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美国国家公共电台 NPR--Who counts as Black in voting maps? Some GOP state officials want that narrowed

时间:2023-09-12 01:16来源:互联网 提供网友:nan   字体: [ ]
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Who counts as Black in voting maps? Some GOP state officials want that narrowed

Transcript1

Who counts as Black?

The thorny2 question has quietly found its way before the U.S. Supreme3 Court again, ensnared in a major legal battle over the Voting Rights Act that could further gut4 the landmark5 law and make it harder to protect the political power of voters of color.

The battle is playing out over new maps of congressional voting districts created by Republican-led legislatures in Alabama and Louisiana after the 2020 census6. The fate of the maps rests on how the Supreme Court rules first in the case out of Alabama — Merrill v. Milligan — which the high court heard this month and may set a precedent7 for lawsuits8 about Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

In both cases out of the Deep South states, lower courts have separately found that the maps were drawn9 in a way that likely dilutes10 Black voters' strength at the polls. That would violate the Voting Rights Act by giving a minority group, as spelled out in Section 2, "less opportunity than other members of the electorate11 to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice."

GOP state officials have pushed back against the analyses that led to those findings, partly by questioning a definition of Blackness that, for close to two decades, has been the standard in cases focused on the voting power of Black people and no other racial or ethnic12 group whom the federal government classifies as a protected minority population.

Voting rights cases focused on Black voters have used a broad definition of "Black"

Since a 2003 ruling by the Supreme Court, that definition of "Black" has included every person who identifies as Black on census forms — including people who check off the boxes for Black and any other racial or ethnic category such as white, Asian and Hispanic or Latino, which the federal government considers to be an ethnicity that can be of any race.

Republican state officials, however, have called for narrower definitions of Blackness that do not include people who also identify with another minority group.

Citing no evidence, GOP officials in Alabama argued in lower court filings that limiting the definition to people who mark just the "Black" box and do not identify as Latino for the census would be "most defensible."

And in the Louisiana case — Ardoin v. Robinson — officials have been arguing for the definition to only include people who check off either just the "Black" box or both "Black" and "White" and do not identify as Latino.

Before appealing their redistricting case to the Supreme Court, Alabama officials dropped their push to redefine Blackness.

But the state of Louisiana and its Republican secretary of state, Kyle Ardoin, have asked the country's highest court to weigh in with a final word on which definition should be used in Section 2 cases.

Lower courts have already found that even when using more limited definitions of "Black" as proposed by the Republican officials, the premise13 of the courts' analyses of the voting maps does not change.

Still, in one filing to the high court, Louisiana officials say using the more expansive definition of Blackness, which includes all people who identify themselves as Black, to analyze14 the state's new map of congressional districts is an "independent legal error warranting this Court's intervention15."

A narrower definition of "Black" could end up allowing other redistricting plans to minimize Black voting strength.

How the Supreme Court decides the case over Alabama's congressional map, however, could have broader implications on the political power of all voters of color. Many voting rights advocates are watching to see if enough of the court's conservative majority adopts one of Alabama's more extreme arguments — that race cannot be taken into account when drawing voting districts unless there's evidence of intentional16 racial discrimination.

A ruling along those lines could make it virtually impossible to use Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to challenge voting maps in the future, turning how "Black" is defined in redistricting into a less urgent question.

Still, the challenges Republican state officials have already made on who counts as Black have raised uneasy questions about the complicated history of defining Blackness and the future of Black voting power in a country where growing numbers of people identify with more than one race.

A footnote set a new definition of Blackness for redistricting after the 2000 census

There was no substantial debate about how to define Blackness for redistricting after the Supreme Court's 1986 ruling in Thornburg v. Gingles, a North Carolina redistricting case that established a way of using census data to test whether the racial or ethnic makeup17 of an election district, among other factors, resulted in the dilution18 of a minority group's voting power.

For the 1980 and 1990 census data, there was only one way people could identify their race as Black on census forms — filling in the circle for "Black" and nothing else.

But the turn of the century came with a major change in the 2000 data released by the Census Bureau.

"2000 was really a watershed19 moment for the U.S. census because it was the first time in American history that all Americans got the opportunity to identify themselves with more than one race," explains Ann Morning, a professor of sociology at New York University who studies racial classification and has served as an outside adviser20 to the bureau.

