If you are looking for a clear example of radical modern institutional racism, take the fact that 65% of Floridians voted to get rid of a Jim Crow disenfranchisement law, but state legislators blocked them by putting a fines-and-fees poll tax in its place. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/07/who-gets-to-vote-in-florida

Its not just legislators; the executive branch and courts are bending over backwards to thwart a popular initiative: DeSantis bizaarely insists he is enforcing the language as approved, and two Trump-appointed Judges are declining to withdraw from the case despite clear conflicts

There is a pretty straightforward and plausible account that Al Gore lost the Presidency in 2000 because a partisan FL Secretary of State removed tens of thousands of eligible voters, disproportionately Black, from the rolls under the premise that she was disenfranchising felons.

When writing about FL administrative burdens we quoted Mike Bennett (left) who tried to restrict voter registration. Did not realize until reading this piece that he became an election supervisor, where he continued to impose burdens that disproportionately hurt Black voters.

Rick Scott made his personal fortune, which he used to fund his political campaigns, via the largest Medicare fraud in US history. His company pled guilty to 14 felonies. As Governor, he largely refused clemency to felons seeking to vote (just 3K, compared to 67K for Jeb Bush).

I'm fascinated by the invocation of "fraud" as a political argument - that it is such a powerful claim, or dog-whistle, that its users don't feel compelled to offer evidence to support it. Again, this comes from a man whose company paid $1.7 BILLION in fines for Medicare fraud.

I'm just an immigrant who moved to the US, but this stuff seems so obvious. People who argue that institutional racism is some made-up university sham: read US history, on-the-ground reporting and social science analysis. If you can't see its because you don't want to see it.

Letting people vote is the most basic part of our social contract. If you repeatedly, throughout history, come up with myriad state actions intended to restrict that right for one group, it's because you see that group as less than a full member of our society, less than human.