The original Voting Rights Act was passed and signed into law in 1965. The protections outlined in the Voting Rights Act fall broadly into two categories: access and power.

Access is all the visible components of voting. The VRA outlaws literacy tests, poll taxes, and intimidation at the polls. The VRA means that Black folks can register and cast their votes free from interference and intimidation.

The second category, power, is more difficult to define or see. This is the idea that an individual casting a ballot should actually be able to affect the election’s outcome, and that a community should have its interests represented by its elected official. To protect this power, the VRA created enforcement frameworks that prevented states with a history of discrimination against Black citizens from drawing maps that would so dilute the population that they would never have meaningful representation.

It was in this second category, the protection of Black political power, that the challenges began almost as soon as the law went into effect. Beginning in 1966, states brought challenges against the VRA, especially pushing back against what the states and conservative actors often framed as “federal overstepping.”

Though the Supreme Court upheld the VRA as valid law for decades, over time, some individuals and groups built a movement to dismantle it. John Roberts, long before he was named Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was working within the federal government to weaken the provisions of the VRA. Roberts wrote to oppose a Congressional amendment to the VRA that would strengthen Section 2, which prohibits discriminatory voting practices or procedures.

Furthermore, the Federalist Society was founded with the explicit mission of building a legal class in law schools opposed to the so-called “liberal” agenda. The Federalist Society has been openly skeptical of the VRA, on so-called “states rights” grounds. And over several decades, they worked to populate the Supreme Court bench with justices who had come up through Federalist Society circles.

One prominent member of the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, best known for giving Donald Trump a list of names for the Supreme Court, has been working for decades to move the court explicitly to the political right. He has brought money, access, and influence to the project of pushing courts across the country to the right.

And then in 2013, in Shelby v. Holder, with Chief Justice John Roberts at the helm, the Court struck down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act—the provision of the VRA that required some states to submit their district maps, as well as many other changse in voting requirements, for approval before the changes could be implemented.

When I first wrote about Shelby v. Holder, I thought, wrongly, that Congress would step in and attempt to remedy the gap the Court had identified. But in 2013, no one wanted to attempt big legislation because the Midterms were approaching. The focus was on re-election. In 2015, a bill (the Voting Rights Advancement Act) was introduced, but it died in committee. The bill was re-introduced in 2017, and again in 2020, but the bill died each time. In 2021, the bill was renamed the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and it passed the House, but could not overcome the filibuster in the Senate. The emergency continued to stroll along. We could all see it.

Then on April 29, 2026, the Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v Callais took the slow emergency and created a disaster. Where Shelby v. Holder left some room for the Voting Rights Act to continue to function as law, just with fewer enforcement mechanisms, Callais essentially gutted the VRA, allowing states to reinstitute the kinds of policies that explicitly dilute the Black vote, and therefore Black political power, especially in the South. And barely a month out from the decision, we have seen multiple states scrambling to do just that.

Our systems are not good at responding to slow emergencies. Health care, housing, child care, reproductive rights, wealth inequality, climate change, and these days, democracy itself. All of these are slow-moving emergencies that are addressable, but require some vision, courage, and moral seriousness—qualities that many of our elected officials (and Congress as a whole) distinctly lack. Immigration was, in many ways, also a slow-moving emergency, though this past year it escalated into a disaster, as slow emergencies are wont to do.

It’s worth noting that what I’m referring to as slow emergencies are not the same as accidents. Every one of the slow emergencies already mentioned is the result of years, decades (and in some cases, centuries) of decisions. The slow emergencies always mean that some people suffer more than others. We hear people talk about maintaining the “status quo,” but maintaining the slow emergency isn’t quite that.

The slow emergency is deferred maintenance, yes. It is also the gradual and intentional undermining of these systems that allows the bottom to slowly fall out. And the bottom is allowed to fall out precisely because the consequences are not equally distributed. The people most vulnerable to the emergency’s effects are those who suffer increasingly severe ramifications as the emergency approaches disaster.

And that, one could argue, is the point. The downfall of the VRA is a disaster for the country in a thousand small and large ways. But the effects of the bottom gradually falling out have been felt for decades already, especially by traditionally disenfranchised communities. The VRA did not guarantee robust voting rights. It provided protections against the most egregious injuries of voter suppression, which is why policies like voter ID laws, partisan gerrymandering, and voting roll purges were allowed to persist. But now, with the dissolution of Sections 5 and 2, the bottom has fallen out, and the weight is going to be borne mostly by the historically disenfranchised communities (primarily Black communities). The consequences are going to be felt even more broadly, as our elected public servants make voting more difficult and less meaningful for all of us.

This most recent blow to the Voting Rights Act was predictable. It was also preventable. This is the America of the slow emergencies. Predictable and preventable emergencies that culminate in disaster. And of course, in addition to the immense consequences for individuals and families, these slow emergencies also have absolutely detrimental effects on civic life.

