https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/16/politics/nikki-haley-says-us-not-racist-country/index.html
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley claimed the US has “never been a racist county” during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley claimed the US has “never been a racist county” during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday.
America has always had racism, but America has never been a racist country
I'm really quite stunned by this claim. She seems to be parsing words to dodge reality. The US wrote slavery into its Constitution, engaged in a series of racist genocides of the indigenous people, and excluded immigrants of various ethnicities throughout its history. We've certainly improved, but to say we've never been governed by racism is either ignorant, revisionist, or pandering to some of the worst people.
Right. Let's look over the related parts.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 of the US Constitution:
The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
Congress was supposed to "figure out" slavery in 1808…
Oh slight aside, the US Constitution is kicking the can on slavery here, which Congress in 1808 kicked the can, and so on until we decided to have a flight about it. So just FYI, kicking the can has been a tradition of the US since inception. It's clearly a time honored tradition.
Anyway, On Art. I S9 C1 and with Art. IV. S1 C3 we got the Dred Scott vs Sandford which posed this question.
The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all of the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied [sic] by that instrument to the citizen?
And hold on to your seats folks, because the answer was "no". The Supreme Court ruled that only white people could be called citizens. And to be clear: NO MATTER WHERE THEY WERE IN THE UNITED STATES. That was a 7-2 decision.
On the contrary, they [black people] were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them.
This is considered to indicate that black people could never become citizens and that States could only confer selective rights to them that only held so long as the State they were in continued to confer that right. Meaning, if say Illinois decided that they weren't going to protect black people's rights because the composition of the State Assembly had changed, POOF, black people had no rights, no matter how long they may have previously enjoyed freedom before hand.
They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.
No person who has ever read the Dred Scott opinion in full could ever say the words Haley has spoken and take themselves seriously. But the decision didn't stop there. It went further.
Upon these considerations, it is the opinion of the court that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of the line therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made free by being carried into this territory; even if they had been carried there by the owner, with the intention of becoming a permanent resident.
This effectively removed every single compromise that Congress had created thus far to appease slave states. It basically indicated there could never and for all time be a free black person anywhere in the United States and there was absolutely nothing any State or Congress could do to fix that outside of amending the Constitution. And furthermore it super charged this part of the Constitution.
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Art. IV. S2 C3 of the US Constitution. The is the fugitive slave clause of the US Constitution and after Dred Scott, slave states used this as justification to invade neighboring states and take any black person they could lay their hands on back to their state to be placed into slavery. Because their State laws allowed such "claims" and they were coming to take delivery.
This is the full text of the Dred Scott ruling and I encourage anyone facing someone who says "America was never racist" to give them this to read. I think this should be mandatory reading for everyone, because Justice Taney isn't just spouting things from a vacuum. The words in this ruling come from somewhere deeper than the person giving them. I could go on, but there's no way to reasonably think this nation has never been racist. Facts just do not support that view.