The U.S. Supreme Court and Racial Minorities

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Author :
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1786438836
Total Pages : 409 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (864 download)

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Book Synopsis The U.S. Supreme Court and Racial Minorities by : Leslie F. Goldstein

Download or read book The U.S. Supreme Court and Racial Minorities written by Leslie F. Goldstein and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2017-07-28 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. Supreme Court and Racial Minorities offers an in-depth, chronologically arranged look at the record of the U.S. Supreme Court on racial minorities over the course of its first two centuries. It does not pose the anachronistic standard, “Did the Supreme Court get it right?” but rather, “How did the Supreme Court compare to other branches of the federal government at the time?” Have these Justices, prevented against removal from office by discontented voters (in contrast to the President and the members of Congress), done any better than the elected branches of government at protecting racial minorities in America?

Race Against the Court

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Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814739792
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (147 download)

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Book Synopsis Race Against the Court by : Girardeau A. Spann

Download or read book Race Against the Court written by Girardeau A. Spann and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1994-02-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Must reading for anyone who seeks a better understanding of the U.S. Supreme Court's role in race relations policy." —Choice "Beware! Those committed to the Supreme Court as the ultimate defender of minority rights should not read Race Against the Court. Through a systematic peeling away of antimajoritarian myth, Spann reveals why the measure of relief the Court grants victims of racial injustice is determined less by the character of harm suffered by blacks than the degree of disadvantage the relief sought will impose on whites. A truly pathbreaking work." —Derrick Bell As persuasive as it is bold. Race Against The Court stands as a necessary warning to a generation of progressives who have come to depend on the Supreme Court of the perils of such dependency. It joins with Bruce Ackerman's We, the People and John Brigham's Cult of the Court as the best in contemporary work on the Supreme Court. —Austin Sarat, William Nelson,Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College The controversies surrounding the nominations, confirmations, and rejections of recent Supreme Court justices, and the increasingly conservative nature of the Court, have focused attention on the Supreme Court as never before. Although the Supreme Court is commonly understood to be the guardian of minority rights against the tyranny of the majority, Race Against The Court argues that the Court has never successfully performed this function. Rather the actual function of the Court has been to perpetuate the subordination of racial minorities by operating as an undetected agent of majoritarian preferences in the political preferences. In this provocative, controversial, and timely work, Girardeau Spann illustrates how the selection process for Supreme Court justices ensures that they will share the political preferences of the elite majority that runs the nation. Customary safeguards that are designed to protect the judicial process from majoritarian predispositions, Spann contends, cannot successfully insulate judicial decisionmaking from the pervasive societal pressures that exist to discount racial minority interests. The case most often cited as the icon of Court sensitivity to minority rights, Brown v. Board of Education, has more recently served to lull minorities into believing that efforts at political self-determination are futile, fostering a seductive dependence and overreliance on the Court as the caretaker of minority rights. Race Against The Court demonstrates how the Court has centralized the law of affirmative action in a way that stymies minority efforts for meaningful political and economic gain and how it has legitimated the legal status quo in a way that causes minorities never even to question the inevitability of their subordinate social status. Spann contends that racial minorities would be better off seeking to advance their interests in the pluralist political process and proposes a novel strategy for minorities to pursue in order to extricate themselves from the seemingly inescapable grasp of Supreme Court protection. Certain to generate lively, heated debate, Race Against The Court exposes the veiled majoritarianism of the Supreme Court and the dangers of allowing the Court to formulate our national racial policy.

