Politics

Seems like you would need to cut very carefully to achieve two Black majority districts, which very much sounds like gerrymandering to me. However, this is just based on that one map, so I may very well be mistaken.

Glad the map helped! Yes, they have been ordered by the court to make the map in such a way that Black Alabamians, who make up ~~40%~~ 27% (correction, thanks @Spiracle) of the voting age population according to this article, have a reasonable shot of electing their preferred representative in at least 2 districts. In Alabama, voting is extremely racially polarized with the vast majority of Republicans being White (~70%) and the vast majority of Democrats being Black (~80%) (see here). Because of this, to elect their preferred representative, the district will almost certainly have to be majority Black.

So yes, if you want to say this is gerrymandering because it is drawing maps with a certain outcome in mind I guess you can say that. But gerrymandering is usually used to describe intentionally limiting voting power based on race or party, while this is designed to equalize it based on racial demographics.

If these two tendrils were removed, it looks like there would still be just one Black majority district (CD-6) with CD-7 and CD-2 both having somewhat big minorities of Black voters.

Here is the new map proposed by the AL legislature. It essentially removes one tendril to increase the Black pop in CD-2. It is likely also to be struck down because it only increase the Black pop to about 40% in that district while the court order asks for specifically a majority "or something quite close to it."

It seems to me, that the basis of the argument that you need a Black majority in order to fully assert your right to vote is the assertion that voters who are Black cannot be represented by officials non-Black people vote for. It seems to assume a strict racial divide in who people vote for, with White people having their White representative and Black people needing their Black representative.

Mentioned this a little above, but can add more detail. The Black-majority districts can elect whomever they choose, but just because of the nature of race and partisanship in Alabama this will almost certainly be a Black Democrat. I should also note that gerrymandering on the basis of party is 100% legal. The problem is a party-based gerrymander in Alabama is essentially indistinguishable from a race-based one. The law is not enforcing a racial divide, it is recognizing one that already exists. A district which is 60% non-Black (like the proposed CD-2 above) is almost guaranteed to not be represented by the candidate that the majority of Black people vote for.

(Sorry these keep getting longer, enjoying the discussion and hope that it helps explain our incredibly confusing politics)