Double Standard (If There’s A Standard At All…)

In an eloquent Letter to the GOP John McWhorter makes a compelling argument (everything he writes seems to be eloquent and compelling) that the Republicans should cease and desist with all efforts, in every election, to suppress the Democratic votes. Such efforts, he notes, are seen by blacks as racist, not partisan.

Yes, I am aware that there is a difference between racism and cynicism. It is revolting but not exactly flabbergasting that people seeking to shave off as many Democratic votes as possible often would focus on the race that votes most consistently Democratic in one election after another. Claims that the core idea is just to keep blacks from voting ignore, for instance, that the version of the game in Maryland last week was to use literature to mislead Democrats into mistakenly voting Republican. This anti-Democrat voter fraud is indefensible, but not racist.

Or, at least not in any way that I find meaningful. However, it might not surprise you that for many blacks, the simple fact of the disproportionate impact of the tricks on blacks renders the distinction between conniving and bigotry a hairsplitting one.

I don’t doubt that McWhorter is right. Even efforts to suppress Democratic votes that are inspired by nothing other than partisanship have a disparate impact on blacks, and thus are viewed as racist.

I also agree with him that any effort to suppress any votes for whatever reason is indefensible. But it is no defense of voter suppression, or of “disparate impact” theory in any circumstance, to note that when the invisible line between partisanship and race works to benefit the Democrats, those who assume race explains everything about voting are not only silent; they affirm the opposite conclusion.

I am thinking, for example, of racial gerrymandering, particularly the long battle over the oddly shaped 12th district of North Carolina that I discussed here, here, here, and here. In those cases, in which Justice O’Connor opposed racial gerrymandering (Shaw v. Reno) before she supported them (Hunt v. Cromartie), the Court wound up concluding (in Cromartie, after Justice O’Connor switched sides), to quote myself, that “racial gerrymandering is not racial gerrymandering when its predominant purpose is partisan, i.e., to elect Democrats.” Or, as I noted here, in Cromartie

[t]he Democrats successfully argued to the Supremes … that, because blacks so reliably vote Democratic, it is political and not racial to create Democratic districts by packing blacks into them.

But, not to be constrained by what Emerson called “the hobgoblin of little minds,” i.e., consistency, in the recent Texas redistricting dispute the Democrats argued that (as I argued in the post linked immediately above)

if Republicans want to create Republican districts by holding down the numbers of Democratic/black voters, that is racist, bigoted white supremacy.

None of which is to say that McWhorter’s advice to the GOP isn’t good. But it is to suggest, sadly, that the Republicans will be accused of racism whatever they do.