Justice Deferred

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Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674975642
Total Pages : 465 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (749 download)

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Book Synopsis Justice Deferred by : Orville Vernon Burton

Download or read book Justice Deferred written by Orville Vernon Burton and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first comprehensive accounting of the U.S. Supreme CourtÕs race-related jurisprudence, a distinguished historian and renowned civil rights lawyer scrutinize a legacy too often blighted by racial injustice. The Supreme Court is usually seen as protector of our liberties: it ended segregation, was a guarantor of fair trials, and safeguarded free speech and the vote. But this narrative derives mostly from a short period, from the 1930s to the early 1970s. Before then, the Court spent a century largely ignoring or suppressing basic rights, while the fifty years since 1970 have witnessed a mostly accelerating retreat from racial justice. From the Cherokee Trail of Tears to Brown v. Board of Education to the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, historian Orville Vernon Burton and civil rights lawyer Armand Derfner shine a powerful light on the CourtÕs race recordÑa legacy at times uplifting, but more often distressing and sometimes disgraceful. For nearly a century, the Court ensured that the nineteenth-century Reconstruction amendments would not truly free and enfranchise African Americans. And the twenty-first century has seen a steady erosion of commitments to enforcing hard-won rights. Justice Deferred is the first book that comprehensively charts the CourtÕs race jurisprudence. Addressing nearly two hundred cases involving AmericaÕs racial minorities, the authors probe the parties involved, the justicesÕ reasoning, and the impact of individual rulings. We learn of heroes such as Thurgood Marshall; villains, including Roger Taney; and enigmas like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Hugo Black. Much of the fragility of civil rights in America is due to the Supreme Court, but as this sweeping history also reminds us, the justices still have the power to make good on the countryÕs promise of equal rights for all.

On Account of Race

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Author :
Publisher : Catapult
ISBN 13 : 1640093923
Total Pages : 305 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis On Account of Race by : Lawrence Goldstone

Download or read book On Account of Race written by Lawrence Goldstone and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award An award–winning constitutional law historian examines case–based evidence of the court's longstanding racial bias (often under the guise of "states rights") to reveal how that prejudice has allowed the court to solidify its position as arguably the most powerful branch of the federal government. One promise of democracy is the right of every citizen to vote. And yet, from our founding, strong political forces were determined to limit that right. The Supreme Court, Alexander Hamilton wrote, would protect the weak against this very sort of tyranny. Still, as On Account of Race forcefully demonstrates, through the better part of American history the Court has instead been a protector of white rule. And complex threats against the right to vote persist even today. Beginning in 1876, the Supreme Court systematically dismantled both the equal protection guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment and what seemed to be the right to vote in the Fifteenth. And so a half million African Americans across the South who had risked their lives and property to be allowed to cast ballots were stricken from voting rolls by white supremacists. This vacuum allowed for the rise of Jim Crow. None of this was done in the shadows—those determined to wrest the vote from black Americans could not have been more boastful in either intent or execution. On Account of Race tells the story of an American tragedy, the only occasion in United States history in which a group of citizens who had been granted the right to vote then had it stripped away. It is a warning that the right to vote is fragile and must be carefully guarded and actively preserved lest American democracy perish.

Mistaken Identity

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400822777
Total Pages : 205 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis Mistaken Identity by : Keith J. Bybee

Download or read book Mistaken Identity written by Keith J. Bybee and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2002-07-01 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is it ever legitimate to redraw electoral districts on the basis of race? In its long struggle with this question, the U.S. Supreme Court has treated race-conscious redistricting either as a requirement of political fairness or as an exercise in corrosive racial quotas. Cutting through these contradictory positions, Keith Bybee examines the theoretical foundations of the Court's decisions and the ideological controversy those decisions have engendered. He uncovers erroneous assumptions about political identity on both sides of the debate and formulates new terms on which minority representation can be pursued. As Bybee shows, the Court has for the last twenty years encouraged a division between individualist and group concepts of political identity. He demonstrates convincingly that both individualist and group proponents share the misguided notion that political identity is formed prior to and apart from politics itself. According to Bybee, this "mistaken identity" should be abandoned for a more flexible, politically informed understanding of who the "people" really are. Thus, a misdirected debate will be replaced by a more considered discussion in which the people can speak for themselves, even as the Court speaks on their behalf. Engaged in the politics of minority representation, the Court will be able to help citizens articulate and achieve more fruitful forms of political community.

