I saw the following quote in reference to the SCOTUS ruling today on Affirmative Action in college admissions:
"The Constitution protects the rights of individuals, not racial groups,"
This is the common conservative interpretation.
It's wrong.
Check out the 13th Amendment.
While the 14th Amendment definitely talks about protecting individuals from discrimination, the 13th AMendment talks not only about ending slavery but protecting GROUPS from the badges of enslavement. Now in practice this amendment has been used to apply to prostitutes and a whole host of subjugated classes. Seems to me that the group it was intended for still bears that badge. Does not make us victims in an ontological sense. I am by no means a "victim." (As a sidenote just got CONTEMPT AND PITY by Daryl Michael Scott. Scott makes an excellent argument about the way that "victim arguments" have been used by liberals, radicals, and conservatives to help/hurt African American progress. Ralph Ellison, Albert Murray, and most recently Stanley Crouch have made similar arguments...)
Posted by at June 23, 2003 09:47 AM | TrackBack