The Supreme Court is Out of Touch

How the highest court in the land worked against Blacks and now females.

When the Supreme Court reveal who they are, believe them for the truth speaks for itself. The Supreme Court has always been plagued by biases. Blacks have always had to fight for every ounce of freedom and rights now afforded to many in this America, the land of the free.

Voting rights for Blacks and the John Lewis bill have fallen on deaf ears and BPOC across the country have been forced to come up with alternatives so that BPOC and the young are afforded their constitutional rights. Racist white folks have made it their life’s pursuit to hold on to power while denying others their equal rights.

Now America finds itself at the helm fighting another constitutional right being snatched away from women and girls. This dominated patriarchial society’s goal appears to be to keep old white men in power and suppress the rights of any others that do not fall into their little category.

Of course, the men-dominated Supreme Court consist of old white men whose agenda is not for the betterment of the people but all about some hidden agenda and of late, associated with the former president’s administration. It is not difficult to look around and see the reality of what is happening with the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court on other occasions has rescinded basic rights pertaining to the Black Americans’ experience after the Civil War. So learning about what has recently happened with the Roe vs Wade decision banning abortion across the country is just another nail in their coffin of not caring about the people. The Supreme Court justices are so polluted as they have shown that the American citizen especially females don’t matter. One politician openly stated that women should not be in the workforce but at home.

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a landmark ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. The Dobbs decision ended federal protections for abortion and it was not the first time the Supreme Court rescinded an established fundamental right.

Blacks fought for civil and voting rights and lost many at the hands of the Supreme Court. Some of these rights were fought for again and took decades to regain while others remained lost at the hands of the Supreme Court.

This recent ruling brings up how the Supreme Court has done the same thing to Blacks in the past after the Civil War ended in 1865, during Reconstruction. The Reconstruction era was a period that followed the Civil War (1861 -1865) and lasted from 1865 to 1877 which marked a significant chapter in the history of civil rights in the United States.

The Reconstruction era was directed by Congress which abolished slavery and ended the remnants of Confederate secession in the Southern states. It gave newly freed slaves citizens (approximate 4 million) the same civil rights as those of whites under the 13th, 14th, and 15th Constitutional Amendments. Blacks were afforded equal protection under the law, the right to vote for Black men, and the passage by Congress of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 that prohibited race discrimination in public accommodations.

In the midst of Blacks being granted equal rights under the Constitution, and as the change began to take root, white southerners started a violent campaign in the late 1860s to overthrow the biracial government that had worked together to implement the rights for Blacks.

This southern white coalition seized power for white Democrats with the goal of augmenting the federal laws that gave Black people equal rights which were probably truly never equal in every sense of the word. Southern wealthy whites formed the “cooperationist” approach to seize power from the Blacks. They justified their violence by saying that Blacks were violent and they intended to end alleged corruption among Black politicians. Their stance led to more extreme measures as they sought to end all Black participation in political and social life equal to that of white people.

Again, like the modern-day overturning of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court work with the wealthy rationale ending Blacks’ equal rights and protection under the law of the constitution. In 1876, the court ruled that the 15th Amendment did not grant any individual the right to vote.

In 1883, the court struck down the 1875 Civil Rights Act and upheld that the 13th and 14th Amendments did not give Congress the power to outlaw acts of racial discrimination. This ruling put the power in each state to protect the rights of Black people. This ideology was far from the truth of the matter. As a matter of fact, quite the opposite where most southern states fought to deny Blacks their civil and voting rights.

With all the obstruction taking away the rights of Blacks, in 1870, Alonzo J. Ransier, one of the first Black congressmen from South Carolina was the state’s first elected lieutenant governor. His position gave him the power to secure educational, voting, and civil rights for formerly enslaved people. By the time he died, he was a forgotten street cleaner and those rights he fought for were gone.

After the Civil War, there was progress where there were a thousand Black elected officials and several Black members of Congress but by 1901, there were no Black members of Congress.

Fast forward to the future, today across the country there are millions of women and girls protesting the conservative Supreme Court reversing abortion rights that had been granted. The outcry is resounding and can be heard and seen worldwide. The public at large is making their voices heard and the ballot boxes are the end result leading to change in anti-abortion laws. Changes of this magnitude take time.

For Blacks, it took 50 years after the Plessy decision, for the Blacks to regain their equal rights amid the civil rights movement, the Supreme Court ruled segregation to be unconstitutional in Brown vs. Board of Education, and Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 along with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The voices of the women, girls, men and even a catholic priest chimed in about the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. The mass majority of Americans support the freedom of choice for women and with some limitations. The ballot boxes have confirmed that women are demanding their freedom of choice, and their reproductive choices.

This struggle will continue as some states reckon with the freedom to choose and other states are in total denial of women to choose under any circumstances. The latter effect can be primarily found in red GOP states. This fight like the civil rights voting rights fight will be ongoing until all people have rights outside of the ruling of the conservative Supreme Court.

Reproductive choices should not be in the hands of the government to choose, when and why a woman or girl can have an abortion. That choice is between the participant and God, not a bunch of old white men out of touch with reality. Never judge a person until you have walked in their shoes a mile. The Supreme Court needs a reality check like yesterday.

The Supreme Court has given the power to conservative GOP politicians to voice their support for a national abortion ban, limits on contraception, recriminalizing gay sex, and banning same-sex marriage once more. Their intent is indicative of their rulings.

In conclusion, all people, women, men, and children need to see the handwriting on the walls of the conservative Supreme Court overturning Americans’ constitutional rights. The reconstruction era is a testament to how extreme the Supreme Court can lean toward the extreme right taking away the rights of others unlike themselves. When someone shows you who they are believe them, when they show you where they have been, you know where they are headed, watch them, and vote at all times. All Americans deserve equal rights and America should not be backtracking.

For additional reads: