Pendulum

As we watched John Lewis’s casket cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge today — a tearful event itself — I couldn’t help but think of what the Supreme Court did a little over seven years ago.

It was in June of 2013 when the Supreme Court gutted one of the most important articles within the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This particular article was designed to ensure that those states with long histories of discrimination against minorities had to receive approval from the Justice Department before enacting any changes to their voting laws and procedures. This approval was only granted upon proof from these states that any changes they wished to make were not discriminatory.

Now those provisions in that law have been gutted. Instead of the states needing to provide that level of proof that burden is now placed on the shoulders of the voters to prove they have been discriminated against in their abilities to vote.

This is one law that John Lewis played an instrumental role in bringing to light. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 cleared the way forward to help ensure that all voices were heard. It was one tiny step forward in the history of all the racial disparities that have plagued this country for over 400 years. And now that law has been rendered impotent. Barely useful in the plights of our Black brothers and sisters in this struggle to be social and economic equals in this country.

And the gutting of the act is due to a bunch of old racist, bigoted, hateful white men won’t tolerate the browning of American. A process they cannot stop and it angers them to the point of violence. Racial violence that has been a part of this white dominance since Columbus butchered the native peoples of Indies.

I never thought that I had as much true hate in my heart as I do right now. But I do for these bigots in our government and in the body politic. I hate them with all my heart and soul. They are corrupt beyond redemption.

And that word — redemption — is one they so often use in their beliefs. A word they hear or read every time they pick up their beloved Bibles; a word that enables them to feel good about their inhumanity to others as they walk out of their places of worship every Sunday, only to go on conducting their ludicrous concepts of Christian values; values that place them above others — particularly Blacks. That is their vision of social and economic justice and it is supported by the most racist administration and congress in the history of this nation.

In the end, however long it takes, these racists will lose and their ugliness and the violence they continue to perpetrate will be pushed back into the dark caves where they belong.

John Lewis spent his life fighting for this truth. Those who followed him, those of us who believe in that same truth will also win.

The pendulum swings slowly now. And as aggravating as that is we must let our voices be heard, we must always be involved in that “good trouble” as John Lewis was so fond of saying.