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.
The Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a vote on acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination, a spokesperson said late Wednesday, as two retiring Republicans on the panel dug in over President Donald Trump’s personal “anti-weaponization” deal with the government he runs.
Sen. Chuck Grassley’s decision to delay the committee vote that had been set for Thursday marks a setback for one of Trump’s highest-profile Cabinet nominees, at the hands of Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a pair of Republicans set to leave the chamber next year.
“Chairman Grassley works to set President Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure. Senators Cornyn and Tillis want written assurances from the Department of Justice regarding the Trump-IRS settlement,” the committee spokesperson said.
Blanche’s nomination to permanently head the Department of Justice needs the support of either Cornyn or Tillis to make it out of the committee to a vote by the full Senate, assuming all Democrats remain opposed.
“Why don’t you call over the Department of Justice and tell them they have one hour and 50 minutes to get me what I asked for,” Cornyn told reporters Wednesday afternoon amid the hardening standoff over his demand that Blanche and the DOJ put in writing a commitment never to pursue the president’s prized “anti-weaponization” fund, and to clarify the terms of Trump’s personal deal with the Internal Revenue Service.
Tillis told MS NOW that the conversations were complicated by the need for the Justice Department to get “several parties” to agree on the language of the statement Cornyn and Tillis are seeking.
“What I’ve advised the chair, and I would assume Senator Cornyn said something similar, is that we’re not prepared to vote yes yet,” he added.
“The Department has been in regular communication with Committee members for weeks, and we look forward to continuing to work productively with Senators to address any concerns,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in response to the decision to postpone the committee vote.
Cornyn was set to meet with Blanche on Wednesday morning, but the meeting was called off after Blanche failed to meet the senator’s demand for written proposals to modify the controversial settlement agreement he brokered between Trump and the IRS. The Republican senator is set to leave Congress when his term ends in January after a bruising May primary loss to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Trump’s chosen candidate.
“Maybe John Cornyn’s upset with me because I didn’t endorse him,” Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon in the Oval Office. “I don’t know what it is, but I haven’t heard that there’s a problem. I heard (Blanche) is going through quite nicely.”
Cornyn made clear to Blanche during his confirmation hearing that he will not get his support until he agrees to reopen and modify the settlement. Due to the committee’s narrow Republican majority, one GOP “no” vote is enough to sink Blanche’s nomination.
The senator has asked Blanche to provide proof that the proposed nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund established as part of the deal between Trump and the IRS is formally dead, and he has also demanded Blanche narrow the tax audit immunity provisions the settlement afforded to Trump and his family.
Blanche has publicly stated that his department has dropped the fund, but he and the DOJ have dodged requests from Cornyn and a federal judge to put that in writing.
After announcing his meeting with Blanche would not take place Wednesday morning, Cornyn told reporters that changes from Blanche “in a modified release form” would be acceptable, but that “for some reason … they simply refuse to do it,” referring to the DOJ.
Shortly after the meeting was called off, a Justice Department official told MS NOW that the department “provided a written proposal to Senator Cornyn’s staff yesterday following ongoing discussion with both the Committee and the Senator’s office.”
Cornyn said that proposal was “not responsive” to his demands because it did not address the tax audit immunity provisions in the settlement, one of his key demands.
In May, Blanche signed an addendum as part of the deal that granted Trump, his family and his businesses immunity from pending IRS tax audits. That agreement, which has been decried by former IRS officials and legal experts as unlawful self-dealing, is being contested in federal court.
Cornyn noted that Blanche testified under oath that he could meet the request during his confirmation hearing.
“Maybe they think I’m just going to give up or you know, go along, but they’re mistaken,” Cornyn said when asked why he thinks the DOJ could be slow-walking his request.
Kevin Frey contributed to this report.
Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.
Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.
Ebony Davis is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW based in Washington, D.C. She previously worked at BLN as a campaign reporter covering elections and politics.
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived this week for his tour of Washington, he may have had a mission in mind.
