Also district shaping is more complex than you might think.

For instance some distracts were purposely built around a minority groups neighborhoods so that they would have a representative. If you made the districts purely based on grids then the group would be too small to have any representative.

Which maybe is the wrong solution. But you get funky district shapes for all sorts of reasons that are not the corruption people typically think of.

A lot of times they do this to isolate voters in one district. You make 1-2 compact districts like GA-5, that contains a large number of Democratic voters (and black people), like 90% margin. Then you surround it with gerrymandered districts and make them nearly but not quite competitive, like 55% Republican white suburban. Thus the same population of Republicans can have 4 or 5 districts while the Democrats get 1 or 2.

Isn't it interesting that folks will justify gerrymandering when it's built to support a minority group, unless that minority group is the one particular subset of the population who aren't generally allowed specific representation?

This is exactly how the current wave of gerrymandering began. The mandate to create "majority-minority" districts led to the concentration of districts that favored minorities (Democrats) but at the same time created two or three districts with sizable (but not insanely so) Republican districts.

From the Atlantic:

"But just in time for the redistricting in 1990, some enterprising Republicans began noticing a rather curious fact: The drawing of majority-minority districts not only elected more minorities, it also had the effect of bleeding minority voters out of all the surrounding districts. Given that minority voters were the most reliably Democratic voters, that made all of the neighboring districts more Republican. The black, Latino, and Asian representatives mostly were replacing white Democrats, and the increase in minority representation was coming at the expense of electing fewer Democrats. "

That is because what you are referring to as "one particular subset of the population who aren't generally allowed specific representation" does not need any help in making sure they have representation. One, they are not (currently) a minority and two, they have the vast majority of the power in this country already.

So no, it isn't interesting.

I'm confused about why being a minority means you need more help? Are they not as capable as the rest of us? Why do you think they are so disadvantaged as to require special education and assistance? I mean we're not talking case by case basis here, your sentiments were clearly blanketed statements.

>I'm confused about why being a minority means you need more help?

In simple terms, many minority groups in America have been forcefully and intentionally disadvantaged for generations through programs like redlining, segregation, the so-called war on drugs, gerrymandering, and hundreds of other racist schemes designed to deprive minority citizens of the same rights and privileges you and your ancestors were afforded solely based on the colour of their skin.

And I would hope that you can understand why centuries of systemic oppression would have a lasting effect that needs more than just words to address.

yours would best be described as the 'naive' take on the situation, and rests on a false premise.

These minorities need 'help' in that a majority is going to be self-interested and lacking compassion or any sort of integrity at larger scope.

In the U.S. this might take the form of tax loopholes for speedboats and golf memberships eating into funding for basic social services (infrastructure, law enforcement, education resources and such) on the other side of town.

If you can unpack the above and place yourself in the shoes of the people on the bad end of that deal, you might start to get the idea.

There will always be a majority and there will always be a minority. But the thought process behind, "they are a minority, therefore they need assistance" is elitism at best and racism at worst. Furthermore, the laws that we pass that give special treatment to one group over another make that divide all the more permanent.

It's not about giving anyone assistance or an advantage, it's about giving people representation. With single-member districts, if a group makes up, say, 20% of the population in each district, they don't get 20% of the representatives, but 0%. If we had proportional representation, they would get 20% of the representatives, but we don't, and majority-minority districts are basically a bandaid to simulate it in a subset of cases.

To be eligible for a majority-minority district, a minority group must be "politically cohesive" and "sufficiently numerous and compact to form a majority in a single-member district", while the majority group must "votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it [..] usually to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate". (Thornburg v. Gingles) In other words, there must be a political bloc that (a) is not receiving any representation in the area and (b) would have representation with a majority-minority district. Letting them have that in no way gives them an advantage over the majority, whose preferred candidates will still control all the other districts.

Why not apply this to political blocs that exist based on factors other than race – like plain old conservative versus liberal? Well, I think we should; again, I'd prefer proportional representation. But the current rule is enforcing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which specifically calls out discrimination based on race – something that was a huge problem in 1965, and is still a problem today. Compared to other types of political blocs, racial ones are disproportionately excluded from the political system. And morally speaking, although being discriminated against due to your political beliefs is bad, being discriminated against due to your race is somewhat worse, because you can choose one but not the other.

How about “they’re a minority with a long history of being enslaved, impoverished, disparaged, denied basic rights, denied access, denied the ballot box, denied representation, denied life itself”? Would that make any difference in your judgment on the matter?

Although comex’s answer is, probably, more important.

* The laws we are talking about are to mitigate abuse and oppression by a majority. * You seem especially vitriolic in defending the status quo. * The status quo is full of examples wherein a minority group is unfairly impacted. * You are even willing to make the claim that these protections are themselves racist and should not be attempted under any circumstances.

I think most decent minded folks can see where this is leading.

> You seem especially vitriolic in defending the status quo.

