ferguson to do it. So, you know, we are in a 20-alarm fire, not a 10-alarm fire, a 20-alarm fire. And yet and yet most people still are walking around like everything is hunky-dory. And then if you say anything about it, they accuse you of treason or or fomenting rebellion or or or all kinds of horrible things if you just say the facts as they are. You know, and the impact if you So, if you say anything, they want to put you in jail for saying something about what they're doing. I mean, it's just it is it is beyond insane. And um so, you know, a couple of things. Uh there's a In my book, I cite this this writer this thinker. His name is Cedric uh Merlin Powell. Merlin Powell. Cedric Merlin Powell. He says that the argument of this particular court right now rewrites history and creates an unworkably narrow definition of discrimination focusing on outcomes while ignoring structural inequity, and that is their goal.

[00:07:40]And um so, you have Stephen Miller, you have all these people moving together toward this, right? And the key here is they talk about things like color blind.

[00:07:49]And that's why I said in my article is a color blind cuz they're saying they're being color blind, but they're not. You know, and I and I I've talked about this before. Our first color blind piece of legislation was the GI Bill. The GI Bill after World War II was color blind. It was not There's nothing in it that was discriminatory. But once it hit implementation, once it hit banks, once it hit uh real estate agents, black men, cuz it was primarily men, over a million black men who fought in World War II were almost totally exed out. And totally by I mean that, I mean there may have been a few thousand people of color, not just black people, broadly after World War II who got the benefit, very limited. Whereas the World War II GI benefit transformed white people's lives through uh through home ownership at a time when America was booming, which is the source of many people's wealth today. And by wealth, I don't mean you're a millionaire. I mean by wealth, I mean you have, you know, you could sell your home and get a good profit or you could use it to leverage to pay your kids' college. That's the wealth I'm talking about. Black people were totally excluded. And the World War II GI Bill was in fact color blind. So, when you talk about color blind policies, you are talking about things that are going to be blindingly white in their implementation. And that is what they want. That is what they are hoping for.

[00:09:15]Uh that is what they are suing for. And so, a couple of things. One, black people, we need to get our together. I'm sorry. I don't know how else to say this. I don't understand why there is not major conferences of civil rights groups, why we are not calling for major boycotts, why we are not taking to the streets ourselves.

[00:09:37]Um I am very unclear on what part of resegregating the military, resegregating the Voting Rights Act eviscerating the Voting Rights Act is not giving you Jim Crow 2.0 vibes. You know, it's giving Jim Crow, right? And and if you say, "Well, I'm not in the back of the bus."

[00:09:55]First of all, as you some of you may know the military got rid of that that there is not technically illegal to have separate drinking fountains again. But that's but what they are going for is a colorblind version of Jim Crow 2.0 that is going to put you in the back of the proverbial bus in the workplace financially economically as entrepreneurs. I don't know what part of this game people can't feel the urgency.

[00:10:21]And then for white people, I'm going to challenge you to this.

[00:10:25]Yes, they can blow up these districts but you don't have to vote with them.

[00:10:32]White people, your goal is to work with poor and middle class and working class white people and to let them know that these quote colorblind policies, they actually hurt white people too because their goal is to use poor and working class white people as a bullwark, keep them confused that you know, foreigners and black folks and women are the problem when in fact it is the wealthy who are raping them, stripping them blind, data mining them. Now, you don't have to vote in those districts the way they think you are going to vote and that may be our saving grace. That is the type of organizing we need to do. We have to fight this out because you know, we are in a very very serious very dangerous situation and I you know, and I said this is what I said in my article February I mean November 24, 2024, the fight against colorblind the colorblind agenda requires collective action.

[00:11:34]Corporations have a responsibility and they actually have the tools to resist this. Businesses have a right to require workplace education hiring practices.

[00:11:43]Businesses have a first amendment right.

[00:11:46]Government can't overreach that far or at least they can't at this point and then also we individually be you black, white, Latinx, Hispanic, this is not going to end well for any of us if we do not fight for all of us. So, that's what I have to say about all of that. This is a long one but it was necessary.