Netanyahu needed to overcome his newly diminished stature and waning influence over his once close friend President Donald Trump as both leaders grapple with the unpopularity of a war they started together and is escaping their control.
His meeting at the White House with Trump on Tuesday, which was closed to the press, was the first face-to-face encounter between the two allies since the U.S. and Israel launched a joint attack against Iran on Feb. 28.
Trump gave him a muted welcome and afterwards simply described the meeting as “very good.” “Obviously, many important subjects were discussed,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
Rather than an intimate one-on-one setting, the Oval Office was full of top U.S. officials — Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, and special envoy Steve Witkoff.
But Netanyahu continued the full court press on the Trump administration.
Over the course of two days, in addition to seeing Trump and attending Sen. Lindsey Graham’s funeral at the Capitol, Netanyahu also met separately with Vance, Hegseth, and Rubio, White House and Israeli officials confirmed to MS NOW.
The Israeli prime minister’s slate of meetings with key U.S. national security officials comes at a pivotal moment in the Iran conflict as tensions escalate in the region and Americans increasingly sour on the war. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows 60% of American voters opposing U.S. military action against Iran and 74% against sending U.S. ground troops into Iran.
Not only does Trump face pressure as Republicans face an uphill battle to retain congressional control in this fall’s midterms, Netanyahu’s fate as prime minister is at stake in Israel’s upcoming September elections – and he can’t afford to lose Trump’s favor.
The talks largely focused on what to do next as Iran continues to menace shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and retaliate against American bases in the region and launch attacks on Gulf allies.
According to a senior Israeli official who was granted anonymity to describe the closed-door meeting, President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu did not come to a final decision after discussing three paths forward: get a “good deal” focused on Iran’s nuclear program and enriched material, have no deal and instead continue the blockade and economic pressure, or take escalated military action.
But Netanyahu did not tell Trump what he should do – nor did he express a preference.
The senior Israeli official noted Netanyahu has not ruled out diplomacy – as long as it is coupled with “very strong pressures,” calling the push to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program “a contest of will and a contest of force.”
“There are ways of squeezing them and squeezing them and squeezing them and negotiating at the same time,” the official said.
Netanyahu did not present President Trump with new intelligence regarding the underground Iranian nuclear facility Pickaxe Mountain, per the senior Israeli official, noting the U.S. and Israel already are constantly sharing intelligence – and know where Iran’s highly enriched material is. “We don’t think it’s moved, and I think we have a pretty good grasp on that,” the official said.
During their meeting on Tuesday, Trump and Netanyahu discussed ways Israel and the U.S. can work together to stop Iran’s nuclear program and get the Strait of Hormuz open to maritime trade, the senior Israeli official said.
The two leaders also discussed a third goal: to continue to undermine the Iranian regime and “possibly create future conditions for a change in that area.” U.S. officials have backed away from pursuing paths that would overthrow the current leadership, but Netanyahu still believes that could happen.
“The chasm that has been created between the people and the regime is not about to be closed,” the senior Israeli official said of Netanyahu’s thinking.
Netanyahu advised Trump in February that Israeli intelligence indicated launching strikes against Iran would lead to the toppling of the Islamic Republic’s regime – and five months later, the slain ayatollah’s son retains power with a close circle of hardliners, calling into question the accuracy of Israel’s intelligence apparatus.
But the senior Israeli official said at the time, Netanyahu did not promise the Iranian people would take fate into their own hands following a coordinated attack. Rather, he chose his words carefully and said that an attack could create conditions to “advance the probability or the possibility that that would happen.”
The conditions needed for the Iranian regime to fall, “did not materialize,” the official told MS NOW, adding, “not for lack of insight, but for either operational failure or decisions that were made.”
Despite Netanyahu insisting Israel and the U.S. are on the same page, differences still remain: the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey and the Saudi nuclear arrangement did not come up during Wednesday’s White House meeting, according to a second Israeli official granted anonymity to describe sensitive discussions.
Meanwhile, the conflict continues to spread, with an Iranian drone attacking a U.S. gas storage tanker off the coast of Egypt on Wednesday.
