"Our country has changed," writes Chief Justice Roberts, "and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions."
Justice Roberts is right--partly. Things have changed. I am old enough to remember when our local pharmacy had a lunch counter. And why it never occurred to me why I never saw a Black person sitting there. That's just the way it was. Until that night I was watching the evening news, dutifully waiting, I kid you not, for the Lone Ranger to come on, and witnessed Black students being beaten by an angry white mob for doing what I took for granted: setting down at the lunch counter. That's not a scene our girls grew up with. So, Mr. Justice Roberts, you are correct. "Our country has changed..," but only partially so. And not nearly enough. We've a ways to go yet.
Fast forward to MSNBC internet page. Top left corner headline: "Justices strike down key part of 1965 Voting Rights Act." Move down to lower right hand side of the page where there's a picture of this really cute little girl with the caption: "Cheerios ad backlash inspires new campaign for interracial families."
"...Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions." Well, let me suggest that these two articles reflect "current conditions."
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires that nine states, mostly but not entirely in the South (it also applies to 12 cities and 57 counties elsewhere) with a history of racial discrimination get approval from Congress or a special panel of judges before making any changes to voting rights laws. This is the key provision the Supreme Court tossed out. Wrongly, I think.
Why? Well, the Cheerios ad is telling. Seems the ad brought out the racism that yet remains. The ad, you see, shows an interracial family enjoying breakfast fare that, in my humble opinion, probably doesn't have much more nutritional value than the box it comes in. But I digress. Apparently all sorts of people raised hell about Cheerios daring to portray an interracial family to sell their cardboard.
Really..? Surely, you jest!? I guess I live in a bubble. Surely, we have made more progress than this! Surely the good justice is right. We have changed more than this, haven't we?
Mr. Justice Roberts is right--partly. We have come a long way. No doubt about that. Those of us who came of age in those critical decades that gave rise to the Voting Rights Act remember all too well what was. We know what now is, and what took place over those years to get us where we are today.
Things have changed. But when a cereal ad brings out some of the worst impulses in human nature, things have not changed enough; not nearly enough. This is the point the Court missed, badly.
One day mom and I were having lunch down at that pharmacy. As we were walking the couple of blocks back to our three room apartment my father and grandfather had built beside our grandparent's house down on Princeton Circle, I asked her, "Mom, what did that sign on the wall mean? The one that said something about "We reserve the right to refuse to serve anyone."
Times change. People, some of them anyway, change with them. Others don't. Relatively speaking, it's easy to take down the sign on the wall. Yet there are those who still let it hang upon their hearts.
Which is why the Court got this one wrong... big time. And why the struggle must continue.