Shades of Freedom

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198028679
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (98 download)

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Book Synopsis Shades of Freedom by : A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.

Download or read book Shades of Freedom written by A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-11 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few individuals have had as great an impact on the law--both its practice and its history--as A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. A winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, he has distinguished himself over the decades both as a professor at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard, and as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals. But Judge Higginbotham is perhaps best known as an authority on racism in America: not the least important achievement of his long career has been In the Matter of Color, the first volume in a monumental history of race and the American legal process. Published in 1978, this brilliant book has been hailed as the definitive account of racism, slavery, and the law in colonial America. Now, after twenty years, comes the long-awaited sequel. In Shades of Freedom, Higginbotham provides a magisterial account of the interaction between the law and racial oppression in America from colonial times to the present, demonstrating how the one agent that should have guaranteed equal treatment before the law--the judicial system--instead played a dominant role in enforcing the inferior position of blacks. The issue of racial inferiority is central to this volume, as Higginbotham documents how early white perceptions of black inferiority slowly became codified into law. Perhaps the most powerful and insightful writing centers on a pair of famous Supreme Court cases, which Higginbotham uses to portray race relations at two vital moments in our history. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 declared that a slave who had escaped to free territory must be returned to his slave owner. Chief Justice Roger Taney, in his notorious opinion for the majority, stated that blacks were "so inferior that they had no right which the white man was bound to respect." For Higginbotham, Taney's decision reflects the extreme state that race relations had reached just before the Civil War. And after the War and Reconstruction, Higginbotham reveals, the Courts showed a pervasive reluctance (if not hostility) toward the goal of full and equal justice for African Americans, and this was particularly true of the Supreme Court. And in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which Higginbotham terms "one of the most catastrophic racial decisions ever rendered," the Court held that full equality--in schooling or housing, for instance--was unnecessary as long as there were "separate but equal" facilities. Higginbotham also documents the eloquent voices that opposed the openly racist workings of the judicial system, from Reconstruction Congressman John R. Lynch to Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan to W. E. B. Du Bois, and he shows that, ironically, it was the conservative Supreme Court of the 1930s that began the attack on school segregation, and overturned the convictions of African Americans in the famous Scottsboro case. But today racial bias still dominates the nation, Higginbotham concludes, as he shows how in six recent court cases the public perception of black inferiority continues to persist. In Shades of Freedom, a noted scholar and celebrated jurist offers a work of magnificent scope, insight, and passion. Ranging from the earliest colonial times to the present, it is a superb work of history--and a mirror to the American soul.

Race and the Jury

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Author :
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 1489911278
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (899 download)

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Book Synopsis Race and the Jury by : Hiroshi Fukurai

Download or read book Race and the Jury written by Hiroshi Fukurai and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this timely volume, the authors provide a penetrating analysis of the institutional mechanisms perpetuating the related problems of minorities' disenfranchisement and their underrepresentation on juries.

The Rights of Racial Minorities

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rights of Racial Minorities by : Laughlin McDonald

Download or read book The Rights of Racial Minorities written by Laughlin McDonald and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using a question-and-answer format, this book makes clear how to take advantage of the laws designed to secure the rights of racial minorities. Individual chapters explain the federal civil laws and procedures protecting the rights of racial minorities in voting, employment, education, housing, public accommodations, federally assisted programs, and jury selection and trials. Relevant criminal statutes and the use of race-conscious remedies are covered as well. The initial basis for the rights of racial minorities was provided by three constitutional amendments adopted following the Civil War during the period of Reconstruction: the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude; the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits states from denying to any person "equal protection of the laws"; and the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibits denial or abridgment of the right to vote. Each of the Reconstruction amendments authorized Congress to enforce the amendments "by appropriate legislation." Congress has done so repeatedly. The most important of the Reconstruction laws were the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the Civil Rights Act of 1871, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which was declared unconstitutional in 1883. In response to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Congress enacted and amended a number of modern civil rights acts including the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, amended in 1970, 1975, and 1982; and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 to ensure equality and eradicate the continuing effects of past discrimination accumulated over more than two centuries. The challenge to the nation remains to bring reality to the declared principle that "all persons are created equal."

