A Remedy for Racism

Forums: Racism, Racist, White Supremacy
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Racism is a thing that people create, and it is also a thing that people can destroy. Racism begins with dehumanization and ends with rehumanization.

In A Formula for Eradicating Racism, a book that I co-authored with Earl Smith in 2016, we argued that the US institutionalized skin pigment racism by enshrining white supremacy in the Constitution. The ⅗ Compromise is an unequivocal declaration of white supremacy. The ⅗ Compromise designates all people of color as subhumans, criminals and vagabonds. The ⅗ Compromise is the root of all institutionalized racism in the US. The ⅗ Compromise began by validating indigenous genocide and African American slavery, and it has validated every other form of racism in US history. The ⅗ Compromise constitutes a declaration of war against people of color and it must be removed from the US Constitution. We can undo a great deal of white supremacist malice by fighting to remove the ⅗ Compromise from the Constitution.

One way to push back against white supremacy would be to file a class action lawsuit. The ⅗ Compromise violates the letter and spirit of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Also, the lawsuit should advocate for removing the ⅗ Compromise from the US Constitution and replacing it with a Universal Declaration of Human Equality. A Universal Declaration of Human Equality would be far more fitting in the political constitution of “the world’s greatest democracy.”

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@proftim,

The 3/5 Compromise is already unconstitutional. That's (in part) why we have the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.
https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/United_States_of_America_1992

This is how constitutional law works in the US. If an amendment is passed and it supercedes what is in the Constitution, then that changes the document. The 3/5 Compromise hasn't been the law of the land for over 150 years.

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@jespah,

Due to the power of suggestion, as long as explicitly dehumanizing language exists in the Constitution, skin pigment racism will thrive in the US.

The Constitution states that people of color are subhuman and racists take that misinformation to heart. If we remove the 3/5 Compromise we can dismantle American apartheid.

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@proftim,

The constitution states no such things at all. The three-fifths compromise has been removed. It never referred to skin color or "white supremacy," it was language which was understood by those ratifying the document. Before pontificating on such a subject, you should inform yourself about the historical context and then [gasp!] you might actually read the document about which you are making your wild claims.

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@Setanta,

Also - and call me a radical if you must - but the vast majority of racist folks in America aren't getting their ideas from an obsolete clause in the Constitution

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@jespah,

Indeed--I am reminded of a fanatic I once encountered who said that the government had no authority to regulate guns. I pointed out that the first clause of that amendment states that "a well-regulated militia . . . etc." His response was that he didn't consider that clause to have any significance.

Fanatics are simply not interested in language or context in the constitution.

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@Setanta,

Read Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the US Constitution. The 3/5 Compromise is alive and kicking.

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@jespah,

So, are you honestly suggesting that the US Constitution plays no role in the daily affairs of Americans?

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@Setanta,

Fanatics love official documents when those documents support their perverted point of view.

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@proftim,

Only in the sense that no one took white out to it.

And yes, I am suggesting exactly that. Ordinary Americans tend to not dig into the US Constitution unless it is for school or something to specifically impact their daily lives. I doubt most of the Google Constitutional scholars of 2017 had any idea WTF an emoluments clause was until this year.

White supremacists are getting their **** from their leaders and often their own families. They are not getting it from, like I said, a piece of the doc which is not front and center and which isn't an amendment.

BTW, riddle me this, Batman - those same racists assholes are also antisemitic and often homophobic and anti-Asian. Where in the Constitution are they getting those notions from?

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@proftim,

Proftim, you are making a very simple mistake.

There is no way to "remove" a clause from the Constitution in the way that you want. The Constitution is a historical document. You can't remove things from history. But we did "remove" the 3/5's compromise from the Constitution through amendments. The 14th Amendment, in particular states that

Quote:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Notice the term "equal protection of the laws" does exactly what you want. It states that everyone get's equal protection regardless of race (of course we are still working toward this, but that is another story).

I am not really sure what you would want (other than amendments to the Constitution). Do you really want us to go into the National Archives with a pair of scissors?

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@jespah,

You miss the point. The 3/5 Compromise shapes the way that people think. White supremacy thrives because the words in the Constitution support white supremacy.

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@maxdancona,

Right. The founding white supremacists should never have incorporated a declaration of white supremacy in a so-called democratic constitution. Amendments aren't the solution. We need to dump the 3/5 Compromise in the dustbin of history. If that requires scissors, so be it.

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@proftim,

I think you are being silly.

The Constitution has been changed. The 3/5 compromise hasn't been in affect since the Civil War. It was overturned by the 14th amendment.

If you want to wipe out history, that would be a big mistake. I want my kids to remember the racism in our past. The should see the ugliness, in plain view, when the study the Constitution.

America was built on slavery using resources we collected while comitting genocide. I think we should acknowledge this, not hide it.

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@proftim,

Ha, you're very amusing. I doubt a lot of folks who you define as racist even know what the 3/5 compromise is. And hey, awesome way to sidestep the point about other kinds of hate. Or does it not count when the people hated are Asian?

You know what's also in the Constitution? Prohibition. Yet I don't see people taking axes to bars. Do you?

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@proftim,

This is the entire text of the third clause of Article One, Section Two of the constitution:

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the state of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

It does not mention race. It does not mention skin color. It does not use the word compromise.

The provisions in the first sentence were invalidated by the Fourteenth Amendment, which even a moderately literate person would know--if said person had bothered to read the document. Specifically, Section Two of the Fourteenth Amendment eliminates the three-fifths provision; this is the entire text of Section Two:

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Read the constitution--it will be an eye-opener for you.

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@jespah,

The founding white supremacists defined "normal" as "white, male, christian, hetero." These values are explicit in the Constitution, but also in documents such as the Naturalization Act of 1790, which stated that the qualifications for US citizenship would be the following: a free, white male. Anyone who does not fit the WASP prototype is considered "less than" and will encounter abuse rather than acceptance in the USA's white supremacy.

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@maxdancona,

If the US embeds white supremacy in the constitution, then white supremacy will thrive in the US.

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@proftim,

... and your point? Racism is also in the old Chinese Exclusion Act but I'm not seeing you railing against it. You just want to take a thoroughly unnecessary scissors to the Constitution for a section that's been overturned for over a century and a half.

Did bad things happen in the 1790s? Of course they did. Did people say things then that we would find appalling today? Of course they did; hell, they did so in the 1990s.

Creating a species of revisionist history doesn't solve that. It just sweeps it under the rug.

But anyway, enjoy your sea lioning.

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@jespah,

You crack me up. When alcohol prohibition was the law of the land, federal agents regularly chopped up bars and beer barrels with axes. When the US ended prohibition the feds returned their axes to the shed.

Thanks for making my point for me.

1 Reply

A Remedy for Racism

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