That shift brought a new layer of complication for enforcing voting and other civil rights laws. After decades of federal agencies relying on census data sorted into single-race categories, the White House's Office of Management and Budget put out new guidance on how to sort data released in 2001 about people who identified themselves as multiracial.

Based on that guidance, census responses from people who marked both the "Black" and "White" boxes should be counted with the Black population. And when focused on discrimination specifically against Black people, responses marking boxes for two or more minority races including "Black" should also be counted as Black.

That approach was echoed in a footnote of the 2003 Supreme Court ruling in a redistricting case known as Georgia v. Ashcroft, which set the current standard for who counts as Black when calculating what is called in Voting Rights Act cases an election district's "Black voting age population."

For the high court's majority opinion, former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that limiting the definition of "Black" to non-Hispanic people who identify themselves as Black and those who identify as both Black and white — as the Justice Department under former President George W. Bush's administration had advocated for in this case — "may have more relevance21 if the case involves a comparison of different minority groups."

But noting that the Georgia case was examining "only one minority group's effective exercise of the electoral franchise," O'Connor concluded: "In such circumstances, we believe it is proper to look at all individuals who identify themselves as black."

Republican state officials are litigating what was thought to be a settled issue

For many redistricting experts, who counts as Black in voting maps has not been up for debate since the Supreme Court's ruling in the Georgia case.

"It was thought to be settled," says Morgan Kousser, a professor emeritus22 of history and social science at the California Institute of Technology who wrote Colorblind Injustice23: Minority Voting Rights and the Undoing24 of the Second Reconstruction25 and joined a friend-of-the-court brief with other historians supporting the groups challenging Alabama's map.

In Louisiana, however, Republican state officials claim that the ruling in Georgia v. Ashcroft — a case about Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act — should not be applied26 to their Section 2 case, noting in a court filing that "no court has ever conclusively27 settled the question of what degree persons who self-identify with more than one racial or ethnic identity should be categorized for the purposes of the Voting Rights Act."

They also argue that a more limited definition of "Black" would "prevent state actors from artificially inflating28 the minority counts of their redistricting plans."

That argument, though, carried no weight with the lower court judges who have heard Louisiana's case. In a trial court ruling, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick pointed29 out that, when reviewing another lower court's ruling for the Alabama case that also used the more expansive definition of "Black," Chief Justice John Roberts concluded that there were "no apparent errors" for the Supreme Court to correct based on the court's past decisions.

Kareem Crayton — a former law professor and redistricting consultant30 who advised Alabama's Democratic state House minority leader during the drawing of the state's new congressional map — says he did not expect Alabama GOP lawmakers to challenge the definition of Blackness in court given that they've publicly emphasized they drew congressional districts "race-blind."

"It was a mild surprise that a group that had in many places tried their best not to talk about race, at least in the formal proceedings31, all of a sudden took a very, let's just say, staunch and, I'd say, retrograde understanding of race and decided32 to say that in court," Crayton adds. "It also made me wonder how much the Republican lawmakers were willing to just take their chances in court. That is, maybe this legislature looked at the U.S. Supreme Court and said, 'You know, we're going to try our hand at revisiting what most people thought about both racial definitions and, frankly33, the state of the law on race and how race is used.' "

Adopting a more limited definition of Blackness for redistricting would cut against the Voting Rights Act's goal of allowing racial and ethnic minority groups to "determine for themselves who they wish to vote for and how they wish to participate in the political process," says Atiba Ellis, a professor at Marquette University Law School whose research focuses on voting rights law.

"Drawing lines around identity based on what might come off as an arbitrary distinction on a census form would undercut that opportunity for self-determination," Ellis adds. "And certainly in other contexts throughout American history, having the majority dictate34 to a racial minority who belongs in that racial minority has been seen as discriminatory."

Who is considered Black in Louisiana has shifted

The push by Louisiana GOP officials for a narrower definition of Blackness in redistricting has resurfaced the state's history with the "one-drop rule," which governments around the U.S. once used to define a Black person as anyone with ancestors who were considered Black.

