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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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Anyone want to talk about test cases? Rosa Parks' name has come up again to remind us that there is a group of people who didn't know the incident was staged by the NAACP as a way to put segregation on trial. I hope that everyone knows test cases are a thing and I'm a little curious what percentage of the famous judicial cases this would apply to. I guess it tarnishes people's fuzzy feelings about the scrappy individual with pure motives facing off against evil oppression but it doesn't change the facts of the case. Personally I have the impression that the judicial system is skewed against the poor and un-savvy and rewards those who have resources behind them and know how to work the system. So it does seem to the outsider as if everyone could benefit from having an organization behind them to raise attention and mount a strong defense. Rosa Parks may have been one person but her case ended up helping the many not-so-sympathetic individuals who were also victims of the unjust system. So when you hear about a high profile case, does it matter if the person was specifically set up as a test case, and if it matters, why?

A relatively long comment, and yet, not one mention of Claudette Colvin and why she was eventually dropped as a test case candidate? Not even in any of the replies?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudette_Colvin#Legacy

Her story answers many of your questions, I think.

But, she wasn’t dropped as a test case candidate. There she is, in the case caption.

She wasn't made a face of the issue for the obvious reason that many people are stupid enough to think that the fact that she was pregnant out of wedlock is somehow relevant to whether Jim Crow was either legal or moral.