In a 6-3 decision along partisan lines, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the last remaining powerful provision of the 1965 civil rights law that prevents racial discrimination in voting. Section 2 helped ensure, at times, that minority voters would be treated fairly in redistricting and access to the voting booth.

Continuing its attack on democracy, and its unconstitutional and anti-worker support for racism under the guise of race blindness, Justice Alito wrote for the Supreme Court majority:

Allowing race to play any part in government decision-making represents a departure from the constitutional rule that applies in almost every other context. Compliance with section 2 thus could not justify the state’s use of race-based redistricting here. The state’s attempt to satisfy the middle district’s ruling, although understandable, was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

Acting to address the material impacts of systemic racism is, in Alito and the majority’s opinion, racist. The logic is circular and disconnected from reality. Race blindness in an economic system built on racism and the oppression of working people is used as a justification for continuing racist policies and behaviors. Starting with Ronald Reagan, this flimsy logic has been used to justify racist attacks against Black and brown communities.

Race blindness is a rationale used to justify the continuing attack on voting rights, and on all attempts to repair real existing racial disparities in who has a voice in the political and economic life of the United States. Capitalism is maintained by the billionaire class, who spread racist ideologies of division and discord in the working class. These ideas, and their implementation in law and in norms of behavior, have to be, and are being, challenged.

Working people, including white, Black, brown, Asian, and LGBTQ+ folks, and women are challenged to consider how to incorporate, as central to all people’s struggles, the struggle for democracy, for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and for a political system that brings the voices of the masses of people to the ears of the rich without distortions through gerrymandering, voter ID laws and other voter suppression tactics.

We must unite and fight, Black and white — and all races — together, to expand labor and community leadership in the struggle for a just economy, society, and political system that works for all the people instead of only for the billionaires. Working together, we can pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and start to restore some of the needed protections for voting rights.

End the horror of “race blindness” now! Resist!

Images: Marchers holding signs demanding the right to vote at the March on Washington by Marion S. Trikosko on Unsplash. Unspalsh license.