It’s official: if you get pulled over for an out-of-date inspection or soft tires … or perhaps nothing at all, you can be strip searched. Thank you, Anthony Kennedy. Thank you, George W. Bush.
Why George W. Bush? Because he appointed a right-wing chief justice when Rehnquist had to step down in 2005. In truth, I should blame voters in the 2004 election for reelecting a right-wing imbecile to the presidency – one who would be there to appoint Scalia clones as needed. The Roberts appointment was particularly crucial in that Supreme Court Justices – who are imagined to be somehow magically apolitical – always seem to delay their retirement until the presidency is held by someone who shares their ideological world-view. Because of failing health, Rehnquist would have retired in 2005 no matter who won the 2004 election. Ergo, that election was our last opportunity to shift the balance of the court back from right-wing extremism, and we basically blew it.
That’s as it may be. But this FLORENCE v. BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS OF COUNTY OF BURLINGTON ET AL. decision is truly odious, particularly at this moment in our political-cultural history. Think of it: we are in the grips of a national debate about the Trayvon Martin killing – a young man who likely would be alive today if he hadn’t been black. The Martin case is far from unique. Democracy Now! has been reporting on a remarkably heinous police killing of a 68-year-old Marine veteran with a heart condition who rolled over on his medic-alert badge – a false alarm that for some reason brought on the equivalent of a SWAT team from the White Plains PD. (He too was, of course, African-American.) It seems our society is going out of its way to demonstrate how little it values the lives of black people in general, and black men in particular.
That’s how the Supreme Court made a bad thing worse. The “Florence” in Florence v. Board is Albert Florence, a black man riding in the passenger seat of his BMW (his wife was driving) when they were pulled over by the White Plains police. They arrested Florence for a purportedly unpaid fine – which he had paid, and for which he had proof of payment handy when stopped by the police – and took him in, strip searching him (twice) before releasing him after the error was confirmed (presumably by a trustworthy white person). This was just fine with the 5 conservative justices on the court. Now, every black person in America knows what this means – it’s a green light for abusive practices in custody, the humiliation of repeated strip searches. And it will fall disproportionately on them, because they are arrested at a much higher rate than are white people.
It’s the cherry on top of the shit sundae. Just more confirmation of the thesis of The New Jim Crow and Slavery by Another Name. Criminalization of blackness is once again validated at the highest level of our “justice” system.
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