The Dictatorship
‘Fundamentally, I’m a Southerner;’ how a SCOTUS ruling complicates Black voters’ sense of place
Between 1910 and 1970, an estimated six million Black people left the South, changing the region from a place where almost all Black Americans lived to one where slightly more than half did. Even so, I was born the child, grandchild and great-grandchild of Mississippians who stayed put. And like the frog who reliably croaks for its own pond, I was defensive of Mississippi, defensive of the South and I resented those who suggested we lacked the good sense to leave.
Medgar Eversthe field secretary of the Mississippi NAACP who was assassinated in the driveway of his Jackson, Mississippi, home in 1963, had a deep love for Mississippi and once said, “I don’t know if I’m going to heaven or hell, but I’m going from Jackson.” My father, Melvin DeBerry, has long expressed a more cynical reason for staying: “At least the white man in the South will tell you what he thinks about you.”
I was defensive of Mississippi, defensive of the South and I resented those who suggested we lacked the good sense to leave.
“Y’all need to shut up, boy!”
Dadrius Lanus, a Black man who serves as Louisiana’s Democratic Party executive director, said that’s what state Sen. Jay Morris, a white Republican, said to him May 8 during a redistricting committee hearing at the Louisiana State Capitol. Morris and his party were gleefully redrawing the state’s congressional map in a way that will hinder Black people’s political power and, for good reason, Black people in the room weren’t being quiet about it.
Morris denied using a pejorative, and a Baton Rouge TV station said it only captured him saying, “Y’all need to shut up” as he walked out of the committee room. (The word “boy” is not clearly audible in a video of the exchange posted by the Louisiana Democratic Party.) But Lanus said he heard it directly: “He said, ‘Y’all need to shut up.’ Then, he looked me in my eyes and said, ‘Y’all need to shut up, boy.’”
“Boy” or no “boy,” Morris telling Black people to shut up is offensive, but the greater, more lasting offense is the map itself. (The current proposal strips the state of one of its two majority Black congressional districts.) Rather than acknowledge that, Morris suggested that what’s being said about him is worse than what he is doing to Louisiana’s Black voters.
“The falsehood attributed to me has been very hurtful to me and my family,” Morris told the assembled Louisiana Senate on Monday. According to a news report, Morris then took a long pause “apparently to hold back tears.”
He’s not the victim here. Black voters are. Not only because of him, but also because of the U.S. Supreme Court, which in last month’s disastrous ruling in Louisiana v. Callais gave states permission to dilute Black political power as they see fit.
When I was growing up, my dad’s sister Mary regularly led the choir at our Baptist church in the Black gospel version of “This World Is Not My Home.” The song’s message is one of hope: There’s a heaven after all of this.
Last month’s disastrous Louisiana v. Callais ruling gave permission to the states to dilute Black political power as they see fit.
But since last month’s Supreme Court ruling, I’ve heard it differently. White Southern Republicans are feeling a wind at their backs stronger than any since the federal government abandoned Reconstruction, and that song’s refrain — “I can’t feel at home in this world anymore” — has played on a loop in my head.
But not because I’m hopeful.
I’ve never lived in a South without a Voting Rights Act that restricted white officials’ worst impulses.
And now that I do, home is feeling a lot less so.
These particular Republicans sound like the Redeemersthe white supremacists who rushed to strip Black people of their political positions and political power as soon as Reconstruction was over.
Republicans in Tennessee, by splitting into three a congressional district centered on majority-Black Memphis, have made it next to impossible for Black people in that state to elect someone to Congress. South Carolina may soon redistrict Rep. James Clyburn, the state’s only Black member of the House and a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, out of his seat. Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves called the tenure of Rep. Bennie Thompson, the state’s only Democrat and only Black member of its congressional delegation, a “reign of terror.” The Alabama House Speaker said he hopes the “Supreme Court will overturn Amendment 14.”
On April 30, Louisiana’s MAGA Gov. Jeff Landry signed into law a bill Morris drafted that eliminated an office that Calvin Duncan, a Black man, had just been elected to but had not yet been sworn into. The mayor of majority-Black New Orleans, five council members and the district attorney rightly objected, and they called for a special election. The Republican attorney general has threatened to have all those officials forcibly removed and replaced with politicians of Landry’s choosing.
There’s a long list of similar moves being made by white Republican officials across the South. Even if they don’t explicitly say it, “Shut up, y’all” is always implied.