"It would be paradoxical, to say the least, to turn a blind eye to Louisiana's long and well-documented expansive view of 'Blackness' in favor of a definition on the opposite end of the spectrum," Dick, the trial court judge who heard the Louisiana case, wrote in a ruling that rejected the proposal for a narrower definition of "Black."

In fact, state lawmakers passed Act 46 of 1970, which, until its repeal35 in 1983, codified36 that "a person having one-thirty second or less of Negro blood shall not be deemed, described or designated by any public official in the state of Louisiana as 'colored,' a 'mulatto,' a 'black,' a 'negro,' a 'griffe,' an 'Afro-American,' a 'quardroon,' a 'mestizo,' a 'colored person' or a 'person of color.' "

That formula was put into place after decades of Louisiana state courts using a "traceable amount" test to determine whether a person was Black under law.

Wendy Gaudin, a historian at Xavier University of Louisiana whose research focuses on race and racial mixture in the Americas, says there was a "very specific purpose for using this blood math" — to define "racially ambiguous" people as Black and ultimately preserve white wealth and white political power when anti-miscegenation and other racial segregation37 laws helped enforce a color line.

Gaudin says it's important to keep in mind that definitions of Blackness have shifted over time in Louisiana, where its Indigenous38 history, its pasts as a French and Spanish colony and ties to the circum-Caribbean region have often defied the kind of Black-white binary39 that has been more pervasive40 in other parts of the United States.

"Blackness as an idea, as a concept, came out of a very specific history of exploitation. Over time, historians have shown us that it changes into a source of strength, a source of resistance, a source of connection," Gaudin adds.

The way Gaudin sees it, though, this current legal fight over who counts as Black in redistricting "has nothing to do with people's identity."

"It has to do with power and how different populations — whether it's their inclusion or their exclusion41 or their carefully curated inclusion — how all of that works to promote the political power of a person or a party," Gaudin says.

Ellis, the Marquette University Law School professor, warns that justices on the Supreme Court who may be inclined to dismantle42 Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act might see the highlighting of alternative definitions of "Black" for redistricting as a "kind of manipulation of race that would reinforce their view that the Voting Rights Act ought to be held unconstitutional."

"That could be the worst case of the outcomes here," Ellis says.

Whatever the court decides, efforts to redefine what "Black" or any other race means in politics are not likely to go away.

"This is a set of games that Americans have been engaged in and practiced throughout our history," says Kousser, the Caltech professor emeritus of history and social science. "This is just the most recent iteration of things."


