Overturning Roe is a Classist, Racist, and Oppressive Ruling
The decision will negatively impact non-white communities more so than white women.
The Supreme Court of the United States continues to take us back in time in an effort to dip its hands into the decades-old white extinction conspiracy theory. A decision that provides comfort to just one aspect of Christian Nationalism and white supremacy among so many others. It delves into and upholds the new area of hate and bigotry referred to by modern-day hate groups as ethnonationalism: a belief that being “American” is not just a nationality, but an ethnicity.
Ethnonationalism in the US evolved from Christo-fascism and is primarily based on Evangelical Christian fundamentalism. However, it takes prejudice and hatred to another level by integrating beliefs that promote isolationism. While most white nationalists seek a segregated white ethnostate, ethnic nationalists seek to use non-white people, for now (as they say), to achieve insularity and create a white-dominated society based on laws that have since been abolished.
On the street level, Enrique Tarrio fits the profile of an ethnonationalist. On the other end of the spectrum, you have Clarence Thomas. The latter, however, is protected by wealth and class. His decisions are unlikely to ever impact him or his family. His status grants him protections most US citizens (including Tarrio) will never know. In the end, Thomas fell in line with his white supremacist counterparts in overturning Roe v. Wade. Then, he took things a step further.
He called to further marginalize anyone who isn’t a straight white male.
Now, as the nation reels from the shock of the decision, some conservative women are taken aback by claiming how sudden it was. Acting as if the platform the people they voted for didn’t implicitly politicize forced birth as an issue of concern. They’re pretending that they didn’t see the bigotry behind it all; the misogyny; the homophobia; the xenophobia.
Is anyone buying it?
Built on Hate
Conservative politicians have been telling us their plans and acting on them for decades. The blame for overturning Roe lies solely with white conservatives; with the majority of white voters that have voted Republican since the 1960s after the Civil Rights Act was passed. Culpability belongs to those who rebuke equality, racial justice, and social equity in favor of bigotry. People who willingly sell each other out in every election based on culture wars, not policy.
Many conservative voters even believe in ideas that suggest we no longer need the Civil Rights Act because we elected a Black president. Republicans later popularized the idea by speaking about it publicly. What those voters and politicians never discuss is how they didn’t vote for a Black man or why they refused to. They won’t tell you of the racist propaganda about Barack and Michelle Obama that they didn’t just allow from their party but participated in - even now.
The conservative minority with an outsized influence in Congress has been able to manipulate a government that runs largely on dubious ethical standards. Most recent examples include Mitch McConnell committing to block Obama at every turn before he even took office. It showed its face again when McConnell blocked Obama’s Supreme Court pick paving the way for Donald Trump to stack the court and fulfill his commitment to the racist conservative evangelical minority.
Their influence is so powerful that it made Democrats step back many times in an effort to not upset evangelicals and Catholics. Many liberal politicians have in the past discussed how focusing on reproductive rights was hurting the party. These ideas seem nonsensical today, but they were a reality when Bill Clinton was president as well as Barack Obama.
While many point to this, it doesn’t mean that both parties are the same.
There Is a Difference
While it does seem like the Democratic party is only now realizing that they’ve been faced with a hostile anti-democratic evangelical base the whole time, what the establishment is learning, albeit a little late, is that the group of voters they feared upsetting was never going to vote for them anyway. Therefore, a transition of policy perspective is needed. One that the party seems to be embracing while showing they share the same religious beliefs as conservative Christians.
The differences between parties aren’t hard to see. One party runs on open hate and bigotry while the other is open to evolution and growth. Sure, Democrats (as a party) were part of the problem years ago. But today, they’re the only party that gives us even a remote chance to move forward and make real progress. Meanwhile, Republicans want to take us backward to a time when people who weren’t straight white men had less freedom.
This is what “Make America Great Again” looks like.
Simply put, modern-day conservatism is political extremism as policy. Hyperbolic misinformation becoming normalized over science, data, and facts. The system is being overrun with money and political influence from a very vocal and powerful minority in the US for their benefit and no one else. Conservatism tried to overthrow the US government to install an authoritarian dictator and is steadily picking away at our rights.
Every attack, from voting rights to Miranda rights to forced birth, is an attack on non-white communities. They know, just as anti-maskers knew with COVID, that these policies will disproportionately impact Black people and people of color. They know that while they force white women to have babies that maternal mortality rates are much higher for Black women.
They know. They just don’t care. That’s colonialism and white supremacy.
Arturo is a first-generation Cuban American advocacy journalist navigating the intersection of politics and race and publisher of The Antagonist Magazine. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Thanks for writing, Arturo. As you pointed out, the most predictable outcome is that women of color will be disproportionately affected, as they always are, sadly. What drives me especially crazy about the hypocritical moralizing about protecting the unborn is that there can be little to no doubt that many of these male senators have paid for their mistresses' abortions.