Plessy v Fergusson Lives!

[Gospel]

Can you point out exactly how this oddly shaped district accomplishes anything except racial gerrymandering? Because I really don't see it.

Are you really unaware of why what you’re calling ‘racial gerrymandering’ was done in the first place under the Voting Rights Act? It wasn’t arbitrary, it was a response to minority voters being consistently diluted in districting. You can absolutely argue whether this should still be done today, I’m open to that and might even agree in part. What I’m pushing back on is the framing. Calling it ‘racial gerrymandering’ as if it appeared out of nowhere ignores why districts were drawn under the Voting Rights Act in the first place.

Black voters were routinely packed or split across districts in ways that ensured they couldn’t elect candidates of their choice, even when they made up a significant portion of the population. Do I need to also explain why Black people needed to elect their own candidates too?

Gosh Derec, you can't be that ignorant.

Racial gerrymandering has its roots in racial discrimination in housing. Which still happens btw and not just in the South. It’s not legal but it exists.

Certain groups of people were relegated to certain neighborhoods, towns, sides of towns because they literally could not get a mortgage loan for a home on the ‘wrong’ neighborhood’ or rent in certain buildings or neighborhoods.

Yup, that's a symptom of an issue at the root. The root? I'll just say that people who love saying ‘treat everyone like humans,’ don't do so. From my experience with people who have said ‘treat everyone the same’ it meant ‘don’t be different in ways that make them uncomfortable'.

 

[ZiprHead]

Seen a sign: Jim Crow 2.0.

It sure didn't take the southern states long to disenfranchise their black citizens.

 

[ZiprHead]

NAACP is calling for a boycott of college sports in the southern states that are doing this.

 

[Derec]

It’s easy to speak about the Voting Rights Act in the way that Derec does because he has never been on the side it was written to protect.

Isn't that the biggest conceptual flaw of that entire act?
Laws should protect the civil rights of everybody. It should not impose things like mandatory gerrymandering to achieve a kind of racial quota for one race.

 

[Derec]

It's also telling that some folks here talk about the Voting Rights Act like it only benefited Black voters.

Many of its provisions are specifically racial. There is no requirement to gerrymander to ensure a guaranteed number of majority districts for any other group for example. I think gerrymandering is wrong either for partisan advantage nor for guaranteed representation of one favored group. And note that in practice this racial gerrymander works as backdoor partisan gerrymander favoring Democrats.

I think we need to get away from the whole concept of districts. Too much of the outcome is determined when the districts are drawn, not when the people actually get to vote. I have never voted in a Congressional election where my vote actually mattered. Nor state legislature election for that matter.
I think the system that Germany uses for municipal elections (as I explained in the Midterms thread before that one became about taxing billionaires out of existence) might work well for House and state legislature elections in the US if proportional representation is a hill too far.

 

[laughing dog]

It’s easy to speak about the Voting Rights Act in the way that Derec does because he has never been on the side it was written to protect.

Isn't that the biggest conceptual flaw of that entire act?
Laws should protect the civil rights of everybody. It should not impose things like mandatory gerrymandering to achieve a kind of racial quota for one race.

So gerrymandering based on racial assumptions to produce partisan outcomes that are also correlated with race is okay? At least SCOTUS agrees.

 

[Gospel]

It’s easy to speak about the Voting Rights Act in the way that Derec does because he has never been on the side it was written to protect.

Isn't that the biggest conceptual flaw of that entire act?
Laws should protect the civil rights of everybody. It should not impose things like mandatory gerrymandering to achieve a kind of racial quota for one race.

You can disagree with how it’s applied today, but pretending it was created to solve a non-existent problem completely ignores the historical context. Are you doing that intentionally, or are you genuinely unaware of it?

Do you really believe America is completely colorblind? And are you even colorblind yourself? Because the way you're approaching me right now seems to assume I’m somehow happy these laws ever became necessary in the first place. I wonder why.

 

[Gospel]

Anyway, the Voting Rights Act wasn’t created because America randomly decided to obsess over race one day. It was created because certain states and local governments were systematically finding ways to deny or dilute Black votes while still pretending elections were “equal” on paper.

And yes, Black Americans were the primary beneficiaries at the time because they were the primary targets of those abuses. That’s just historical reality.