The seeming inability or indifference of our elected leaders to address these intractable, slow emergencies leaves us (the public, the people) with dwindling faith in the government that is supposed to serve. If the government cannot address these predictable and preventable emergencies, how then can it possibly be part of building a future where we can all thrive?

Living through the sea of slow emergencies further means that every individual spends energy and resources playing whack-a-mole to keep their head above water. Each of us is in our own leaky boat, focused on staying afloat. Slow emergencies gradually isolate us from one another, transforming us from neighbors into strangers. And the consequences of this atomization are more than just loneliness (though it is that.) It is the breakdown of civic life more broadly.

Exercising political power depends on a public functioning as “we, the people.” Every major social change in the history of liberal democracy has depended on “the people” working together toward a desired change. The much-cited 3.5% rule, penned by Erica Chenoweth, is a simplified version of this. Authoritarian regimes in modern history have not survived sustained protests by 3.5% of that country’s population. Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone is another illustration of this. His thesis was that the health of a particular democracy can be determined in part by how connected its people are to one another.

Our slow emergencies create a particularly vicious feedback loop. Isolation from one another causes us to forget how to be “we the people,” even as we can all see the emergencies as they roll into disasters. Meanwhile, we can also see that our elected officials, presumably voted into office so they can help fix these problems, seem unable or unwilling to meaningfully address them. We have lost the muscle to exercise collective political power as a people, and we have lost the sense that, even if we could find that collective power, our government is both inept and indifferent.

This is the America of the slow emergency. Each of us expending more and more effort to make ends meet in a system that is continually giving us less rope.

But there is another version of America that I like to think of as the Mister Rogers America. We know that as we become more atomized, less connected to one another, our political power diminishes. And the inverse is also true. We can build more connections and a politics of care.

Check back for Part 2.

Yesterday, on the fifth day of Black History Month, the current president of the United States posted a video to social media that portrayed former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes.

If you are not familiar with the racist trope of comparing Black people to monkeys or apes, allow me to provide a brief explanation.

The comparison of Black people to apes and monkeys has deep roots in pseudoscientific racism dating back centuries. As far back as the 16th century, white European “scientists” falsely claimed that African people existed closer to animals on a fabricated racial hierarchy. Enslavers and colonizers weaponized these dehumanizing comparisons to justify enslavement, segregation, and violence.

Though both the science and morality of this claim have been thoroughly debunked, the trope has persisted.

Let’s be very clear. More than insulting, this imagery was and continues to be a deliberate tool of oppression. In depicting Black people as less than human, past enslavers could more easily rationalize brutal treatment and the denial of basic rights and dignity.

This current administration is not only saying the quiet part out loud. They are screaming it from the rooftops, broadcasting it to anyone who is willing and able to see it. They want the United States to be more white. The project is explicit, and they are demonstrating their willingness to use every method of violence and intimidation at their disposal.

So what does that mean for us today?

For me, a white, cis woman, it leaves me with a clarified obligation. When the violent oppressors seek to dehumanize, our response must be to re-humanize, through the daily work of building a world where we recognize and respond to our fundamental interdependence.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously said that “marching is praying with your feet.” So first, we must be ready to pray, with our feet, with our bodies, with our privilege.

Our prayers cannot end when the march does. They must be offered in how we show up for our neighbors and how we use whatever privilege we have to absorb blows meant for others.

The prayers must continue in group chats and school board meetings, in choosing solidarity over comfort, in the small and large refusals that say “not in my name, not on my watch.” The prayers continue through calls to elected officials, mutual aid dinners, and stepping into the voting booth.

Dehumanization lives on the lie that we are separate, that another person’s suffering is not our concern. The antidote is the opposite: a deliberate cultivation of connection and mutual obligation. It means asking not “how does this affect me?” but “who is most at risk right now, and how can I be useful?”

Whatever else it means, we must be doing the work of re-imagining what it means to be “we, the people.” Not as a nation unified by sameness, but as a community bound to one another, dependent on each other for our collective dignity and survival.

This is the work. Not someday, but today. Not somewhere else, but right where we stand.

In Illinois, where I live, the state senate recently passed a bill that would amend the school code to ban student use of cell phones during instructional time.

The bill drew rare bipartisan support. Governor J.B. Pritzker endorsed it, calling cell phones an “impediment” to education.

I find myself in the (extreme) minority. According to a February 2025 SLU/YouGov poll, 70% of likely voters support banning student access to phones during regular instructional hours in all K–12 schools.

And yet, I disagree. I don’t believe banning phones in schools will serve our young people well in the long run. That’s not because I think everything is fine with phones, online culture, or how schools are handling them. I just don’t believe a phone ban addresses the real problem.

To explain my thinking on this, we have to look at sex education in America over the last 40 years.

But First, My Context

I am the proud parent of two teenagers. Think early high school. They both excel academically, love to read, and spend hours immersed in Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) adventures with their friends. They also both have smartphones.