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 transcript JgpzUp     
n.抄本,誊本,副本,肄业证书
参考例句:
  • A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
  • They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。
2 thorny 5ICzQ     
adj.多刺的,棘手的
参考例句:
  • The young captain is pondering over a thorny problem.年轻的上尉正在思考一个棘手的问题。
  • The boys argued over the thorny points in the lesson.孩子们辩论功课中的难点。
3 supreme PHqzc     
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的
参考例句:
  • It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
  • He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。
4 gut MezzP     
n.[pl.]胆量;内脏;adj.本能的;vt.取出内脏
参考例句:
  • It is not always necessary to gut the fish prior to freezing.冷冻鱼之前并不总是需要先把内脏掏空。
  • My immediate gut feeling was to refuse.我本能的直接反应是拒绝。
5 landmark j2DxG     
n.陆标,划时代的事,地界标
参考例句:
  • The Russian Revolution represents a landmark in world history.俄国革命是世界历史上的一个里程碑。
  • The tower was once a landmark for ships.这座塔曾是船只的陆标。
6 census arnz5     
n.(官方的)人口调查,人口普查
参考例句:
  • A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
  • The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。
7 precedent sSlz6     
n.先例,前例;惯例;adj.在前的,在先的
参考例句:
  • Is there a precedent for what you want me to do?你要我做的事有前例可援吗?
  • This is a wonderful achievement without precedent in Chinese history.这是中国历史上亘古未有的奇绩。
8 lawsuits 1878e62a5ca1482cc4ae9e93dcf74d69     
n.诉讼( lawsuit的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Lawsuits involving property rights and farming and grazing rights increased markedly. 涉及财产权,耕作与放牧权的诉讼案件显著地增加。 来自辞典例句
  • I've lost and won more lawsuits than any man in England. 全英国的人算我官司打得最多,赢的也多,输的也多。 来自辞典例句
9 drawn MuXzIi     
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的
参考例句:
  • All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
  • Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。
10 dilutes c70603482dcf2181edd76243deabd652     
稀释,冲淡( dilute的第三人称单数 ); 削弱,使降低效果
参考例句:
  • On the plus side, wind dilutes and scatters air pollutants, and carries pollen. 从好处来说,风能稀释和驱散空气中的污染物质,传播花粉。
  • Ubiquity might not be toxic to authenticity, but it certainly dilutes it. 普遍性或许不至于毒害原真性,但确实会削弱它。
11 electorate HjMzk     
n.全体选民;选区
参考例句:
  • The government was responsible to the electorate.政府对全体选民负责。
  • He has the backing of almost a quarter of the electorate.他得到了几乎1/4选民的支持。
12 ethnic jiAz3     
adj.人种的,种族的,异教徒的
参考例句:
  • This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏,这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
  • The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。
13 premise JtYyy     
n.前提;v.提论,预述
参考例句:
  • Let me premise my argument with a bit of history.让我引述一些史实作为我立论的前提。
  • We can deduce a conclusion from the premise.我们可以从这个前提推出结论。
14 analyze RwUzm     
vt.分析,解析 (=analyse)
参考例句:
  • We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
  • The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。
15 intervention e5sxZ     
n.介入,干涉,干预
参考例句:
  • The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
  • Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。
16 intentional 65Axb     
adj.故意的,有意(识)的
参考例句:
  • Let me assure you that it was not intentional.我向你保证那不是故意的。
  • His insult was intentional.他的侮辱是有意的。
17 makeup 4AXxO     
n.组织;性格;化装品
参考例句:
  • Those who failed the exam take a makeup exam.这次考试不及格的人必须参加补考。
  • Do you think her beauty could makeup for her stupidity?你认为她的美丽能弥补她的愚蠢吗?
18 dilution pmvy9     
n.稀释,淡化
参考例句:
  • There is no hard and fast rule about dilution.至于稀释程度,没有严格的规定。
  • He attributed this to a dilution effect of the herbicide.他把这归因于除草剂的稀释效应。
19 watershed jgQwo     
n.转折点,分水岭,分界线
参考例句:
  • Our marriage was at a watershed.我们的婚姻到了一个转折关头。
  • It forms the watershed between the two rivers.它成了两条河流的分水岭。
20 adviser HznziU     
n.劝告者,顾问
参考例句:
  • They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
  • Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。
21 relevance gVAxg     
n.中肯,适当,关联,相关性
参考例句:
  • Politicians' private lives have no relevance to their public roles.政治家的私生活与他们的公众角色不相关。
  • Her ideas have lost all relevance to the modern world.她的想法与现代社会完全脱节。
22 emeritus ypixp     
adj.名誉退休的
参考例句:
  • "Perhaps I can introduce Mr.Lake Kirby,an emeritus professor from Washington University?"请允许我介绍华盛顿大学名誉教授莱克柯尔比先生。
  • He will continue as chairman emeritus.他将会继续担任荣誉主席。