But the principles behind the law benefit everybody. Protecting citizens from voter suppression, discriminatory election practices, and manipulated representation strengthens democracy as a whole, not just for one race.

You can absolutely debate whether parts of the Act are still needed, whether they’re applied correctly today, or whether some policies have gone too far. That’s a fair discussion.

What isn’t fair is pretending the law was solving a fake problem or acting like the conditions that led to it never existed in the first place.

 

[Gospel]

I think we need to get away from the whole concept of districts. Too much of the outcome is determined when the districts are drawn, not when the people actually get to vote. I have never voted in a Congressional election where my vote actually mattered. Nor state legislature election for that matter.
I think the system that Germany uses for municipal elections (as I explained in the Midterms thread before that one became about taxing billionaires out of existence) might work well for House and state legislature elections in the US if proportional representation is a hill too far.

Honestly, I don’t even disagree with you there. District manipulation absolutely creates distortions, and I understand why people get frustrated feeling like outcomes are decided before votes are even cast.

I just can’t see Germany’s system translating cleanly to America because the United States was never originally designed to function around proportional representation the way post-WWII Germany intentionally was.

That’s also part of why the Voting Rights Act became necessary. The existing system wasn’t adequately protecting equal voting participation on its own.

But here you are talking about America like it’s now some perfectly colorblind society, when this country didn’t even treat many groups of white (again I don't believe white people are actually a thing) people equally throughout large parts of its own history.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It’s easy to speak about the Voting Rights Act in the way that Derec does because he has never been on the side it was written to protect.

Isn't that the biggest conceptual flaw of that entire act?
Laws should protect the civil rights of everybody. It should not impose things like mandatory gerrymandering to achieve a kind of racial quota for one race.

Yes, it should. As a reminder, however, it took less than a month for black voters to effectively be silenced in 2026 in Tennessee after the Roberts Court decided to take shears to the Voting Rights Act. This wasn't too long ago... it was this month, so it should be fresh in your mind.

Instead, what you are doing is going full on Plessy v Ferguson. The theory over the reality, pretending separate but equal. All to protect the non-existent marginalized white voter. The result will likely mean black voters will be less represented in southern states. As of three months ago, they certainly weren't overrepresented.

Sure, the intent of the redistricting is only to marginalize the votes of Democrats in southern states. But the outcome will be to make black votes worthless in southern states. The Roberts' Court says this is okay, that the Brown v Board of Education Court was el Loco for calling a spade a spade. As egregious and immoral as the Democrat redistricting was, it merely made rural conservative voters marginalized. Whites would/will still be well represented in those states.

The actions of the Southern States right now is the exact reason why the Voting Rights Act is still necessary. But the right-wing has found a loophole and has successfully exploited it.

 

[Gospel]

Another thing worth considering is that Black political participation has historically never prevented white candidates from winning elections. So I do wonder whether arguments against the Voting Rights Act come with actual evidence of measurable harm.

But let me guess, “colorblindness” is the entire point, right?

The Voting Rights Act had a compelling reason to exist because racism was (and now once again is) an observable reality with measurable effects on voting access and representation.

“Colorblindness,” on the other hand, is more of an ideal a minority of people claim society either has achieved or can achieve, while simultaneously being used as justification to remove laws that only became necessary because society clearly had not achieved it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Another thing worth considering is that Black political participation has historically never prevented white candidates from winning elections. So I do wonder whether arguments against the Voting Rights Act come with actual evidence of measurable harm.

But let me guess, “colorblindness” is the entire point, right?

The Voting Rights Act had a compelling reason to exist because racism was (and now once again is) an observable reality with measurable effects on voting access and representation.

“Colorblindness,” on the other hand, is more of an ideal a minority of people claim society either has achieved or can achieve, while simultaneously being used as justification to remove laws that only became necessary because society clearly had not achieved it.

The Voting Rights Act recognized that the "in theory" stuff was exploitable, witnessed by a century of discrimination. So it set a bar that required the outcome to not disproportionately impact minorities... Period! It didn't have to be 'intentional'. Roberts' Court erased that and then said only if it is intentionally impacting black voters. Which was kind of okay, until the Roberts' Court ruled that Gerrymandering was completely what the Founding Fathers had in mind, unless the State Courts disagreed with it. And now disparate outcomes for black voters is perfectly fine... as long as it is for partisan reasons unless the local partisan state Supreme Court disagrees... for now.

