Squeaky wheel or divide and conquer

It was a busy week for the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, they gutted voting rights protections but on Wednesday they virtually affirmed the legality of gay marriage. The question, which could be moot, is did the court defer to the loudest voices or did they seek to play one movement against another?

It is obvious that the gay rights movement has been more vocal and visible about their right to marry than Black people have been about our right to vote. Even President Barack Obama has been more forthright about gay marriage than he has on any of the issues affecting Black people.

However, it is also clear that the gay rights movement is not likely to align itself with a voting rights movement, after its own aims have been appeased. Gays have not been a target of voter suppression. To insult one group while appeasing another could be a stroke of evil genius of the part of a seemingly clueless “High” Court.

Either way, the message for Blacks is that if we don’t get active in large numbers immediately we will see more changes that are to our detriment. Even those who have lost confidence in the electoral process need to understand that the Court’s decision last Tuesday sent a message across the nation about the rights, position and status of Black people. It is a message of tolerance, if not encouragement of racial discrimination and injustice. It is a message to Black people that we should never have gotten comfortable with the idea that written laws or government bodies would or should be the protectors of our rights and dignity.

It is true that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” and we have not been vigilant enough. If we don’t return to “active duty” in the pursuit of total liberation and total empowerment on every level, then bodies like the Supreme Court will continue our backward trek in time.

If this happens, we will all be painfully reminded of why our grandparents never referred to them as, “The good ole’ days.”

This article originally published in the July 1, 2013 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.