February 10, 2019
The news this past week has had a distinctive tabloid quality, with multiple instances of high ranking officials donning blackface (or editing entire tomes full of it); multiple credible allegations of sexual assault; not to mention a scandal involving an actual tabloid. Although most of the behavior in question predates the officials’ time in office, it is disturbing to discover that those entrusted with high office have a history of denigrating or victimizing the very people they are charged with representing.
These scandals are merely another example of what may be Trump’s defining legacy — the end of feigned innocence. The stack of yearbooks unearthed that are replete with racist imagery shatter any illusion that racism is a relic of the distant past. If we have learned nothing else this week, it is that the foundational creed of anti-black racism is bipartisan. The difference is that one party is clearly grappling with that messy, destabilizing fact, while the other wears its history of intolerance like a badge of honor.
Yet, as diverting as the pulp (non)fiction roiling Virginia may be, those of us in the 49 other states and the District of Columbia should be paying particular attention to two Supreme Court decisions that came down in this last week that have much more far reaching implications than the malfeasance of a trio of high ranking officials in one state.
On Wednesday, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court vacated a stay of execution granted by the Eleventh Circuit, and in so doing, ratified a clear cut violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The majority allowed the execution of Domenique Ray to go forward despite the prison’s refusal to permit his imam to be present in the chamber to administer last rites. The majority credited the flimsy rationale that the imam presented a security risk because he was not a staff member. As Justice Kagan put it in her dissent, this result violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment’s “core principle of denominational neutrality.” Even religious conservatives condemned the decision, stating “every time we want the state to favor Christianity over other religions, the result is a loss of religious freedom for all,” (Source: “By ruling against a Muslim on death row, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority alienated some of its supporters,” by Eugene Scott, The Washington Post, 2/8/19).
On the same day, a different 5-4 majority voted to stay a Fifth Circuit decision that would have permitted a restrictive Louisiana law to go into effect and regulate abortion clinics out of business. The statute at issue is virtually identical to the Texas law that the court found unconstitutional a mere three years ago in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. It requires doctors at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles and is projected to leave only one doctor in the state “legally allowed to perform abortions,” (Source: “Supreme Court blocks Louisiana abortion law as John Roberts joins liberal justices in 5-4 ruling,” by Pete Williams, NBCNews.com, 2/8/19). Although the majority issued no opinion, “Justice” Kavanaugh disingenuously tried to distinguish Hellerstedt in an opinion that was a triumph of sophistry, (Source: “Brett Kavanaugh Just Declared War on Roe v. Wade,” by Mark Josephson, Slate.com, 2/7/19).
The deciding vote in both cases was arch conservative Chief Justice John Roberts. We have seen that Roberts will happily trample minority rights in violation of the First or Fourteenth Amendment, so his vote to stay the Louisiana statute was more likely to have been motivated by his concern for the legitimacy of the institution than by any concern for preserving a woman’s Constitutional right to a safe and legal abortion.
There is no question that people who traffic in racist imagery have no business in public life. We should just remember that men who never donned blackface can do us even more harm.
Great post Lisa.
Thank you Nikki!