Who counts?

Some of the results of the 2020 census have been released, producing banner headlines and maps galore about the changing racial composition of the US - putting paid to the promise to be a nation representative (albeit through settlement...) of the whole world, not just Europe. But we know that these results will be used by Republicans to gerrymander continued white dominance in state and probably national elections. Indeed, several such states will have more representatives because of their growing diverse populations, even as cynical redistricting will keep their congressional delegations disproportionately white. Depressing - and depressingly consistent with a history which began with the infamous "three-fifths clause" of the US Constitution. Counting enslaved persons as less than fully human was horrendous. So was the presumption of their enslavers, whose political voice was enhanced by usurping the mandates of those who could not vote - and the acquiescence of their white confrères. (Constitutional literalists, especially those who think the Constitution immaculately conceived, are as poor readers of this as of other scriptures they revere; the three-fifths clause appears in the very first article of the Constitution, and wasn't touched by amendment for most of a century.) Such usurpation seems to be business as usual still. Critical race theorist, me?