Southern Republicans seem to believe they can be exonerated of accusations of racism by calling what they’re doing an attack not on Black people, but on Democrats. And the Supreme Court has given them cover with its ruling that racial gerrymanders are forbidden but partisan gerrymanders are OK.
Even if they don’t explicitly say it, “Shut up, y’all” is always implied.
But race and party are near proxies for each other in the South and, beyond that, there’s convincing research that “voters’ race is a more reliable predictor than their party of how they will vote in the next election.”
“How do you make that [racial or partisan] distinction in the South?” I asked my uncle, Roy DeBerry, on Wednesday.
“You can’t,” he said.
My 78-year-old uncle has a Ph.D. in political science and government; he’s worked in state and local governments, taught at the college level and served as a university vice president in Mississippi. But even more significantly, he was on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement at least a year before there was a Voting Rights Act. He and my dad participated in protests in Mississippi, but as a baby-faced teenager, my uncle picketed outside the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City demanding that the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and not the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party, be recognized as the real delegation.
The goal then was the same as it is now: a multiracial democracy. The Voting Rights Act, signed into law a year after my uncle picketed on the Atlantic City Boardwalk, made that a possibility. I don’t know to what extent the Voting Rights Act had in ending the Great Migration, but it for sure made life for Black people in the South more tolerable. But now, the Supreme Court has made multiracial democracy harder to accomplish and Black people in the South have to brace themselves for harder times ahead.
“People don’t understand history,” Uncle Roy said during our chat Wednesday. “The Supreme Court has never been your friend.” He noted 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education as an exception but said otherwise change has come “because of people deciding to engage and put the pressure on, get Congress to do what it needs to do and then the Supreme Court sort of lags behind. The same thing is true now. People say, ‘Oh, we’re shocked that the Supreme Court ruled the way it did.’ I’m not shocked at all.”
The Supreme Court has never been your friend. People say, ‘Oh, we’re shocked that the Supreme Court ruled the way it did.’ I’m not shocked at all.
roy deberry
At one point during our conversation, I began a question with “What do you think is next —” but before I could say everything I intended, he interjected: “Struggle.”
“How long that struggle will take to get this thing reversed? I have no idea. But I know one thing: It’s not going to happen automatically. It’s never happened automatically in America.”
Because I’m struggling with my own place in the South, I asked him why, after getting his doctorate from Brandeis, he didn’t stay in the Boston area. Why did he come back home? He began by talking about where he thought he could have the most impact, but eventually he arrived at an answer that’s consistent with what Medgar Evers said: “Fundamentally, I’m a Southerner.”
As am I. As are the Black people who have been raising their voices against the concerted attempts from white Republicans to shut us up and make us feel like the South is not our home.
Jarvis DeBerry is an opinion editor for MS NOW Daily. He was previously editor-in-chief at the Louisiana Illuminator and a columnist and deputy opinion editor at The Times-Picayune.
Over the course of June, Donald Trump spent nearly every day focusing attention on assorted construction and beautification projects, emphasizing the unavoidable conclusion that the president takes his renovation crusade very seriously.
His allies aren’t necessarily pleased. The Hill recently reported that Republican officials, worried about the midterm elections and maintaining partisan control, have been “thrown off-balance” by, among other things, Trump’s focus on “pet projects” instead of more meaningful national priorities.
The list of projects keeps growing nevertheless. It includes (but is by no means limited to) the ballroomthe Reflecting Poolthe “triumphal arch,” the fountainsthe horse statuesthe “Trump Promenade,” the “statue garden” and the dozen or so additional renovation projects he’s prioritized in and around the White House complex.
But let’s also not forget the helipad.
A couple of months ago, The Washington PostThe Wall Street Journal and The New York Times separately published similar reports about Trump hoping to build a permanent helicopter landing site on the White House grounds. Evidently, those plans have now advanced to the construction stage. The Post reported this week:
President Donald Trump has begun construction on a new White House helipad, his latest change to the historic grounds, according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the project publicly.
Construction crews worked into the night Monday on the White House’s South Lawn, with the project blocked off by a large fence.
The report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, added that the project hasn’t yet been formally announced by the White House, even as construction is apparently underway.
It’s not yet clear how much the project will cost, who will pick the tab and whether this has joined the growing list of no-bid contracts.
Unlike some of the president’s other priorities, there is a legitimate issue here — the latest generation of helicopters really do damage the White House lawn — although this doesn’t answer the other lingering questions or explain why Team Trump hasn’t acknowledged the existence of the project.
