Thread by @VABVOX

Brilliant historical piece by @AdamSerwer, which explicates how Reconstruction, Redemption & the Jim Crow era (literally) bled into each other with regard to SCOTUS rulings. In Serwer's carefully constructed timeline, separate becomes unequal.
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THREAD📌 theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Not only does @AdamSerwer explore the SCOTUS rulings that excuse and explain the killings of black Americans and former slaves, he clearly delineates how the SCOTUS became the friend of corporations over individuals and how this was a direct outgrowth of 14th amendment cases.
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The build from the 1873 Colfax massacre in LA to the Roberts' court's support of Trump's white nationalism, is as fascinating as it is horrifying. @AdamSerwer writes: "the branches of federal government aligned toward a single ideological purpose: protection of white rule."
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This is a long read, but the breadth of historical data and the force of the examples and sections culled from SCOTUS rulings over 150+ years is powerful, heady and implicitly harrowing stuff. @AdamSerwer writes of our "romanticization" of the SCOTUS.
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That romanticization of the SCOTUS as deconstructed by @AdamSerwer here shows with brutal clarity how Brown v Topeka Board of Ed and Obergefell v Hodges are really outliers, not the expected, exalted Solomon-like decision-making of a benevolent high court. Chilling assessment.
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I covered the SCOTUS for 3yrs and it was a fascinating and often deeply disappointing experience. I never fully lost my belief that the high court could right the most glaring wrongs of America's social fabric, but recent years have quashed my expectations, as woman & queer. 6/

I cannot recommend this piece strongly enough. It's long & requires full attention, but as with all the very best writing, one comes away from @AdamSerwer's brilliant exegesis smarter and more knowlegeable. Yet also, perhaps, more unhappily so. A grim report, but a must read.
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