WHY WE MUST FIGHT GERRYMANDERING
These days, there’s a lot of contentious conversation about individual freedoms, including the choice not to wear a mask or get vaccinated during a global pandemic that has killed more than three-quarters of a million Americans. The anti-vaxxers would rather risk infecting strangers, friends and loved ones with a deadly virus than allow everyone else the freedom to live virus-free. Concurrently, conspiracy theories abound, like the “Great Replacement Theory,” which promulgates a fear some White people have about becoming outnumbered by people of color.
What is this fear all about? African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans have been and continue to be outnumbered by White people, yet their political representatives aren’t invested in disenfranchising their citizens through gerrymandering. Nor are they fomenting a violent insurrection to overturn our democratic presidential election. People of color have never been so privileged that they would attempt en masse to violently overthrow our government. We all know what would have happened to them on Jan. 6 had they tried.
While many of us take our democracy for granted, how can any of us be free when it is being systematically dismantled? Why aren’t folks as emphatic about the right of all citizens to vote in a free and fair election as they are about owning a weapon of mass destruction? How do right-wing extremists reconcile their claims to value life, freedom of choice and small government with mandates from their political leaders that schools and private businesses not comply with mask use and mass vaccination to protect themselves and their users from the coronavirus that causes COVID-19?
The selective outrage of those steeped in partisan and cultural tribalism seems to dissipate when someone else’s rights are usurped. Texas lawmakers recently passed laws that adversely impact the votes of Black and Brown people. They also put the kibosh on a woman’s constitutional right to choose an abortion. In their minds, “my body, my choice” applies to mask-wearing and vaccine mandates but not to a woman’s right to decide on personal health matters. No matter your inclination on the abortion issue, these unpatriotic efforts to disenfranchise citizens and impose personal religious beliefs upon others is the antithesis of individual autonomy and could set a precedence for tampering with the Second Amendment right of gun ownership. Somehow, I don’t see Texas going along with that infringement.
In case your history lessons left this part out, you should know that there has been a longstanding, wickedly pervasive depiction of Black people and other people of color as less than deserving, as less than American, as less than human. The increased prevalence of non-White people in TV commercials and print media you’ve likely noticed of late underscores the wholesale underrepresentation in our national discourse of those historically considered as “others.”
Throughout the decades, members of marginalized communities have fought for their constitutional rights in piecemeal fashion, hoping to be recognized as citizens entitled to the same rights and privileges as their White counterparts because individual freedom has not uniformly been afforded to those deemed inferior from the start. Yet amid mounting volatile sentiments about self-determination and the ever-expanding cauldron of conspiracy theories, a newfound victimhood has surfaced on the part of those who liken their supposed oppression to that which Black people faced during the Jim Crow era.
It’s highly insulting to the descendants of slaves to hear those privileged at birth claim to be beset with anything akin to one of this country’s most foul legacies whose history right-wing extremists fervently attempt to repress. Try being falsely accused of rape and strung up on a tree. Try serving in a war for a country that suppresses your eligibility for the G.I. Bill of Rights. Try being stopped at an airline gate and questioned about your presence in the first-class line after the White woman ahead of you passed through without incident.
How would you fare in an environment filled with such demoralization day in, day out?
The road to fairness and parity has been and remains a long haul. Our feet are tired, and we’ve got a lengthy trek ahead. Gerrymandering and conspiracy theories are the latest roadblocks to navigating toward a more equitable society in which all citizens enjoy free will and independence. Now more than ever, we must keep putting one foot before the other.
While many of us take our democracy for granted, no one can be free when it is being dismantled.