In full disclosure, we didn’t start out with regular smartphones. Instead, we started them out on Pinwheel, a system that lets us customize the devices (not sponsored or affiliated in any way). There’s no social media, no browser—but they do have access to apps for drawing, tracking assignments, setting reminders, school Google accounts, and texting/calling.

We got them each a phone in the spring of 6th grade, knowing they’d soon be moving to a new school. We wanted them to be able to stay connected to friends and to start building independence in a way that felt supportive to them.

The phones have turned out to be a real asset. They've helped our kids (both neurodivergent) stay organized, connect socially, and even express their creativity. I’ve been especially surprised by how often they use them for creative projects.

We agreed to a few rules around the phones. Phones are taken out of bedrooms at an agreed-upon time and charged at night in the charging station in the living room. Phones are turned off or left in bedrooms at dinner time.

However, the most important thing we’ve done is maintain an open conversation. We talk regularly about boundaries, screen time, and healthy relationships.

This brings us back to Sex Ed.

Let’s Talk About Sex. No, really.

When I was a kid (in the 80s and 90s), most sex education consisted mostly of “just don’t do it, and if you do here’s the list of Very Bad Things that might happen to you.” There was very little conversation about safety, healthy relationships, boundaries, abuse, sexuality, identity, or intimacy.

Today, most experts acknowledge that comprehensive sex ed includes all of these things. This comprehensive sex ed model aims for kids to be well-equipped to “make informed, safe, positive choices about their sexuality and sexual health.”

Further, the broad recommendation from experts is that parents begin talking about sex in age-appropriate ways from the time our children are VERY young. Use correct names for body parts. Model and demonstrate what consent looks like.

These improvements in sex education and the tools available to adults and kids have actually led to adolescents delaying sexual activity, safer sex when they do engage, and lower rates of teen pregnancy and STIs. Critically, the kids are safer when they are given information and agency.

I see a lot of parallels between the evolution of sex ed, and the need for greater conversation, education, and understanding around smartphones and social media.

My own smartphone has improved my life in ways that are sometimes surprising. It helps my executive functioning (I live by alarms). I find I have closer/more frequent communication with friends and family, even when we go years without being able to be together or even talk on the phone.

This is not to say that smartphones are an unmitigated good. They're not. And I've made a lot of modifications to my factory settings to make the phone work for me (particularly around notifications), rather than the other way around. Those problems are pretty well-documented, so I'm not gonna go into it here.

However, this is precisely why I believe the kids deserve the same thoughtful and intentional approach to phone and technology use. Like sex, phones introduce complex dynamics that do not fit into clean categories of good and bad. Instead, phones can be wonderful tools for organization, social connection, and creativity. They can also be harmful in both obvious and subtle ways.

But we don’t do our kids any favors by only selling the narrative that phones are the forbidden, bad thing. After all, abstinence-only education does not work for sex ed.

There is no magical “good relationship with your phone” switch that gets flipped when kids reach 16 or 18 or 21. Instead, navigating the responsible use of a smartphone is something that should be taught. That is, in many ways, more difficult than a ban. It requires patience as well as the acceptance that our kids will not always make the decisions we might make.

But I also believe that as kids grow and learn, they are more likely to find success if they are given independence and agency. Further, as they make that transition into the difficult terrain of adulthood, they will actually have the tools they need—at least when it comes to the phones.

Following politics and political commentary has long been my hobby.

For about as long as I can remember, a particular pundit class has been especially preoccupied with talking about “kitchen table” issues, and how they relate to politics. In our contemporary moment, kitchen table issues refer quite literally to the price of eggs, but also the small and large things that families might talk about when they . These are issues that people understand immediately, because they are baked into the daily lives of families from (nearly) every demographic, income bracket, race, and religion.

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The common wisdom has been that, in order to be elected and remain popular, politicians must, at least on some level, demonstrate a basic understanding of and sympathy for kitchen table issues.

Part 2. The Butcher Block

In the center of the kitchen of the house where I was growing up was not your standard table. Instead, my parents (according to family legend) purchased an antique butcher block at a local auction and used that as a kitchen island.

Before it found its home in our kitchen, the butcher block had a long life in a butcher shop. The surface was worn and smooth, with a large dip in the middle of the block of hardwood where the butcher's cleaver struck over and over and over.

This was a kitchen island with its own set of stories, and even though the daily life of my family never really stopped to consider what the history was, the scars and that smooth dent were lasting evidence that the bloody history certainly had happened.

Part 3. The Politics

I have noticed that pundits often fall into a couple of distinct “buckets.” There are people who will examine a political moment and attempt to place it within its historical context. And there are people who will claim the historical context is irrelevant, that what truly matters are the kitchen table issues.

I think (and I know I’m not alone in this) the two things are not as separable as what appears at first blush. The kitchen table issues are always already intertwined with the historical context that brought us there. We can ignore the context, but the scars and the dents are there whether we choose to acknowledge them or not.

And of course, the kitchen table is the bridge from our bloody past to the future we are building together.

So let’s gather together around this butcher block. Let’s talk.