As always, the Supreme Court has weighed in against all progress from anyone who is not 1) white, 2) male, 3) Christian.
The two recent decisions by the court that are head-scratchingly dumb definitely fit this mold.
High schoolers have been told for YEARS that they need to have a college degree to become “someone”. And millions flocked to colleges and universities and took on debt they didn’t fully understand to do so. After all, their parents were able to do that and live a semi-comfortable life. The corporations, because by this time there were corporations out for all the money they could get, hiked interest rates and made them compoundable. I have read reports of people who have been paying diligently for years, and they owe more than they took out at the beginning. What is this except for a cat-and-mouse game that enriches corporations?
Joe Biden promised to end some student debt. Unsurprisingly, the corporations objected, as did the politicians in their pockets. The meritless case made its way to the Supreme Court and debt forgiveness was struck down.
And people are mad at Joe Biden? For not being able to deliver on a campaign promise? Don’t blame him, blame those who stopped the program.
Definitely don’t allow this disappointment to be the reason that you don’t vote. After all, women have been doing this for years. Have a disappointment, stiffen up the upper lip, and go on. But what are we women to the Supreme Court but second-class citizens who are not worth the control over our own bodies? Especially if we are white and Christian. How else would the decreasing birth rate be changed? But only if we are white and Christian, women from other countries need not apply.
The second spurious decision was to strike down affirmative action. This was an admittedly problematic solution to a problem that they made.
Affirmative action, as written, was written to improve the employment and education for members of a minority group. To try to counterbalance years and years and years of selective admission to universities. The ones who had been getting into universities? White people. Specifically white men.
Affirmative action was a path to balance. A clumsy path, to be sure, but a path.
Immediately it was unpopular with the people who perceived they were being “robbed”. If the last 8 years have taught us nothing else, the persecution angle is HOT, HOT, HOT. Even if there is no persecution of white, Christian males. If you tell them and convince them there is, you can do anything.
There has been a nearly 60-year crusade to end affirmative action. Finally, after tilting at windmills for so long, they finally found the right lever. Affirmative action is no more for universities. Don’t worry, this will trickle down to all the other things affirmative action has touched in the last 60 years: employment, other schools that are not universities, and the like.
But, the Asian Americans who brought the suit that toppled affirmative action, what is going to be blamed next when you STILL don’t get into the universities? Perhaps the idea of affirmative action, although problematic, was not the real problem all along.
Now what?
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 