I'm vitriolic towards any law that gives one group preferential treatment under the law. The entire premise of American democracy is majority rule within limits. The founding fathers already gave us ways to protect the minority's rights via the judicial system and the constitution. You cannot legislate status quo because it is derived from the sentiment of the population. If you want to change the sentiment you need to halt the division. You cannot pass a bill forcing black to love white, you can only pass bills that make the distinction irrelevant.

> I think most decent-minded folks can see where this is leading.

Hopefully to a world where people are judged by the content of their character and not by some physical attribute or thing they identify as.

as for "content of character", you have been presented with the mechanism of the oppression and still argue vehemently against remediation or protections.

Juust so you are aware, this all extends far beyond questions of race, not sure why you are so focused on that, but it's probably pretty telling.

Also, I'm not at all sure what you see as a distinction between these protections and "founding fathers already gave us ways to protect the minority's rights via the judicial system...".

We are discussing implementation of that Founding Father Judicial system stuff in this thread, please expand on why you think it serves as an argument against modfying or creating laws to protect abused classes?

> Juust so you are aware, this all extends far beyond questions of race, not sure why you are so focused on that, but it's probably pretty telling.

Just so you are aware, everything is racist in the news today. If you go to any major news site I promise you will find some article about Trump or his supporters being racist. Trump says things about Baltimore, media calls him racist, why is that? Is that telling? Is calling out this guy for having the worst district really that bad? https://i.redd.it/wlf72xth8gd31.jpg

In your version of the US, the Civil Rights Act should be forever expanded to include more and more oppressed groups, whereas in my version of the US the Civil Rights Act should be a universal truth. I don't think it's fair that clubs in Vegas can charge men and women different prices, but is there a movement for that? Does that ever make the news? Of course not. I'm being discriminated against based on my gender but since I don't have protected status that's ok. Instead, I think any discrimination based on physical features should not be allowed unless it somehow impacted their ability to perform a job. (IE ok to say no to person in wheelchair for UPS job)

> "founding fathers already gave us ways to protect the minority's rights via the judicial system...".

If you feel oppressed, you can sue and have your case adjudicated in court. In your system, only those who have protected status have grounds for a lawsuit, therefore people are no longer equal in the eyes of the law. In my system, valid claims of discrimination can be herd regardless of protected status. I would also impose a fine for losing to discourage frivolous lawsuits. If that's too burdensome then that's why we have the ACLU.

I want to get rid of classes. I want people to associate because of common interests not out of mutual dislike. I want to eliminate all differences between citizens under the eyes of the law. I just think it's deeply flawed to think that if you pass enough protection laws suddenly the people that inflict the so-called "oppression" will have a change of heart. You can only hope to do that by highlighting peoples similaries instead of their differences. Conversely, if your goal is to get people to hate each other, you should constantly point out there differences, something the modern media does a fantastic job at.

>There will always be a majority

Not if there are more than 2 groups. There could easily be 3 minorities with 0 majorities.

> Except that it uses non-gerrymandered districts from California, where elected officials are not allowed to draw the lines.

Just because the districts are drawn by unelected people doesn't mean the districts aren't gerrymandered.

Only three letters in this project include California; only the letters T and X are represented exclusively by California. The statement is powerful and hilarious, not "lost."

The T district doesn't even look problematic to me. Nor does the other California letter, X, which is made up of a combination of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California%27s_8th_congression...

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California%27s_14th_congressio...

...both of which seem like textbook examples of what a good, non-gerrymandered district should look like.

I think it was a dig at Texas, especially since the gp didn't mention the third CA letter.

There isn't a third. There are two, T (made up of one district) and X (made of two).

If the point of this project was to call attention to ridiculously-shaped gerrymandered districts, these are some of the last districts that should ever be considered for inclusion.

>these are some of the last districts that should ever be considered for inclusion.

Maybe there were, and the author had to use them for their relatively sane shapes compared to calling Maryland's 3rd District the X.

Be that as it may, it substantially undermines the premise of the work, which is presumably, "Gerrymandering is so rampant that you can make an entire alphabetic font out of gerrymandered districts".

I think that "Gerrymandering is so rampant that you can make 24 of the 26 letters out of gerrymandered districts" still demonstrates their point.

D, E, O, Q, T, X, Y, and half of Z all seem fine to me.

Districts look idiosyncratic no matter how they are drawn, so I’m not sure this works as a statement. Perhaps if the font were updated over time to match the changes due to gerrymandering, the font would become less and less readable, and that would seemingly be some sort of statement.

It's not even a very good T. Some letters are more impressive than others. Q is totally worthless for the political point.

But N, D, U, and a few others are real gems.

I’m imagining this debate playing out in my head.

I’m not sure if gerrymandering is all that bad. Wait, what’s this, a font made out of gerrymandered districts? It must be really bad, we should do something about it. Except the T doesn’t look that great, and it’s from California anyway. Maybe this isn’t such a big deal after all. And the Q! The Q is barely even gerrymandered. Fuck it, I’m gonna go play some video games.

What's wrong with D? That looks like a pretty reasonable district. B is the worst one I think.

K and H are pretty egregious at first glance.

The contrast just serves to further emphasize just how fucked up some of these districts are.