The Supreme Court, Race, and Civil Rights

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Publisher : SAGE Publications
ISBN 13 : 1452263795
Total Pages : 510 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (522 download)

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Book Synopsis The Supreme Court, Race, and Civil Rights by : Abraham L. Davis

Download or read book The Supreme Court, Race, and Civil Rights written by Abraham L. Davis and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 1995-07-25 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a well-rounded presentation of the constitution and evolution of civil rights in the United States, this book will be useful for students and academics with an interest in civil rights, race and the law. Abraham L Davis and Barbara Luck Graham's purpose is: to give an overview of the Supreme Court and its rulings with regard to issues of equality and civil rights; to bring law, political science and history into the discussion of civil rights and the Supreme Court; to incorporate the politically disadvantaged and the human component into the discussion; to stimulate discussion among students; and to provide a text that cultivates competence in reading actual Supreme Court cases.

Unfinished Business

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190293926
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis Unfinished Business by : Michael J. Klarman

Download or read book Unfinished Business written by Michael J. Klarman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-10-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael J. Klarman, author of From Jim Crow to Civil Rights, which won the prestigious Bancroft Prize in American History, is one of the leading authorities on the history of civil rights law in the United States. In Unfinished Business, he illuminates the course of racial equality in America, revealing that we have made less progress than we like to think. Indeed, African Americans have had to fight for everything they have achieved. Klarman highlights a variety of social and political factors that have influenced the path of racial progress--wars, migrations, urbanization, shifting political coalitions--and he looks in particular at the contributions of law and of court decisions to American equality. The author argues that court decisions tend to reflect the racial mores of the times, which is why the Supreme Court has not been a heroic defender of the rights of racial minorities. And even when the Court has promoted progressive racial change, its decisions have often been unenforced, in part because severely oppressed groups rarely have the resources necessary to force the issue. Klarman also sheds light on the North/South dynamic and how it has influenced racial progress, arguing that as southerners have become more anxious about outside challenges to their system of white supremacy, they have acted in ways that eventually undermined that system. For example, as southern slave owners demanded greater guarantees for slavery from the federal government, they alienated northerners, who came to fear a slave power conspiracy that would interfere with their liberties. Unfinished Business offers an invaluable, succinct account of racial equality and civil rights throughout American history.

The Rights of Racial Minorities

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Publisher : Turtleback Books
ISBN 13 : 9780606137416
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (374 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rights of Racial Minorities by : Laughlin McDonald

Download or read book The Rights of Racial Minorities written by Laughlin McDonald and published by Turtleback Books. This book was released on 1998-03 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discussion and analysis of the rights of racial minorities, including historical perspective and relevant court decisions.

Race, Law, and American Society

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Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 0415952948
Total Pages : 430 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (159 download)

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Book Synopsis Race, Law, and American Society by : Gloria J. Browne-Marshall

Download or read book Race, Law, and American Society written by Gloria J. Browne-Marshall and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2007 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the obstacles to equality under law, black Americans have set a determined path to make the words of the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence a reality for themselves and others. This book is an introduction to race and law in America. It is designed as a tool to the understanding of the role of race in American society through the prism of legal cases brought by and against blacks. The analysis will include American colonial laws, landmark Supreme Court cases of the 19th and 20th centuries as well as relevant recent decisions. In examining these cases the reader will discern the great impact civil rights cases have had on American society as well as the effect our society has had on the legal system. It will provide the reader with a foundation for present day discourse involving pressing issues of race in American society.

