MAKING RACISM OFFICIAL AGAIN
WITH THE INDICTMENT of the Southern Poverty Law Center for fraud and money laundering and the Supreme Court’s gutting of Section 2 of 1965’s Voting Rights Act, Trump and his “Christian” nationalist white-supremacist administration couldn’t make it any clearer that one of their signature policy goals is re-establishing racism as part of the infrastructure of the United States.
Yes, yes, the Supreme Court is a separate branch of government. But as we’ve all seen, Chief Justice Roberts (appointed by George W. Bush), Justices Thomas and Alito (appointed by George H.W. Bush), and Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett (appointed by Donald Trump) have used their decisions to support the GOP, and this particular ruling will take voting power away from Blacks and Democrats. These justices increasingly use the “shadow docket”—rapid, often unexplained rulings on emergency motions, without oral arguments—to render decisions favoring conservative legal policy. As Esquire said, “The Court’s use of the so-called ‘shadow docket’ has become the conservative majority’s favorite workaround to kill policies it doesn’t like and support causes that it and its corporate patrons do.”
I’m not alone in having lost respect for what I had once believed to be the pinnacle of American justice, which now seems to be a pinnacle of Republican corruption. There have been a few other instances of Supreme Court duplicity in our nation’s history, but the case everyone inevitably mentions is the Dred Scott decision. Do you recall what it actually is? From the Brennan Center For Justice:
Dred Scott v. Sandford
The Court’s most infamous decision, Dred Scott escalated the debate around slavery to a fever pitch and helped push the nation toward civil war.
At the heart of the case was Dred Scott, an enslaved Black man who sued to seek emancipation for himself and his wife and child. He argued that his family had gained their freedom by living in free states as well as in territories where slavery was banned under the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
The sweeping 7–2 opinion authored by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney declared that Scott — along with all others of African descent, enslaved or free — was not a U.S. citizen and therefore lacked the right to even file a lawsuit. Taney asserted that the Constitution’s drafters considered African Americans inferior and would not have granted them the right of citizenship, leaving them unprotected by the federal government or courts.
This holding would have been damaging enough on its own, but Taney went further. He ruled that slaves were property, not citizens, stripping Congress of the authority to pass laws depriving slave owners of their human “property.”
Legal historians use the term “Self-Inflicted Wound” in regard to the Dred Scott decision because the Court, in an attempt to settle the issue of slavery through a judicial ruling, instead destroyed its own public standing and helped trigger the Civil War.
This Roberts court has knocked down its own public standing by helping Trump and the GOP reinstall racism as a beacon of the Trump presidency. Would they bring back slavery if they could? I used to think that Old Dead White Men would realize they were dead and stay out of our hair. But damn, it’s like Barry Goldwater is back as the Zombie Mascot of the GOP, while Lee Atwater is Head Cheerleader. Why is it taking so long for these bigots to become extinct?
“Did you read Alito’s opinion?” asked Robert Reich. “… I used to argue before the Supreme Court, and I read the opinion, and it’s shit. The whole thing is just bullshit. [Alito] just made stuff up. And he wasn’t even honest in saying he was gutting Section 2…They’ve gutted the entire Voting Rights Act. So the old Confederacy is back in business.”
As a result of this bogus ruling, the GOP is now scurrying around as fast as they can in states like Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, and Mississippi with others coming to redraw their congressional districts to eliminate or reconfigure districts that previously favored minority and Democratic voters.
It would be hard to convince me that there are any Republicans who aren’t racists.
***
RACISM EXISTS THROUGHOUT the world, of course, despite the fact that all humans share a common ancestor. To make it simple: Migration literally moved humans to live in different environments, and then evolution produced a rainbow of skin colors to match the conditions. Race is a social construct. But there’s far more than the color of our skin that should bring us together as fellow human beings. No child is born a racist.
I decided to ask someone without any skin at all why racism persists—I’m talking about AI. The short answer: While biological race isn’t real, racism persists because it is deeply embedded in social, psychological, and institutional structures. So every time this administration builds racism up instead of breaking it down, this gives xenophobia and fascism strength. AI included this:
Economic Interest: Historically, racist ideologies were created to justify greed and exploitation, such as slavery or colonialism. These power imbalances created hierarchies that are self-perpetuating.
Media Representation: Consistent portrayals of certain groups as inferior or as stereotypes reinforce biases in the public imagination.
Passivism: Racism persists when those who aren’t directly harmed by it remain passive, or ignore the systems that provide them with unearned advantages.
***
DONALD TRUMP’S PERSONAL and family history of racism is well-documented, and The Donald himself has made racism a hallmark of his personal brand for decades. Let’s take another trip back in time….
In 1989, Donald Trump took out full-page advertisements in four major New York newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty and for the five Black and Latino teenagers accused of the Central Park jogger assault—then called the Central Park 5 and now the Exonerated Five—to be executed. Trump spent $85,000 on these ads, calling for the teenagers to be punished despite their claims of coercion.
