I'm fed up with all-lives-mattering responses to the Voting Rights Act
Supreme Court narrows Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, ignoring racially discriminatory redistricting maps
The following post is part of my former Substack publication “One Black Woman’s Vote” that is now in “I Do See Color.” To see more OBWV posts from 2026, click here. For 2025 OBWV posts, click here. For 2021-2024 OBWV posts, click here. New OBWV posts will be published by the second Saturday of each month.
Disgusted is the best way to describe my response to the unapologetically Conservative-leaning Supreme Court basically dismantling Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. It was bad enough that the Supreme Court chose to make the case in Louisiana much bigger than it was originally intended. In the initial lawsuit Robinson v. Landry (and emergency appeals with Allen v. Milligan), the state’s congressional map diluted Black voter strength. This was believed to be violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and trying desperately to get rid of one additional majority-Black district.
Instead of keeping the case focused on Louisiana’s election fight, the Supreme Court broadened the argument about the legality of Louisiana’s map to whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 should be interpreted nationwide. The Conservative-leaning court also challenged the idea of whether voter dilution standards should still apply in 2026. When those questions were raised, the results would immediately have a domino effect on all of the other states — and the Supreme Court knew this.
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Even though Allen v. Milligan already ruled that the Alabama map weakened Black voting power and violated Section 2, Louisiana’s case made this a nationwide issue. Through emergency orders (also known as “shadow dockets”), the Supreme Court allowed or blocked some maps, which resulted in reshaping national redistricting rules. Dominoes started their fall.
Yes, the Supreme Court was focused on Black voting power
But even though the final decision completely undermined giving Black voters more power to vote — and not just in their own segregated communities — there are still too many voters (and nonvoters) who are responding with the same “all lives matter” logic that completely missed the point of the “Black Lives Matter” movement. This time, it’s “all votes matter.”
Attorney, activist and founder of Democracy Docket fully understands how the Supreme Court’s decision affects Black voters and voting maps. But one look at the comment section drowning in whataboutisms and changing the subject to damn near everybody but Black people is proving that some people still don’t get it. Or, they don’t want to get it. In all three of the last elections involving Trump, majority of Black people voted against Trump.
In 2016, 91% of non-Hispanic Black people voted for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to become president, and Black women voters vouched for her at 92%. In 2020, African-Americans voted for former President Joe Biden slightly higher at 92%. (Black women voters, especially, upped the ante to 95% in support of Biden.) And, in 2024, African-Americans voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris at 83% with her largest supporters being Black women (92% — although some reports say 89%).
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The Supreme Court’s decision cuts the legs off of Black voters, specifically in the South, and tells them they can walk just fine. Even worse, there are still non-Black voters who are thoroughly convinced that this decision affects White people and Latino people just as much — completely ignoring that more than half of White people voted for Trump in the last three elections and the Latino vote has continued to grow for Trump.
I don’t know how to possibly make it anymore obvious. Even Trump knows who dislikes him and his sidekicks the most. The Heritage Foundation, the creators of Project 2025, are not worried about White people’s votes or Latino people’s votes. The goal here was to disenfranchise Black voters. But yet again, here we go with the “all lives matter” crowd being purposely oblivious.