“ If whiteness was literally the law of the land how did you elect and re-elect a black president? How did Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas become judges on the supreme court?”
I wish America had changed so much from its origins but it hasn’t. I must say that colonial America wasn’t quite as racist, “whiteness” wasn’t even a thing until after Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 when white and Black indentured servants combined with Black enslaved people to attack and burn Jamestown, VA. The desperate need to keep the lower classes from joining forces gave us white as a means to keep the rich (and white) in power. By 1790, when America was a country, our official immigration policy was only to naturalize white men. Others could still be admitted but could never become a citizen. This wasn’t fully corrected on paper until 1952. Now we just have Muslim bans and selectively enforce our borders.
“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof on application to any common law Court of record in any one of the States wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least. . . — Immigration Act of 1790
America isn’t quite as anti-Catholic as it once was. We’re on our second Catholic President and the Supreme Court is overrepresented by Catholics based on their percentage of the population. As a country we mostly adore the Pope, except when he condemns our conduct which isn’t enough.
Back to the present, the way to win the Republican nomination these days is to appear as racist and homophobic as possible. Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, the leading 2024 candidate except Trump, said today that podcaster Joe Rogan should never apologize for his repeated use of the word n***** over the years and implied he should keep on using it. He also is in favor of banning the discussion of anything about gay people in schools and advocates giving the public the right to sue school districts for violating the ban. He has already given parents the right to sue over the teaching of anything about race that makes white kids uncomfortable.
Voting Rights were theoretically granted once and for all in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 but the Supreme Court has consistently weakened it. They took a big chunk out of its enforcement provisions in 2013 by eliminating preclearance (having to ask permission before implementing racist voting laws), They added to their gutting last week by refusing to hear cases when new laws were enacted that clearly violate the Voting Rights Act because it was “too close to an election.” Multiple election cycles will be endured before any correction is contemplated.
Our police forces still resemble the slave patrols whom which many of them evolved. (In some northern cities police forces were created to control immigrants, not just the formerly enslaved). Our justice system is highly inequitable. The Supreme Court by all accounts is going to do away with Affirmative Action which was implemented as a corrective measure to fight the discrimination that preceded it.
No, the law of the land mostly doesn’t specify favoritism for white people, but every system of power, Congress, the Courts, Law Enforcement, and the Schools are set up to protect them.
The Election of Barack Obama changed nothing for the good. An American President is limited by what Congress and the Courts allow and the top Republican vowed to stop him from accomplishing anything. We are still recovering from the backlash to a Black President which is how we ended up with Donald Trump and the rise of white nationalist groups, skinheads, and Neo-Nazis. Voter suppression targeting minorities (and youth) is on the rise and new laws are being enacted in a majority of the states.
Appointments to the Supreme Court are meaningless as long as they are limited in number with rich white men always holding sway. The Supreme Court wants to give the appearance of being fair and will cede on minor opinions but let the issue be race, they usually end up on the white side. When they agreed that segregation of schools (previously allowed by the Supreme Court in Plessy V Ferguson that gave us “separate but equal) they also provided it be implemented “with all deliberate speed” meaning states didn’t have to do anything for decades. We still have segregated schools in states as diverse as Mississippi and New York.
It would be lovely if America was the example of diversity and equality you seem to believe. Unfortunately, it is not and we’re on a trend where it will get worse before getting better.
Yes, I selectively use history (and the present) to make my cases. But the examples of doing the right thing are the outliers and once done they rarely last. This is what America is, in the past and in the present. I do have hope for the future which is why I shine a spotlight on what has happened and continues to.
