I’m Not Shocked.
Wow. Just wow.
I can’t claim to be shocked by what the Supreme Court does anymore. We’ve been heading down this road for a long time. The overturn of an almost 50-year law like Roe vs Wade last year made it plain that everything was on the chopping block. Literally, everything. So, yesterday’s decision to gut Affirmative Action just continues to demonstrate that there is a concerted effort to reverse efforts that benefit all Americans.
In my opinion, because I clearly cannot speak for all BIPOC — we do have some Anti-Affirmative Action folks among us, watching this reversal in real time is another purposeful action that supports the dumbing down of America. For lovers of education, like me, this is an extremely sad situation! While I am sure the Justices in the majority who voted to gut this law may say that the argument to overturn AA was sufficient, I will argue that they know the outcome will almost immediately cause a decrease in acceptance rates for BIPOC at higher education institutions across this country. Subsequently, the same outcome will plague companies as they seek to hire new employees. Recruiters in both sectors will review resumes from all across racial lines, and will gravitate towards candidates that have terms or ideologies that resonate with their backgrounds including legacy (alma maters and employers), fraternal memberships, athletics, etc. They will miss the point that having a diverse workforce builds on knowledge, perspectives, and ways you approach problems and find solutions that work for everyone, not just one segment of the country, and by extension, the world.
This was an intentional reversal. Simply put, it falls in line with how redlining keeps some segments of our communities from voting in a fair and decent manner. It falls in line with how some segments of our communities get better education than others, get better jobs than others. Even when everyone pays their share of taxes, wealthier communities (that typically pay less in taxes) get upgraded infrastructure, their children get better schools, jobs get built in nearby neighborhoods. Poorer and BIPOC communities typically get the leftovers and have to travel farther for work, decreasing time at home to be with their families. We’ve seen this before, and yet, those in wealthier communities will decry that if everyone will do their fair share, “pull themselves up by the bootstraps”, get off welfare, etc., the country will be better. This is a nasty, vicious, and purposeful cycle.
It has been said before and I’m saying it again: we don’t have a problem with lack in this country, we have a problem with access. Why is it so hard to see that if everyone has the same (EQUAL) access to education, healthcare, jobs, etc., that we will have communities that will have the same knowledgeable, healthy, and wealthy constituents? The answer is that it isn’t hard to see. There are people in power who refuse to acknowledge this fact, and they are actively working to keep people as “sheeple”. They don’t want us to know, be aware, dare I say be “woke” to anything that causes us to think about our situations. We can make sense of this situation and do better as a nation, but we have a leadership that doesn’t want better and will destroy everything to keep us in the dark. It is no accident that books are being banned, that libraries are being attacked and/or closed, that journalists are being attacked and/or murdered. Knowledge is power — it always has been. It doesn’t make sense to want an uneducated society, yet here we are!
While this is one more grossly exhausting thing for us to deal with, our only option is to exist — to live, breathe, stand in our truth. Every breath is an act of resistance, so advocating for violence or even writing the word “fight” is unnecessary. BIPOC, especially Black people, know that our skin color is considered a threat. So, my standing in a voting line will always vex someone. What can I say? Stay mad. I’m here. As one greater than me said, “I Am”.
