This is an opinion column.

There it was in one picture.

From the state house press box, Alabama Reflector’s Brian Lyman snapped a shot of the Alabama Senate floor. Sen. Merika Coleman, D-Birmingham, stood at the lectern in the Senate well speaking. A black woman was trying to talk her Republican colleagues out of doing something stupid.

Huddled in a corner of the chamber, Senate Republicans, all white and nearly all men, were doing their own thing.

In this instance, their own thing was drawing Alabama’s congressional district lines.

Right there was what’s wrong with this whole process. A Black person, a Black woman no less, trying to be heard, and Alabama’s GOP delegation too busy with their own machinations to give a rip what she was saying.

The opposite of love is not hate. Racism is not always about hate. Indifference works just as well.

On Friday, Alabama’s legislative Republicans were indifferent.

Indifferent to Black Alabamians, who challenged the last such map they drew.

Indifferent to the U.S. Supreme Court, which told them to start over and do it again.

Indifferent to the Alabama taxpayers who must foot the bill for them to fight this out in court again.

The U.S. Supreme Court told Alabama to draw a map that gave Black Alabamians, most of whom vote consistently for Democrats, two districts where they could have a say in who represents them.

Alabama legislative Republicans said one was enough.

After kicking back and forth two proposed maps in the special-called legislative session all week, a conference committee came up with a third map — which they call the Livingston plan after state Sen. Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro. He magically pulled it out of his pocket at the last minute, confirming week-long suspicions that the other maps were merely a bait-n-switch. Whoever drew this thing is still something of a mystery, but it didn’t happen in committee, and certainly with no input from Democrats.

“The Black members of the Legislature, who were allegedly the aggrieved party, weren’t even involved in coming up with the remedial map to solve it,” state Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, said.

The Republican’s new map creates a second “opportunity district” that’s 39.9 percent Black.

A quick analysis from the Brennan Center showed that in recent elections, that district would have elected Republicans every time Roy Moore wasn’t the Republican candidate.

“The Livingston 3 plan fails to remedy the Voting Rights Act violation identified by the Supreme Court,” Deuel Ross, a lead lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund said. “Our clients will be returning to court to challenge it.”Republicans in the Alabama Legislature don’t care.

What’s really at issue here is that Alabama Republican lawmakers have to cut the knees out from one of their own in Congress — with the three most likely being Reps. Barry Moore, Gary Palmer and Jerry Carl.

They didn’t want to pick.

They didn’t want to make one of their own mad. (Everybody else doesn’t matter. Fuming is fine.)

They’d rather not do their jobs — their sworn duty — nor obey a direct order from the U.S. Supreme Court.

Instead, they sandbagged this deal so the federal courts will likely appoint a special master.

Because they’re scared, gutless and wasteful.

They’ll let the courts decide which Alabama congressman to send packing.

Too bad the judges who make that call won’t be able to send these gutless folks home with them.

More columns by Kyle Whitmire

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Tommy Tuberville is everybody’s problem

Alabama lawmaker lives in one district, represents another

In Alabama, queer is the new Black

Kay Ivey keeps public records secret, leaves kids locked in seclusion