These men filed a defamation lawsuit which stemmed from comments Trump made during a September 2024 presidential debate against Kamala Harris. The plaintiffs alleged Trump knowingly made false and defamatory statements by claiming: They pleaded guilty to the 1989 Central Park assault (they actually pleaded not guilty and maintained their innocence); and that they killed someone during the attack (the victim, Trisha Meili, survived).
While they have not yet won a judgment against Trump personally—his legal team has failed at getting this case dismissed—the Exonerated Five previously received a $41 million settlement from New York City in 2014 for wrongful conviction and civil rights violations.
***
COMING FROM A Southern family of lawyers and non-racist Yellow Dog Democrats, I admired the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as soon as I heard about it. This is their reason for being:
The SPLC was founded in 1971 to ensure that the promise of the civil rights movement became a reality for all.
By the late 1960s, the civil rights movement had ushered in the promise of racial equality as new federal laws and decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court ended Jim Crow segregation. But resistance was strong, and these laws had not yet brought the fundamental changes needed in the South.
African Americans were still excluded from good jobs, decent housing, public office, a quality education and a range of other opportunities. There were few places for the disenfranchised and the poor to turn for justice. Enthusiasm for the civil rights movement had waned, and few lawyers in the South were willing to take controversial cases to test new civil rights laws.
I’m good with any fight for justice. It’s in my blood. My mother always said that I should’ve been a lawyer because, like my trial-lawyer father, I was such a worthy arguer. But I became a writer instead. Before that, I earned a Master of Social Work degree. My longest gig in that field was as Clinic Director of a small, rural mental health center. Honestly, and I don’t mean this disrespectfully (😉), I came to think that my patients weren’t nearly as bizarre as the people I worked with. If you know, you know. But I digress….
So why did Trump’s DOJ go after the Southern Poverty Law Center? “Officially,” the SPLC was indicted on April 21, 2026, on 11 counts including wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering related to its use of paid informants within extremist groups.
As reported by The Guardian: A justice department lawyer working in Todd Blanche’s office pressured prosecutors to file criminal charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) despite their concerns about the strength of the case, a whistleblower told House Democrats.
The lawyer, Aakash Singh, reportedly “ordered” federal prosecutors in Alabama “to rush through the indictment of the SPLC, despite serious concerns about the strength of the case.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D. Maryland) and Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D. Pennsylvania) launched an inquiry into what they called “this politically motivated prosecution.” The political motivation was obvious to most of us from the start. Now, for the mid-terms, it’s very clear that we also need the apathetic voters, the swing voters, and the don’t-vote voters to come along with us—which a chunk of them are primed to do. But Democrats have to start showing that they’re willing to do more than talk us to death.
With everything we’ve seen from Trump and his enablers, we understand that what they’re really trying to kill with this SPLC indictment is the actual reason the Southern Poverty Law Center was founded in the first place.
In 1979, the SPLC launched the “Klanwatch” project (now Hatewatch) to monitor white supremacist and hate group activity. If you’ve followed their work at all, you’ve been both shocked and enlightened to discover just how many hate groups exist across this country. And the fact that the SPLC rooted their work in racial justice issues in the American South is as it should be, and as a Southerner, I’m proud of that.
Our work is grounded in the South, where the legacy of civil rights history still informs our struggle for racial equity. We are steadfast in our commitment to listening to and learning from Black and Brown communities most profoundly affected by white supremacy.
But it’s not just the South we’re talking about. And it couldn’t be more obvious that one of the most powerful hate group leaders in this country is living in the White House in Washington, D.C. The fact that Trump and his white supremacist soldiers are trying to convince the public that poor little white men are discriminated against by DEI policies is a pathetic joke. Boo hoo hoo. These undemocratic, unpatriotic Americans have done their best to get rid of Black men and women—and white women—in any and all positions of authority. Pete Hegseth, I’m looking at you. And what about you attorneys who have carried out these motions that you knew were basically illegal, unconstitutional, and just plain wrong?
I find it disgusting as well as horrifying. The fact that this has happened in the United States of America is unbelievable, but here we are.
Our job is to fight this racism with anti-racism everywhere we can, and it’s our obligation to ensure equal protection and equity in every way we can. That includes supporting organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center.
I’m in. Are you?
Thanks for reading.
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And on this one especially: I’d love to hear from you. Where do you see racism being rebuilt into American life—and where do you see antiracism still holding the line?
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Pull up a chair. We have work to do.
SECRET ENDING…The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama is referred to as the "lynching museum." It was created by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) to document the 4,400+ African Americans lynched between 1877 and 1950. Every American should see this. These are photos I took when I was there.
Thank you for mentioning the Southern Poverty Law Center's recent transparency around fraud - I have yet to see anyone start talking about it online.
Sent an email at 6:12 this morning to HJUDCONSTITUTIONALLAWS@SCHOUSE.GOV opposing redistricting or redrawing before primaries in June and general in November. They are meeting now. 🤯🤬