Supreme Court Justice Alito’s leaked draft decision of Dobbs v. Jackson has ignited outrage throughout the country, as millions of people realize how delicate of a balance their rights are currently held. This comes two years after George Floyd’s murder, and the largest Uprising in recent American history. Certain people (particularly cis-gender white women) are still surprised by the direction the United States is heading. This sudden spark of shock and anger exemplified two things to me:
1) People believe the systems we live under will protect them and,
2) People will be ready to act when they are affected, but don’t know what to actually do with their anger.
We like to think because we live in the 21st century and the rapid progress in social acceptance of people of marginalized identities, that our country is at the same level. Bad news: it is not and never has been. Despite relatively liberal rulings in Lawrence v Texas, and Obgerfell v. Hodges, the United States highest court continually passes judgments against the good of The People, while serving corporate interests at every turn. From encouraging corporate money in politics, rules around gerrymandering, loosening of gun control measures to allowing mass surveillance, strengthening qualified immunity and endorsing the practice of torture, the last few decades of SCOTUS have not been progressive.
They have staged a superficial veil of social progression while quietly degrading our rights behind closed doors.
We were “allowed” access to abortions, not because of essential, natural rights to bodily autonomy or self-determination to make our own medical decisions, but because a 1972 Court reached for a right to privacy under the 14th amendment. This is an outlier, it’s always been an outlier. The United States truly does not believe its citizens have a right to privacy. This is exceptionally true in today’s world of mass data collection and surveillance. While it may seem an alarming sign of things to come, it is actually codification of where the country actually is in 2022. Forced hysterectomies of migrant women, criminalization of Trans healthcare, degradation of reproductive rights, it’s always been about controlling marginalized groups.
The Supreme Court in its current form is made up of five Conservative justices, 80% of whom were appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote. This is further supported by several hundred Conservative federal judges throughout the country. Our laws do not reflect reality, morality or justice. This has been true since our founding. If we want to talk about concepts “deeply rooted in our nation’s history and tradition”, we see a lot of mass subjugation and genocide. This has been the plan of the right from Reagan’s war on poverty to “making America great again”, this is the culmination of a decades long plan to consolidate power.
Vote Blue?!
For as long as the right has been calling for a return to “American Christian” values, the American political left has been stuck in a loop. The endless cycle of vote Blue or Die, dangling our rights in front of us as fundraising tokens, is more apparent now than ever. After a total of ten years of Democratic control of the federal government in the last fifteen: abortion was not codified, minimum wage has not increased, no access to universal health care, the intensifying climate crisis ignored. Instead we got massive corporate bailouts, dramatic increases to military and police budgets, and no substantive changes to the status quo.
I was going to write a whole thing here about the cyclical, repeated failures of the Democrats to protect and codify reproductive rights. But then I read Renee Bracey Sherman’s article Voting Won’t Save Abortion Rights, and you should just read that instead. (link) Below is an excerpt that really illustrates how a lot of us are feeling right now:
I was raised to believe that voting is one of the most important things we can do in a democracy. It was something my Black grandparents and elderly relatives couldn’t do for a long time. I love voting. Voting is critical, especially at the local level. But voting should produce change and we’re still waiting. It’s [a] disgrace that our elected officials have no plan other than asking us to once again use a system that’s faulty at best to help them retain power when they won’t use the power they have. It’s always about the next election and not the people who need help here and now.
I bought the lie. In January 2021, I canvassed in Savannah, GA to encourage voters to elect Democrats in their Senate run-offs. I sold people on the lie. I really thought they would at least do the bare minimum. We got one check. The same day we found out our candidates won their elections, we watched fascist insurrections literally storm the Halls of Congress. An act of domestic terrorism that has enacted zero consequences, no mobilization against the actors like post-9/11 America. Two years following massive protests movements demanding an end to police brutality, police budgets increased and more Black people have been murdered. None of it mattered. We are playing a fixed game.
So what DO we actually do?
Liberalism and Capitalism has deeply distorted how we perceive the world, both in the external and internal. The fight for Liberation is not going to be won through the establishment of new rights, the codification of popular, desirable rights or through legal battles. We need to understand what laws are and how they function.
The current human rights framework is born out of Enlightenment Liberalism, a documented, codified list of rules for the State and its actors to follow. Laws - all laws - are orders by The State backed by the threat of violence. This can be seen at a micro-level, petty crimes are often met with brutality and incarceration; however, this can be seen at a larger macro level in the discussion of our “rights” as well. This violence can be seen explicitly when rights are in conflict. Take the constant legal debate in the US of “freedom of religion v. freedom from discrimination”, can an evangelical business owner or government employee refuse service to gay people? Despite the ubiquitous of this debate, and even instances of the State siding with LGBTQ+ rights, in the material sense none of this creates protections for queer people. Violence towards LGBTQ+ people continue, as does the discrimination, as does the weakening of our rights and protections, yet the debate continues.
“The imaginary domain of rights creates an immediate, imaged and imagined bond, between the subject, her ideal ego, and the world…Our imaginary identification with a good society accepts too easily that the language, signs and images of human rights are (or can become) our reality. [...] The necessary replacement of materiality by signs, of needs and desires by words and images makes people believe that the mere existence of legal texts and institutions, with little performance or action, affects and completes bodies.” (Douzinas, C 2013)
What we need to see is that the modern system of “human rights” doctrine does not have any effect in the real world. We are asking the State to stand with and protect us, even if it is not in their interests, or in many instances against their interests and goals. This is a foolish expectation, but is seen as the way of the world globally in the 21st Century. One of the clearest examples of this is the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the body of law that follows. According to customary international law, all people enjoy rights such as: the right to healthcare, to free education, to an adequate standard of living. Some countries operate closer to these ideals than others, however, as we know there is no real enforcement of protections. Billions of people continue to be starved of food, education, and healthcare. These cited ideals are not rights, they are arbitrary and hold no real weight, in other words useless to the discussion of how do we protect ourselves (I say this as someone who has studied International Human Rights Law for years).
Don’t expect things to get better without changing things yourself.
The system will not allow us to change the rules of the game through their means. Voting works when trying to achieve the goals of the State. However, once the issue is the power the State holds over us, the tools provided for us will be halted. This may be depressing to hear, we are past a point of no return. Voting for Biden did not save us. Voting in November won’t save us. Expanding the Supreme Court won’t save us. Ending the filibuster won’t save us.
While operating in their system, we will never be allowed to take our power back. We must operate not only outside these systems, but also as a disruption to these systems.
Stop playing the game. Stop expecting others to protect your rights. Don’t take your freedom for granted. Again many reading this, those of the global majority, know the intentional failures of these systems intimately (better than myself), but to many others this is brand new. We really have to do all we can to protect each other. Even if it makes us uncomfortable or it risks our status or lifestyle. Do what you can. Can you help people access abortion? Do that. Can you provide temporary housing for people in need? Do that. If you can do more, do more.
They literally cannot stop all of us. We have to build strong communities and support networks around us. When the time comes we need to be ready to defend each other. Start with your immediate loved ones, then extend that empathy to your neighbor. All of your neighbors. As things get worse, don’t react with shock, instead mobilize yourself and the people around you. We are all we got.
Thank you for reading my first issue of my newsletter! I hope some of it spoke to you! I want to hear your thoughts! Please feel free to comment or reply to the article. I want to be able to address questions and concerns, let me hear ‘em!