This Country is Headed into a New Jim Crow Era

Recent social and political activities and events have convinced me that this country is headed into a new Jim Crow era. All of the signs are there.

Let me first explain where the phrase “Jim Crow” may have come from. In the 1700s, southern farmers wanted to protect their corn from flying crows so they would dip the corn in alcohol. Then the crows, upon eating it, would become drunk. The drunk crows would stagger around. Then the framer would take a Jimmy crowbar, (a term that came from England and was something that was used to force open a locked door) and beat the crows to death with it.

Some Southern white people believed that Black men behaved like staggering drunken crows who could not stay on their feet all the time. That is why they became known as Jim-Crow laws.

The evidence cannot be ignored: the US is heading into a second Jim-Crow segregation era.

The Jim Crow era started with four main events. The very first event happened in 1857 with Dred Scott, an enslaved man who wanted his freedom. His enslaver took him to the Midwest, where enslavement was illegal. Dred Scott sued for freedom and took it to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court made a decision that has impacted the Black community ever since. The Dred Scott decision stated that no Black man has any rights that a white man has to respect.

The court said that the Constitution was never meant for Black people, that Black people are not US citizens, and do not have rights and privileges that the Constitution affords white men.

The second event that impacted and created the Jim Crow era was the election of 1876, with the Republicans wanting the White House and the Democrats wanting the South. A group of white men, in a backroom of Congress, smoking cigars — decided that the Republicans would remove troops from the South permitting laws that allowed discriminatory and oppressive practices, and in exchange, the Democrats would get the presidency. The Republicans betrayed its Black constituency (who were mostly Republican at the time because of Abraham Lincoln) and turned the South over to the racist white clan which was the Democratic party at the time. This is where, when Republicans say it was a Republican that freed the enslaved, I often reply, it was Republicans that threw the Black community into the Jim Crow era.

On January 6, 2021, when Republicans attempted to overturn and not certify the election results, they were basically trying to repeat that backroom deal. Ted Cruz even mentioned that election as a solution.

The third event that took place during the Jim Crow era was the lie that the slave amendments would help the Black community. The first part of the 13th amendment was devastating to Black women as it left Black women out as full citizens in the Constitution. The second half of the 13th amendment allowed for de facto slavery as Southern white democrats wanted to be able to re-enslave Black men by imprisoning them. They wrote, as part of the amendment, that if you lost your freedom due to a crime you have lost your right to be paid for your own labor. This practice remains today.

The fourth event was the Supreme Court decision Plessy V Ferguson in 1896 — a decision that solidified the constitutionality of segregation by allowing states to ignore the equal protection laws for Black people.

Those four main events, happening over decades, devastated the Black community.

Those four events are reoccurring right now. The Supreme Court over the last 10 years has made two devastating decisions that are destroying the Black community and basically has said that no Black person has any rights that a white person has to respect.

The first decision was in 2010 when the Supreme Court decided that businesses are people too. “Corporate personhood” allowed businesses to pour money into Republican parties to defeat any and every Black candidate they could. It allowed them to not have to admit that they put money into these political races, and it allowed them to create state legislatures and laws that benefit their business over the bodies of Black people. They created laws through an organization called American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — a legislative organization that passed laws like concealed carry and stand your ground.

The second recent decision of the Supreme Court took the life out of the Voting Rights Act when it gutted Section 4b from the Act. This was equivalent to the election of 1876. The Supreme Court turned the Voting Rights Act over to the Southern states and the Southern states are now doing, once again, what they did in the 1800s by creating laws that disenfranchise Black people.

Once they changed or destroyed the Voting Rights Act, Southern states started putting in draconian laws that will suck the lifeblood out of the Black community. The Republican Party has once again betrayed the Black community. Moderate Democrats have once again betrayed the Black community. Individuals like Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin who continue to support their white Republican friends versus supporting the Democrats are setting up the second Jim Crow. They can be directly blamed for this new Jim Crow.

While Southern states are enacting voting rights laws that are absolutely similar to and even sound like the laws from the 1800s that prevented Black people from voting — even calling it the “purity of the ballot box” which comes right out of the 1800s.

The Black community is in great danger.

All the signs are there. We are headed into a deeper, more racist segregated country. Black people are already second-class citizens in areas like income inequality, heath care, and housing inequality, to mention just a few.

The patterns have repeated themselves. In the 1800s, there were some Black people who supported these segregation laws. There were Black people who supported eugenics laws and who supported the efforts to keep other Black people enslaved.

In the 1800s, there was a Black man who would dig up the graves of the enslaved and send the bones to white medical students. In 2021, in Philadelphia, they literally dug up the bones of Black babies from the 1980 Philadelphia MOVE bombing. The police department in Philadelphia literally bombed a Black separatist group’s apartment building, killing Black babies just like they did in Tulsa 100 years ago. Only recently has the media begun to talk about those things.

Medical students, this year alone, in Philadelphia were experimenting and learning their craft on these dead Black babies, just like in the 1800s.

We are headed into a new Jim Crow era. All the signs are there — except this time we can do something about it. Here are a few steps that can be taken:

Moderate white people need to stop supporting Elizabeth Chaney. She is no different than Donald Trump. A white person and a moderate Republican who still believes and supports these new laws that are sweeping the country. I do not care if it is Donald Trump or Liz Chaney — it’s the laws that are wrong, not the fight between Republicans.

The media needs to stop reporting on this stupid fight over the Republican party and start reporting more on the policies of all the Republicans. That’s the real problem.

This new Jim Crow era can be stopped if conservative Black men in the South stop supporting a racist Republican party. I am sick of seeing Black republicans on television talking about saving the Republican party. Yes, I am talking to the Black Michael Steele (I say the Black Michael Steele because there is a white Michael Steele) who talks about a racist Republican party with concern. Michael Steele that makes you a racist; that makes you hating Black people when you know the Republican party is moving forward and trying to destroy the voting rights of the Black community across the country. The only way to stop them is to stop voting for them and to leave that party and its policies altogether. The longer you stay, the more you resemble Clarence Thomas. Right now, there is no difference between you and him.

These laws can be stopped if moderate and independent people, great people, Republican people vote Democrat and vote these other people out of office.

The only way to stop this new Jim Crow era is to:

· End the filibuster now.

· Keep the democrats in the White House.

· Give the Senate and the House of Representatives to the Democrats.

That is the only way. There is no middle ground. You cannot be Republican and say you respect voting rights. The line has been drawn.

The Supreme Court simply has allowed this racism and new segregation era to re-ignite, but it can be stopped.

These new voting laws are trying to stop the Black vote, every law that has been passed basically states that no Black person has any voting rights that a white person has to respect. Some of these states have even passed laws that say judges can overturn legitimate elections. That’s why the Senate passes so many conservative judges — not just Roe V Wade. They can now steal elections. Mitch McConnell ended the filibuster for approving all the judges. They can do it to end the new Jim Crow Laws. It is time for good people of all races, creeds, and colors to truly stand up and vote these racist people out of office.

We can and must stop the new Jim Crow now before it gets worse.