What’s more, this almost certainly won’t be the last of the Republican’s projects.
Earlier this week, the president used his social media platform to promote an artificial intelligence-generated image of a gold eagle affixed to the White House exterior. Trump added in his online image, “A Golden Gift to the White House for its 250th Birthday Year!”
The text (which erroneously said the White House is celebrating its semiquincentennial) suggested the president intends to add this gaudy addition to his ambitious renovation agenda.
Recent polling has found two-thirds of Americans are convinced their unpopular president simply has the wrong priorities. Trump could take steps to change their mind, but he apparently doesn’t want to.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Hegseth blasts protesters at ceremony for D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force: ‘Ingrates’
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday derided protesters at an event in Washington, D.C., tied to the America 250 celebrationscalling the demonstrators “ingrates” who are “blinded by ideology.”
The D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force event in Meridian Hill Park was set to begin at 9 a.m. ET but did not start until roughly 30 minutes later, as members of the National Guard waited for Hegseth’s arrival amid a brutal heat wave. Protesters shouted during his brief address, in which he said he was to blame for the delay and praised the troops for their service.
“In fact, this background noise this morning is perfect,” Hegseth said about the protesters, with White House adviser Stephen Miller and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche standing behind him.
“It’s the sound of ingrates, of ingratitude of people who are so blinded by ideology they can’t see law and order and common sense in front of them,” Hegseth said. “That there’s nothing ideological about this group, there’s nothing political about this exercise.”
Some protesters could be heard shouting “Shame!” and “Guard, go home!”
Pete Hegseth: “This background noise is perfect. It’s the sound of ingrates, of ingratitude, of people who are so blinded by ideology they can’t see law and order and common sense in front of them.” pic.twitter.com/aWt5ciuRG3
—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar)”https://x.com/atrupar/status/2072679604184109222?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>July 2, 2026
National Guard troops have been deployed to assist with America 250 celebrations in the capital, though some Democratic governors have warned against their guard members being utilized for a larger federal joint task force to tackle what the Trump administration has called“rampant crime” in Washington.
Many Washington residents are not thrilled with the National Guard’s presence. The controversial America 250 festivities have also sparked criticism from Democrats who accuse President Donald Trump of putting himself at the center of the celebrations.
At the Thursday ceremony, Hegseth suggested the protesters were not from Washington.
“These ingrates will fade away; they’ll go back to wherever they came from,” he said, before asserting that National Guard troops have brought the crime rate down in the capital — a claim that at least one study has found to be inaccurate.
“The crime rate here has dropped in staggering amounts, and the media won’t want to admit it because, of course, they’d have to give credit to President Trump, and then they’d have to give credit to the Department of War or to Stephen Miller,” Hegseth said. “But courageous men like President Trump and Stephen, who said enough is enough, are the reason why this city is a safe and beautiful place.”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
Stephanie Ruhle said she was left “almost speechless” after the release of Donald Trump’s new financial disclosureswhich reported he raked in more than $2 billion since returning to the White House. “Man, it looks good to be president,” the “Money, Power, Politics” host said Wednesday.
According to the 927-page document released Tuesday, Trump’s income has only increased since retaking the White House. The president reported almost $575 million in real estate and golf-related income and another $68.6 million in royalties and licensing fees.
But, as Ruhle pointed out, $1.4 billion of Trump’s 2025 total comes directly from one industry: crypto.
Despite having called that industry a “scam” and a “disaster waiting to happen” in 2021, Trump has in recent years appeared to have a change of heart about digital currency.
“That was just five years ago, but now he is a major crypto industry operator and essentially its top policy maker,” the MS NOW host said. “Remember, he is the one who appointed regulators that changed the rules to hugely benefit the crypto industry, and since he came back to office, he has either completely dropped or settled a whole lot of cases with crypto companies.”
As Trump rakes in more cash, Ruhle said the American people are not experiencing the same kind of prosperity, in part because of the administration’s policies. “[They] are suffering, whether it’s because of tariffs, whether it’s because of inflation, whether it’s because of increased costs, because of the war in Iran,” she said.
While Ruhle noted the president has said he does not choose his investments and has said they are in a “blind account,” she said the American people should not ignore how much Trump has profited since returning to the White House.
“Here’s what you need to know: All of this would be a major conflict of interest — a huge scandal — if it were any other presidency,” she argued.
You can watch Ruhle’s full breakdown in the clip below.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”
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