Now, Fausset asks, “Has anti-Black racism eased, or has discrimination against African Americans simply become more subtle, disguised as a web of rules embedded in regular partisan politics?” Fascinating! The hate and discrimination previously demonstrated by lynchings, church burnings, active obstruction of efforts by black citizens to vote and open declarations by state officials that blacks are inferior to whites haven’t been alleviated, they are just better “disguised”and “subtle.”
If I hadn’t featured the “Murder by Death” clip so recently, I would post it again here.
How does one subtly indicate the same level of racism as is demonstrated by church burnings and lynchings? Easy answer: one can’t. I expected the writer to deliver on his bizarre hypothesis, or at least make a heroic attempt. Nope. Instead we got…
- A quote from a black civil rights lawyer in Georgia and a past president of the Georgia NAACP, asserting that subtler discriminatory forces have “gotten into the system and corroded the arteries of the system,” and will require particularly nuanced legal challenges to “ferret out.” His evidence for that position? None.
- ‘Some Black Southerners still feel that kind of racism deeply.” Well, since the mainstream media and Democrats keep insisting “that kind of racism” is pervasive, no wonder they “feel” that way.
- A Georgetown Law professor who points to a single 1987 death penalty case and a 1986 SCOTUS decision on jury selection.
- Statistics showing that black voting in Presidential had declined since Barack Obama was President. (Gee, how could that be?)
- The fact that the Supreme Court finally struck down affirmative action in college admissions as discriminatory (which it is by definition).
- The efforts by the Trump Administration to eliminate DEI programs, which are also discriminatory.
Amazingly, that’s it. That is the best the New York Times could muster to rebut Justice Alito’s majority opinion that the South has come a long way since 1965, too long a way to still treat it as an ongoing threat to black Americans’ access to the ballot box, and too long to regard most of the Voting Rights Act as fair and just in 2026.
The Left still maintains that racial discrimination by whites against blacks (that’s bad discrimination, while discrimination against white Americans is good discrimination) is a perpetual cultural norm, and claims this for two reasons. One is confirmation bias, and the other is that they want this to be true, indeed need it to be true. Justice Kagan, in her almost law-free dissent, wrote that trying to find smoking-gun evidence of racist motives in redistricting laws is “well-nigh impossible.” Her solution, and that of her ideological allies, is to assume racial prejudice without evidence.
Ethics Alarms 
Irrespective of intent what specific cultural norm do they speak of that is subtle racism? Which candidates have been shut out of the electoral process because of these perceived cultural norm? If you cannot define the cultural norm it may not exist and if it does exist then it should be brought to light so a solution can be developed.
It seems to me that the need to create Black majority districts suggests that Black elected officials will only represent the interests of Black voters. So why should any other race vote for them? If skin color, race or ethnicity determines which group’s interests are represented then it would be necessary to create districts for Asians, Middle Easterners, Native Americans and so forth. CVB ran the numbers in another post and the number of representatives would be unwieldy. Moreover, if we are to force identity groups into specific districts wouldn’t we have to relocate all those discrete populations into a specific geographical area proportionate to their relative numbers in the population? But that would lead us back to Plessey territory. So obviously this would be ridiculous but creating a Black majority district would require compensating adjustments for all other races to provide equitable treatment under the law.
I will ask this again. Why do groups spend millions of dollars on litigation to protect voter rights when those dollars could be spent on ensuring actual ability to access the voting booth. Specifically, how many of these so-called disenfranchised citizens exist? Why do we never see an actual person and why do their advocates try so hard to keep them at a disadvantage economically rather than use the litigation resources to help these phantom victims get the documentation they need or help getting them to the polling place. Instead of protesting drive someone to the polling place.
What are their arguments that discrimination against White Americans is good discrimination?
Oh, easy. 1. Whites deserve it because they discriminate. 2. Whites need to be discriminated against for as long as they harmed minorities by discriminating to compensate for the harm they did.
How did you deduce this? Do you have quotes?
Better than that: I took part in extensive policy debates over affirmative action when I was an assistant dean at Georgetown law center and have been sudying that issue (and reparations) ever since. I’m sure there are “you owe us” quotes all over the EA archives.
OK, but without the SPLC and other civil rights groups, how much racism is there?
If we call the natural biases all groups have toward (or against) “others,” then plenty. But that kind of bias is hard-wired, and only addressed by awareness and ethics. And if you call considered realization regarding certain groups based on persistent group conduct “racism,” that’s another measurement. I learned, as a manager, that if I hired a black staff member and had to fire him or her for cause, I and my organization would be sued for presumed discrimination. I could avoid this risk by hiring only white and Asians. I didn’t. I also got sued.
The disturbing part, from what I can find, is that the courts read a ‘mandate’ in a law that wasn’t there and followed it for 60 years. Our Congressional districts have been racially gerrymandered by this judicial ‘law’ for decades. This is much like the different standards of evidence for filing a racial discrimination lawsuit based on your race. Yes, the courts required a racially discriminatory standard to file a suit for racial discrimination.