via Flickr
Black voters in Mississippi are suing the state for being racist. Well, plenty of states are racist in their own ways, but Mississippi actually has JIM CROW-ERA laws that still hold Black people back, and the way it works is one big trick.
It works like this: a candidate for governor must win the popular vote AND the majority of the house districts or else the state House picks the governor. How convenient.
As the lawsuit states, “‘[T]he vast majority of the House districts have a majority-white population that can easily outvote the smaller number of highly concentrated African-American majority districts.”
This is straight up GERRYMANDERING. Political maps were drawn and districts expose the discrimination built into the election processes that are supposed to be fair but AREN’T.
White supremacists designed the rules around elections - in Mississippi and other states, too.
ThinkProgess explains the voters suing are “represented by a foundation affiliated with former Attorney General Eric Holder’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which is tasked with pushing for fair election maps.” As elections approach, let’s hope they WIN!
Laws like this came to be because white people didn’t want Black America to rise to the occasion and build political power. We can see based on the current political environment that that scheme is still working against us. The only solution is to FIGHT BACK!