Proceedings of The 3rd World Conference on Research in Social Sciences
Year: 2021
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/3rd.socialsciencesconf.2021.10.69
A Critical Race Theory Case Study of the Effect of Gerrymandering on Political Representation in El Paso County Colorado, U.S.A.
Royla L. Rice
ABSTRACT:
In 2020, Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis captivated the United States and the world at large, with people of color demanding an end to police brutality and racial inequality. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. recognized the right to vote as foundational to equality in a democracy. Racial inequality is exposed by purportedly partisan gerrymandering efforts that amount to Black voter dilution. Gerrymandering creates a winner-take-all game in which the majority rules, but the process is rooted in housing segregation policies initiated in the 1930s that concentrated Black Americans into specific neighborhoods and expressly excluded from certain neighborhoods indicated by redlining on city planning maps. This case study utilizes tenets of Critical Race Theory to interrogate the effect of racism on political representation in a gerrymandered congressional district in Colorado.
keywords: Black voter dilution; proportionality; residential segregation; voting rights; winner-take-all.