Trump indicated he would not let Iran’s latest action slide, telling reporters on Wednesday that the U.S. would retaliate against Iran even as he leaves room for diplomatic talks to resume.
“It’s our turn, and we’ll see if we get there with an agreement at some point,” Trump said. “But we’re going to hit them very hard.”
As for what it would take for Israel to join the U.S. strikes, the senior Israeli official said that if Israel is attacked by Iran, “We will respond very, very forcefully and very quickly. And I think Iran would make a great mistake.”
Julia Jester covers politics for MS NOW and is based in Washington, D.C.
International rage over FIFA’s close ties to President Donald Trump has reached a fever pitch after soccer’s governing body announced a plan to sell a significant stake to an investor group led by Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law.
The president and his family have all but turned the White House into their personal piggy bank. And FIFA — which has its own sordid history of corruption — seems to have made itself a party to Trump’s self-enrichment under Gianni Infantino’s leadership, such as by paying for space inside Trump Tower in New York. (The organization has defended the office rental as a World Cup outpost.)
Soccer is seen by many as a unifying game. But Trump’s incorporation of FIFA into his political dynasty is threatening that idea.
FIFA has announced plans to sell a large minority stake in a new company that will run its main events, including the World Cup and Club World Cup, as part of a plan to triple the amount of development money it dishes out to its 211 member associations.
Under the proposals — which are subject to approval by a majority of those national associations and FIFA’s 37-member council — a new entity called FIFA Forward Enterprises (FFE) will take over all commercial operations, while FIFA remains the game’s global governing body and retains a majority stake in FFE.
A press release from FIFA confirmed the plans and said Thrive Eternal, which was launched by Joshua Kushner, is expected to lead the investment group that would control FIFA Forward Enterprise. FIFA did not clarify why Thrive Eternal was selected, and Kushner was already dabbling in sports.
But Trump basically has already given son-in-law Jared Kushner carte blanche to dictate U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East while simultaneously hatching business plans in the region. (Jared Kushner has denied any conflicts of interest.)
Joshua Kushner reportedly has been a major donor to Democrats. But, predictably, the idea of another Kushner becoming financially entwined with the World Cup — the world’s most popular sporting event — and basically being dropped into a position of global significance isn’t going over well. Several other soccer governing bodies have expressed concerns, including Europe’s UEFA.
“This crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross,” UEFA said in a statement about The Athletic’s report, adding: “The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade — especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football. It is not FIFA’s to sell.”
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee also rebuked the plan, writing on X: “Apparently the fake Peace Prize and giant lease with Trump Tower weren’t enough — now Infantino performs a kickback hat trick by pursuing a multibillion-dollar deal with Jared Kushner’s brother to sell ownership stakes in the World Cup to private investors.”
FIFA, Donald Trump’s favorite corrupt racketeering enterprise in world sports, is now going directly into business with the Trump family!
Apparently the fake Peace Prize and giant lease with Trump Tower weren’t enough—now Infantino performs a kickback hat trick by pursuing a… https://t.co/knSZibuMea
— House Judiciary Dems (@HouseJudiciary) July 28, 2026
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., has already launched an investigation into the FIFA leader’s relationship with the Trump administration, while dozens of European lawmakers — citing concerns about “potential breaches of political neutrality” — have called for the FIFA Ethics Committee to investigate Infantino. This new proposal seems unlikely to assuage those concerns.
But what it does seem likely to do is fuel global anger toward the U.S. — the kind that has been growing since Trump retook office.
And when you consider that, it’s truly remarkable how the same MAGA movement whose members whined for years about politics mixing with sports is now in lockstep with a president who seems dead-set on casting his shadow over every sports event he can.
This post on X basically sums up the foul stench around FIFA’s latest proposal.
Sepp Blatter was Infantino’s predecessor as FIFA president and oversaw the organization amid some of its many scandals. When heof all people, is warning about how Trump and Infantino’s relationship is “deeply damaging” soccer, it’s a sign of how far FIFA has descended into the gutter.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
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