Is the Constitution inherently racist? Brandon Hasbrouck says yes.
In Boston University Law Review article “The Antiracist Constitution,” the Washington and Lee University professor alleges our nation’s founding document “serves white supremacy.”
He aids his argument with George Floyd’s death, the Fugitive Slave Act, and the fact that Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.
The professor points out a peculiarity:
It is June 28, 1776. The Continental Congress orders that Thomas Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence “lie on the table.” … Jefferson, who enslaves hundreds of people, nonetheless includes an assertion that “all men are created equal.”
Moving forward to fugitive slaves:
It is September 18, 1850. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act… The new law requires government officials to assist in capturing persons accused of escaping slavery on nothing more than an affidavit, allowing free Black people to be enslaved without any right to defend themselves in court.
Last but not least:
It is May 29, 2020. Omar Jimenez and his CNN news crew report on the racial justice protests following George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis. While Jimenez’s crew broadcasts live, police order them to move. Jimenez and his crew agree to move and ask where they should go. Rather than answer, the police officers arrest Jimenez and his crew live on national television. In the course of violently suppressing protests during the following month, police around the country will routinely attack journalists.
Of course, there were unprecedented violent riots at the time. Regardless, how the above incriminates America’s enshrined principles isn’t clear. But for another chink in the Constitution’s armor, the instructor insists it’s racist as it doesn’t see color:
In recent years, some of the most egregiously racist cases have involved the Court resting on constitutional colorblindness to establish why it will not attempt to deal in reasoning or remedies focused on race. To advocates of this sort of colorblindness, an ideal society would make no distinction whatsoever on the basis of race, and we should endeavor to reach such a state. At their most extreme, such advocates seek to eliminate racism in society by eliminating racial distinctions in law immediately and entirely. Or perhaps I should say that they claim to seek this — my thesis is less charitable as to their goals.
He decries “the rhetorical weaponization of colorblindness,” a practice whose “life as a constitutional doctrine is inextricably bound up with its white supremacist introduction to Supreme Court jurisprudence.”
In the past few years, virtue has been radically revised. The United States went from enforcing segregation to hailing colorless unity in an embrace of MLK’s dream. Then abruptly, it institutionally discarded that dream and returned to racial roots. These days, we’re again being assessed according to skin. We’ve even revived the grouping of Whites and Nonwhites — AKA “people of color.”
Apropos of our evolution:
Cartoon Network Schools Kids on Racial Righteousness: You Must Never Be Colorblind
College Op-Ed Asks if White People Should Be Kicked out of Parties
UC Berkeley Professor Told Students Abolishing Whiteness Means Wiping out White People
Pandering Tastes Like Chicken: Christian College Hosts ‘People of Color’ Appreciation Lunch
Tennessee University Segregates Students for ‘Antiracism’ Training, Hails the Absence of White People as ‘Magical’
Back to Brandon, he estimates slavery is still intact:
Our Constitution, as it is and as it has been interpreted by our courts, serves white supremacy. The twin projects of abolition and reconstruction remain incomplete, derailed first by openly hostile institutions, then by the subtler lie that a colorblind Constitution would bring about the end of racism. Yet, in its debut in Supreme Court jurisprudence, colorblind constitutionalism promised that facially discriminatory laws were unnecessary for the perpetuation of white supremacy. That promise has been fulfilled across nearly every field of law as modern white supremacists adopt insidious, facially neutral laws to ensure the oppression of Black people and other vulnerable populations.
As observed by Campus Reform, the assistant law professor has a plan for enormous improvement:
According to Hasbrouck, positive reforms include police abolition, carceral abolition (prison abolition), and property reparations.
So goes his exploration of “what an antiracist Constitution would look like in practice.”
We’re in the midst of change. Many — in academia, government, and the media — want a new America. They’re working diligently toward that end.
What are we to become? If some have their way, I’d say something revolutionary.
It's a new day in America…
'Justice Correspondent' Takes out the 'Trash' — AKA the Constitutionhttps://t.co/t465g8Jy14
— Alex Parker (@alexparker1984) March 7, 2022
See more content from me:
It’s Official: California State University Has Permanently Abandoned Standardized Testing
University Whacks ‘Women’s’ History Month, Hails the Wonders of ‘Womxn’
State University Offers ‘Race and Resistance Studies’ Major Promoting ‘Radicalism and Revolution’
Find all my RedState work here.
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