Black people in America intuitively understand that liberal democracy is a fucking sham. Even taken at face value, it's a system based on majority rule and they're a minority. Even if everything worked how it was supposed to they wouldn't have a voice.
This isn't a good take because -- at face value -- we don't have pure majority rule. At face value, you can't just do anything you want with 50.1% of the vote. You especially can't take away fundamental, constitutional rights unless you have an enormous majority (again, this is at face value). There are all sorts of mechanisms (theoretically) included in our government to protect minority groups, and of course you can having a voice is not the same as getting what you want.
The reason why American democracy is a sham for black people is the centuries of structural racism (along with centuries of more overt racism) baked into every aspect of the country. It doesn't matter if stuff works on paper if in reality there's a mountain of bias against you. This is doubly true when you look at the difference between having a voice and getting what you want. If you and a group of friends are deciding where to go eat, the group may decide to go somewhere you don't like, but (because they're your friends) they're not going to go somewhere you hate just to fuck you over and they'll probably be pretty willing to compromise to someplace they're all fine with and you're at least lukewarm on. You have a voice, and that voice has some meaningful input on the final decision, but you're not getting everything you want. On paper, this isn't a bad way of deciding what to do as a group. The problem isn't with that sort of decision-making process; the problem is that America doesn't treat minority groups like friends. America is more than happy to fuck over minority groups out of spite, and is even happier to tell them "tough shit, deal with it" even if they're not actively fucking the group over.
It's still a broken system, it's just broken for a different reason.
Black people in America intuitively understand that liberal democracy is a fucking sham. Even taken at face value, it's a system based on majority rule and they're a minority. Even if everything worked how it was supposed to they wouldn't have a voice.
This isn't a good take because -- at face value -- we don't have pure majority rule. At face value, you can't just do anything you want with 50.1% of the vote. You especially can't take away fundamental, constitutional rights unless you have an enormous majority (again, this is at face value). There are all sorts of mechanisms (theoretically) included in our government to protect minority groups, and of course you can having a voice is not the same as getting what you want.
The reason why American democracy is a sham for black people is the centuries of structural racism (along with centuries of more overt racism) baked into every aspect of the country. It doesn't matter if stuff works on paper if in reality there's a mountain of bias against you. This is doubly true when you look at the difference between having a voice and getting what you want. If you and a group of friends are deciding where to go eat, the group may decide to go somewhere you don't like, but (because they're your friends) they're not going to go somewhere you hate just to fuck you over and they'll probably be pretty willing to compromise to someplace they're all fine with and you're at least lukewarm on. You have a voice, and that voice has some meaningful input on the final decision, but you're not getting everything you want. On paper, this isn't a bad way of deciding what to do as a group. The problem isn't with that sort of decision-making process; the problem is that America doesn't treat minority groups like friends. America is more than happy to fuck over minority groups out of spite, and is even happier to tell them "tough shit, deal with it" even if they're not actively fucking the group over.
It's still a broken system, it's just broken for a different reason.