One picture to capture American politics

I am unsure what photo better represents the state of US politics than this one.

In case you don’t know, the black man in this photo is Justin Pearson. He is—correctly—defending his brother from being manhandled by the barbarous, mustachioed oaf to his left. Pearson, a state representative from Tennessee, and his brother were protesting the decision of the Tennessee state government to fully vacate all pretenses of representative Democracy via its decision to redraw the state’s House districts so that new Tennessean who is a Democrat can become a US Congressperson.

This photo was captured in the hellish halo of the decision this morning by the Virginia Supreme court to disallow the state to proceed with eliminating all but on Republican district. Both states’ decisions to reconstitute their House districts come on the heel of the calamitous ruling by the SCOTUS ruling on Lousiana v. Callais, which in no uncertain terms eviscerated the last pillar of the Voting Rights Act by allowing states to, in effect, racially gerrymander their House districts without fear of lawsuits standing in the way. This is because the ruling of SCOTUS suggests that plaintiffs in such lawsuits would need to prove that a state’s districts were redrawn explicitly with the intent to be racially discriminatory. The previous test to determine such facts was the effect of a district’s reconstruction, not its intent.

In response to the ruling by SCOTUS, a who’s-who of former Confederate states chose to immediately begin the process of explicit Federal disenfranchisement of the majority of its Black populations by redrawing their House districts so as to, in some cases like Tennessee’s, completely eliminate any Democrat from having a shot of winning even one House seat. In response, some Democratic-led states like Virginia, decided to fight fire with fire and redraw their maps to further entrench Democratic victories in their Congressional House delegations.

Enough context. Back to my title.

I say this picture is so representative of American politics because of the look on the Tennessee Highway Patrol officer’s face. He’s literally holding his hands up, as though Pearson is the aggressor in this interaction. He looks, of all things, embarrassed and surprised. He looks almost as if he’s a child who’s been asked by their parent who took the liquor from the cabinet. Not me, the officer’s poise suggest.

But it is him. He was the one trying to arrest a US citizen for screaming out at injustice.

I think his surprise stems from the fact that this Officer is, above all, an institutionalist. To be a police officer of any type is to believe that the words of the law hold self-endowing legitimacy—no matter their content—and that the innate duty of all people in the government is to uphold those things which allow those words to continue to be read and understood and enforced. So, this officer seems genuinely surprised that Pearson, a person who he recognizes as being a member of that institution, was willing to say to him in that moment that, “My place in this institution is secondary to the most immediate threat which is you against my brother.”

This White officer is telling Pearson with his body language: “Hey man, be cool.” But the stakes of what just happened in that chamber don’t allow for cool. Cool is a luxury afforded to people whose representation isn’t being erased by decree.

This is rat fucking with lethal consequences. The Tennessee state government has just told Pearson “You will never hold a job higher in representing Tennesseeans than the one you have right now”. They have just told his brother “How dare you show any anger at us telling you that your vote is worth nothing.” They have just told most every Black and Brown person in their state: “Fuck you, go die.”

Because that’s the truth of this: when Black and Brown people lose their voice in Federal elections, hospitals don’t get built and data centers keep going up in Black and Brown neighborhoods and so do factory farms and on and on and on—and all this does is kill them earlier. And the cop in that photo knows, just as well as Pearson does, that there is nothing either of them can do about it right now.

This is why I say this photo represents American politics right now

White America is watching other White People use paper and pens to kill black and brown people by eliminating them from the Vote, guarded by the guns in their holster, and then acting surprised when any righteous anger is expressed.

It’s “Woah man, don’t have a cow” said to people whose lives are being legislated away in broad daylight. The restraint' on display in that photo by Pearson is not something White America has earned.

Despicable photo, a Renaissance one if ever I’ve seen one. No I don’t have any answers to this because this is a structural issue that requires a structural solution. All I can say is that, if you see Abigail Spanberger out in public, tell her to stop being a fucking chicken, get on the mic, and say “Fuck the Supreme Court of Virginia” and let the chips fall where Republicans threw them.