23 injustice O45yL     
n.非正义,不公正,不公平,侵犯(别人的)权利
参考例句:
  • They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
  • All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。
24 undoing Ifdz6a     
n.毁灭的原因,祸根;破坏,毁灭
参考例句:
  • That one mistake was his undoing. 他一失足即成千古恨。
  • This hard attitude may have led to his undoing. 可能就是这种强硬的态度导致了他的垮台。
25 reconstruction 3U6xb     
n.重建,再现,复原
参考例句:
  • The country faces a huge task of national reconstruction following the war.战后,该国面临着重建家园的艰巨任务。
  • In the period of reconstruction,technique decides everything.在重建时期,技术决定一切。
26 applied Tz2zXA     
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用
参考例句:
  • She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
  • This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。
27 conclusively NvVzwY     
adv.令人信服地,确凿地
参考例句:
  • All this proves conclusively that she couldn't have known the truth. 这一切无可置疑地证明她不可能知道真相。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • From the facts,he was able to determine conclusively that the death was not a suicide. 根据这些事实他断定这起死亡事件并非自杀。 来自《简明英汉词典》
28 inflating 3f6eb282f31a24980303279b69118db8     
v.使充气(于轮胎、气球等)( inflate的现在分词 );(使)膨胀;(使)通货膨胀;物价上涨
参考例句:
  • I felt myself inflating slowly with rage, like a tyre. 我感到自己体内的怒气正慢慢膨胀,像一只轮胎那样。 来自互联网
  • Many are already overheating, with prices rising and asset bubbles inflating. 随着物价日益上涨、资产泡沫膨胀,很多新兴国家经济已经过热。 来自互联网
29 pointed Il8zB4     
adj.尖的,直截了当的
参考例句:
  • He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
  • She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。
30 consultant 2v0zp3     
n.顾问;会诊医师,专科医生
参考例句:
  • He is a consultant on law affairs to the mayor.他是市长的一个法律顾问。
  • Originally,Gar had agreed to come up as a consultant.原来,加尔只答应来充当我们的顾问。
31 proceedings Wk2zvX     
n.进程,过程,议程;诉讼(程序);公报
参考例句:
  • He was released on bail pending committal proceedings. 他交保获释正在候审。
  • to initiate legal proceedings against sb 对某人提起诉讼
32 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
33 frankly fsXzcf     
adv.坦白地,直率地;坦率地说
参考例句:
  • To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说,我一点也不赞成这个主意。
  • Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说,我不反对改革。
34 dictate fvGxN     
v.口授;(使)听写;指令,指示,命令
参考例句:
  • It took him a long time to dictate this letter.口述这封信花了他很长时间。
  • What right have you to dictate to others?你有什么资格向别人发号施令?
35 repeal psVyy     
n.废止,撤消;v.废止,撤消
参考例句:
  • He plans to repeal a number of current policies.他计划废除一些当前的政策。
  • He has made out a strong case for the repeal of the law.他提出强有力的理由,赞成废除该法令。
36 codified dd3cd252bc567c020a4b80e850158714     
v.把(法律)编成法典( codify的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • In the meantime, however, Kennecott had been codified elsewhere in the Act. 然而,“肯尼考特”一案已被编人法案。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
  • Congress has since codified this holding. 从那时以来,国会编纂整理了最高法院的这一裁定。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法
37 segregation SESys     
n.隔离,种族隔离
参考例句:
  • Many school boards found segregation a hot potato in the early 1960s.在60年代初,许多学校部门都觉得按水平分班是一个棘手的问题。
  • They were tired to death of segregation and of being kicked around.他们十分厌恶种族隔离和总是被人踢来踢去。
38 indigenous YbBzt     
adj.土产的,土生土长的,本地的
参考例句:
  • Each country has its own indigenous cultural tradition.每个国家都有自己本土的文化传统。
  • Indians were the indigenous inhabitants of America.印第安人是美洲的土著居民。
39 binary jybzWZ     
adj.二,双;二进制的;n.双(体);联星
参考例句:
  • Computers operate using binary numbers.计算机运行运用二进位制。
  • Let us try converting the number itself to binary.我们试一试,把这个数本身变成二进制数。
40 pervasive T3zzH     
adj.普遍的;遍布的,(到处)弥漫的;渗透性的
参考例句:
  • It is the most pervasive compound on earth.它是地球上最普遍的化合物。
  • The adverse health effects of car exhaust are pervasive and difficult to measure.汽车尾气对人类健康所构成的有害影响是普遍的,并且难以估算。
41 exclusion 1hCzz     
n.拒绝,排除,排斥,远足,远途旅行
参考例句:
  • Don't revise a few topics to the exclusion of all others.不要修改少数论题以致排除所有其他的。
  • He plays golf to the exclusion of all other sports.他专打高尔夫球,其他运动一概不参加。
42 dismantle Vtlxa     
vt.拆开,拆卸;废除,取消
参考例句:
  • He asked for immediate help from the United States to dismantle the warheads.他请求美国立即提供援助,拆除这批弹头。
  • The mower firmly refused to mow,so I decided to dismantle it.修完后割草机还是纹丝不动,于是,我决定把它拆开。
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TAG标签:   美国新闻  英语听力  NPR
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