At this rate, we are just a decade away from African Americans being found to be unconstitutional. Been nice knowing you Gospel.

 

[Gospel]

Another thing worth considering is that Black political participation has historically never prevented white candidates from winning elections. So I do wonder whether arguments against the Voting Rights Act come with actual evidence of measurable harm.

But let me guess, “colorblindness” is the entire point, right?

The Voting Rights Act had a compelling reason to exist because racism was (and now once again is) an observable reality with measurable effects on voting access and representation.

“Colorblindness,” on the other hand, is more of an ideal a minority of people claim society either has achieved or can achieve, while simultaneously being used as justification to remove laws that only became necessary because society clearly had not achieved it.

The Voting Rights Act recognized that the "in theory" stuff was exploitable, witnessed by a century of discrimination. So it set a bar that required the outcome to not disproportionately impact minorities... Period! It didn't have to be 'intentional'. Roberts' Court erased that and then said only if it is intentionally impacting black voters. Which was kind of okay, until the Roberts' Court ruled that Gerrymandering was completely what the Founding Fathers had in mind, unless the State Courts disagreed with it. And now disparate outcomes for black voters is perfectly fine... as long as it is for partisan reasons unless the local partisan state Supreme Court disagrees... for now.

At this rate, we are just a decade away from African Americans being found to be unconstitutional. Been nice knowing you Gospel.

Nice knowing you too. History does show that once governments normalize limiting rights for one group, they rarely stop there. After minorities, immigrants, and political dissidents comes, religious minorities. Then last but not least the ‘undesirable’ whites.

 

[Politesse]

Don't forget us queers! But I think religious minorities are up next actually. A massive wave of Islamophobia is on the horizon, spurred on by the openly bigoted reporting of this Iran war.

 

[Toni]

It's also telling that some folks here talk about the Voting Rights Act like it only benefited Black voters.

Many of its provisions are specifically racial. There is no requirement to gerrymander to ensure a guaranteed number of majority districts for any other group for example. I think gerrymandering is wrong either for partisan advantage nor for guaranteed representation of one favored group. And note that in practice this racial gerrymander works as backdoor partisan gerrymander favoring Democrats.

I think we need to get away from the whole concept of districts. Too much of the outcome is determined when the districts are drawn, not when the people actually get to vote. I have never voted in a Congressional election where my vote actually mattered. Nor state legislature election for that matter.
I think the system that Germany uses for municipal elections (as I explained in the Midterms thread before that one became about taxing billionaires out of existence) might work well for House and state legislature elections in the US if proportional representation is a hill too far.

I disagree. In many states, if there weren’t different districts, all representatives would come from population dense urban areas, which are already over-represented Ted and do not appreciate that non-urban areas have different t priorities and different t need—different circumstances, actually. Just as the priorities, circumstances of California are different than those in Georgia or Maine.

I don’t like gerrymandering any more than I like racism. Or attempts to favor one political party or another when drawing up district lines.

I understand why this redustricting/gerrymanderimg ‘war’ is on and I frankly see the point in areas where racial groups have long been segregated, first de jure and now de facto. There is a long long and extremely ugly history of racism in the US—and the world. Attitudes may be different today but we are still living with the skeletons, ghosts and rotting corpses left in the wake of slavery and genocide .

 

[Tigers!]

It's also telling that some folks here talk about the Voting Rights Act like it only benefited Black voters.

Many of its provisions are specifically racial. There is no requirement to gerrymander to ensure a guaranteed number of majority districts for any other group for example. I think gerrymandering is wrong either for partisan advantage nor for guaranteed representation of one favored group. And note that in practice this racial gerrymander works as backdoor partisan gerrymander favoring Democrats.

I think we need to get away from the whole concept of districts. Too much of the outcome is determined when the districts are drawn, not when the people actually get to vote. I have never voted in a Congressional election where my vote actually mattered. Nor state legislature election for that matter.
I think the system that Germany uses for municipal elections (as I explained in the Midterms thread before that one became about taxing billionaires out of existence) might work well for House and state legislature elections in the US if proportional representation is a hill too far.

