MSNBC host Joy Reid made little effort to hide her disdain for the United States Supreme Court, especially after its most recent ruling, and compared bans on affirmative action to Jim Crow laws.
Reid, who filled in to host “Hardball” on Tuesday, discussed the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a ban on affirmative action in Michigan and claimed the ruling upheld white supremacy.
“Let me finish tonight with the Supreme Court and affirmative action,” Reid said. “The Roberts court decided today that states have the right to end affirmative action if the voters wish to do so. If this court has a central narrative, it could be that those who have held the advantage for most of this country’s history deserve to have it back if they can find the legislative or political means to take it back. If they do, the court won’t stand in the way.”
Though the MSNBC host, who is at the helm of her own show, “The Reid Report,” praised the high court for upholding the Affordable Care Act and overturning both the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, she criticized the conservative wing of the Supreme Court for majority rulings that regress the country back to Jim Crow.
“Whether it’s states that were once blocked from passing restrictive voting rules from the Voting Rights Act but are now free to do so, or the rich, who from the robber baron-era through Watergate were free to spend unlimited sums of money to buy a candidate or two or 20, or states whose voting majorities have had enough of affirmative action, but don’t mind a few legacies getting a leg up at their family alma mater,” Reid said.
She closed the show by saying the Roberts court “has had moments of siding with the victims of discrimination,” but noted that “unless discrimination is violence and obvious and in-your-face, it’s gone.”
“That’s something only the privileged could believe,” Reid said.
The Supreme Court upheld a Michigan constitutional amendment that banned affirmative action in college admissions. The 6-2 ruling is likely to pave the way for other states to put their own constitutional amendments on the ballot in future elections.
Several of the high court’s rulings — including decisions on the Voting Rights Act and campaign finance — over the last two terms have enraged Democrats and emboldened claims of racism and regression into the Jim Crow-era.
h/t Newsbusters
