By Carla Thomas
The Truth Contributor
I don’t know what’s worse, the Supreme Court’s decision to weaken protections against racial gerrymandering and make it harder to protect majority-Black voting districts, or the response from State Representative Joshua Williams. I would have to say the latter.
“I’m a Black Republican who currently represents a majority-white district in the Ohio State House and is running to represent a majority-white district in Congress. The idea that black Americans need special districts carved out just for them is complete nonsense. It’s a violation of the law and blatantly unconstitutional. Glad the Supreme Court made the right decision.”
In simple terms, the Court’s decision makes it easier for states to draw voting maps that dilute Black voting power by spreading Black voters across overwhelmingly white districts instead of allowing Black communities enough voting strength to elect representatives of their choice.
“The idea that black Americans need special districts carved out just for them is complete nonsense.”
On that part, I actually agree with him. It is complete nonsense that Black Americans had to march, protest and fight for voting rights in the first place. It is complete nonsense that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 even had to exist.
It is utter and complete nonsense that our ancestors had to survive literacy tests, poll taxes, intimidation, violence, racial terror and gerrymandering just to participate in democracy.
Complete nonsense is acting like Black Americans fought for generations for “special treatment” instead of “equal access” to political representation.
But the real nonsense is talking about majority-Black districts without talking about the history that made them necessary in the first place.
You can be conservative. You can be Republican. You can even be a Black, conservative Republican. You can disagree with policies all day long. But deeeyum! How do you muster up the nerve to invalidate the struggle that got you through the door in the first place?
Majority-Black districts didn’t just appear out of nowhere because Black folk woke up one day and decided they needed special treatment. They were created because white political systems repeatedly diluted, erased or fragmented Black voting power. They exist because without them, Black communities were often locked out of representation entirely. That is historical fact, not opinion.
That is why I believe statements like this from Black Republican Joshua Williams are detrimental to our progress. They reduce a complicated history down to a simplistic talking point.
Black people couldn’t even vote in this country at one point, let alone run for office. The fact that he was able to run as a Black man and be elected to represent his district, is connected to the struggles, sacrifices and fights that came before him.
Therefore, just because Representative Joshua Williams is a “Black Republican who currently represents a majority-white district in the Ohio State House” does not suddenly invalidate the historical reasons majority-Black districts became necessary in the first place.
It simply means he exercised his right as a Black man to run for office, and the people in his district had enough voting power to elect the candidate they wanted. In other words, their voices carried enough political weight to elect him.
“It’s a violation of the law and blatantly unconstitutional.”
If Black Republican Joshua Williams is so deeply concerned about constitutional fairness in voting and representation, then why does that concern seem so one-sided?
Where is that same outrage when voting maps are manipulated through gerrymandering, or when Black communities face polling place closures, long wait times, and targeted voting restrictions? Where is the outrage and concern when the political system repeatedly finds ways to weaken Black representation while pretending race has nothing to do with it?
If Black Republican Joshua Williams considers majority-Black districts “blatantly unconstitutional,” what pray-tell would he call the generations of tactics used to suppress Black political influence?
The issue for me is not that Joshua Williams is Black and Republican. Black people are not a monolith, and I respect anyone’s decision to live and vote by their own convictions.
What bothers me is watching a Black man with political power speak about majority-Black districts while either lacking a real understanding of the history behind them, or simply choosing to disregard it altogether.
Black Americans and their allies marched, protested, were beaten, humiliated, threatened, jailed and killed over the right to vote and to have equal political participation in this country. So to reduce majority-Black districts to “complete nonsense” strips away the deeper history and context behind why those protections existed to begin with.
And that is what feels so deeply disrespectful about his whole statement.