I disagree. In many states, if there weren’t different districts, all representatives would come from population dense urban areas, which are already over-represented Ted and do not appreciate that non-urban areas have different t priorities and different t need—different circumstances, actually. Just as the priorities, circumstances of California are different than those in Georgia or Maine.

Need to look at the sizes of the districts or more particularly the number of noses in each district. The effects of over-representation of urban areas can be mitigated if care is taken and non-partisanship can be eliminated.

I don’t like gerrymandering any more than I like racism. Or attempts to favor one political party or another when drawing up district lines.

Do not understand why you yanks are in the misdst of an orgy of favouring one party over another. Will not solve any problems.

I understand why this redustricting/gerrymanderimg ‘war’ is on and I frankly see the point in areas where racial groups have long been segregated, first de jure and now de facto. There is a long long and extremely ugly history of racism in the US—and the world. Attitudes may be different today but we are still living with the skeletons, ghosts and rotting corpses left in the wake of slavery and genocide .

When understanding = acceptance the rot has well and truly set in.

 

[Toni]

It's also telling that some folks here talk about the Voting Rights Act like it only benefited Black voters.

Many of its provisions are specifically racial. There is no requirement to gerrymander to ensure a guaranteed number of majority districts for any other group for example. I think gerrymandering is wrong either for partisan advantage nor for guaranteed representation of one favored group. And note that in practice this racial gerrymander works as backdoor partisan gerrymander favoring Democrats.

I think we need to get away from the whole concept of districts. Too much of the outcome is determined when the districts are drawn, not when the people actually get to vote. I have never voted in a Congressional election where my vote actually mattered. Nor state legislature election for that matter.
I think the system that Germany uses for municipal elections (as I explained in the Midterms thread before that one became about taxing billionaires out of existence) might work well for House and state legislature elections in the US if proportional representation is a hill too far.

I disagree. In many states, if there weren’t different districts, all representatives would come from population dense urban areas, which are already over-represented Ted and do not appreciate that non-urban areas have different t priorities and different t need—different circumstances, actually. Just as the priorities, circumstances of California are different than those in Georgia or Maine.

Need to look at the sizes of the districts or more particularly the number of noses in each district. The effects of over-representation of urban areas can be mitigated if care is taken and non-partisanship can be eliminated.

I don’t like gerrymandering any more than I like racism. Or attempts to favor one political party or another when drawing up district lines.

Do not understand why you yanks are in the misdst of an orgy of favouring one party over another. Will not solve any problems.

I understand why this redustricting/gerrymanderimg ‘war’ is on and I frankly see the point in areas where racial groups have long been segregated, first de jure and now de facto. There is a long long and extremely ugly history of racism in the US—and the world. Attitudes may be different today but we are still living with the skeletons, ghosts and rotting corpses left in the wake of slavery and genocide .

When understanding = acceptance the rot has well and truly set in.

In the US, geographic size is not necessarily related in any way to the size of the population. But apportionment of representation IS very much dependent upon the size of the population. So in New York State, first example, there are 26 districts, each of which sends a representative to the US House of Representatives. Most of the districts are concentrated in high population areas, such as in New York City. The number of districts/representatives is determined by state population.

New York, like every other state, sends two Senators to the US Senate.

Compare this to North Dakota, a very sparsely populated state which has only one Representative, who serves at large ( represents the entire state) in the US House of Representatives plus two senators to the US Senate, just like every other state, regardless of population.

Understanding is one thing. Accepting the reality of a situation, however, is not the same thing as accepting the invite polity or the static state of a situation.

I understand enough of US history to understand, at least in part, just how racism has affected the social and political spheres of life in the US, which vary by geography, socioeconomic status, education level, age, and a number of other factors. I accept that this is the reality, however much I do not like it. I, as is every other person on earth, am unable to alter history. I would be foolish not to accept history or the current t state of affairs as fact. I would be a cowardly cynical, imo, to accept that this must needs be always the case.

I work for change. I accept the imperfect but elegant design of our government which balances treating states as equal partners through the Senate with ensuring to the extent possible equal representation of the population through the House.

It’s not perfect. But it does help ensure that the more densely populated states or areas within any state do not totally run roughshod over the more sparsely populated states/areas of states.

I’m ok with imperfect.