Local control over land use may or may not be a bad idea but it’s not its racist origins that make it so

Have you heard that local control over land use1 is bad because it’s racist and was invented to promote white supremacy?2 I mean, I have too, but it’s a nonsensical position, not least because people with the power to pass laws in this country, and I don’t mean legislators especially, but the people who control legislators, are all white supremacists and have always been white supremacists.3 White supremacy is their ecological niche and they couldn’t survive outside it.

Every law they pass supports white supremacy in one way or another.4 This is a fact as true now as it was in the days when only slaveholding plantation owners were allowed in legislatures.5 If a law’s having been passed to support white supremacy were a reason to repeal it we’d have to repeal every law on the books.6 The constitution would have to go as well.7 That’s an extrinsic reason why the idea is nonsensical, but it’s also intrinsically nonsensical.
Continue reading