The Congressional Black Caucus, Minority Voting Rights, and the U.S. Supreme Court

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Publisher : University of Michigan Press
ISBN 13 : 0472028219
Total Pages : 391 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (72 download)

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Book Synopsis The Congressional Black Caucus, Minority Voting Rights, and the U.S. Supreme Court by : Christina Rivers

Download or read book The Congressional Black Caucus, Minority Voting Rights, and the U.S. Supreme Court written by Christina Rivers and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2012-07-17 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) claim to advocate minority political interests, yet they disagree over the intent and scope of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), as well as the interpretation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Whereas the Court promotes color-blind policies, the CBC advocates race-based remedies. Setting this debate in the context of the history of black political thought, Rivers examines a series of high-profile districting cases, from Rodgers v. Lodge (1982) through NAMUDNO v. Holder (2009). She evaluates the competing approaches to racial equality and concludes, surprisingly, that an originalist, race-conscious interpretation of the 14th Amendment, along with a revised states' rights position regarding electoral districting, may better serve minority political interests.

Freedom and Equality

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Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 9780815334309
Total Pages : 522 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (343 download)

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Book Synopsis Freedom and Equality by : Kermit L. Hall

Download or read book Freedom and Equality written by Kermit L. Hall and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2000 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

For Discrimination

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Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307949362
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (79 download)

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Book Synopsis For Discrimination by : Randall Kennedy

Download or read book For Discrimination written by Randall Kennedy and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-06-09 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive reckoning with one of America’s most explosively contentious and divisive issues—from “one of our most important and perceptive writers on race and the law.... The mere fact that he wrote this book is all the justification necessary for reading it.”—The Washington Post What precisely is affirmative action, and why is it fiercely championed by some and just as fiercely denounced by others? Does it signify a boon or a stigma? Or is it simply reverse discrimination? What are its benefits and costs to American society? What are the exact indicia determining who should or should not be accorded affirmative action? When should affirmative action end, if it must? Randall Kennedy gives us a concise and deeply personal overview of the policy, refusing to shy away from the myriad complexities of an issue that continues to bedevil American race relations.

A Cry For Justice

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Publisher : Page Publishing Inc
ISBN 13 : 1682137279
Total Pages : 399 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (821 download)

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Book Synopsis A Cry For Justice by : Jessie B. Evans-Hayes

Download or read book A Cry For Justice written by Jessie B. Evans-Hayes and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like the majority of institutions in America, the U.S. Postal Service policy, practice, and/or procedure appear neutral. Truthfully, it has a disproportionately negative impact on members of a racial or ethnic minority group. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, “An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere!” Inequalities, regardless of their bases should not be swept under the rug. Any discrimination is intolerable, and as citizens, we must all make a serious attempt to do away with it. If we remain docile and inactive, the disparity will continue to grow, and our great nation, no doubt, will diminish to irrelevancy. America is a great nation; however, let’s not forget that her strength is built on hope, faith, and all honesty through free labor of slaves. Today, racial disparity affects both the innocent and guilty minority. Our judicial system is in urgent need of reform. Our nation is confronted with serious moral, ethical, constitutional, and economic challenges. We have to work together for systematic changes. This book/documentary validate that as a race of people, we are still plagued with persistent racial disparities—systematic racism which causes serious physical as well as psychological consequences. It discloses judicial tyranny and the corruption of the justice system by way of consistent psychological manipulation and deception, and unconstitutional laws that infringes on minorities and pro se litigants’ rights. Like cancer, racism has the potential to destroy!

Colorblind Injustice

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Author :
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN 13 : 0807862657
Total Pages : 603 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis Colorblind Injustice by : J. Morgan Kousser

Download or read book Colorblind Injustice written by J. Morgan Kousser and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2000-11-09 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Challenging recent trends both in historical scholarship and in Supreme Court decisions on civil rights, J. Morgan Kousser criticizes the Court's "postmodern equal protection" and demonstrates that legislative and judicial history still matter for public policy. Offering an original interpretation of the failure of the First Reconstruction (after the Civil War) by comparing it with the relative success of the Second (after World War II), Kousser argues that institutions and institutional rules--not customs, ideas, attitudes, culture, or individual behavior--have been the primary forces shaping American race relations throughout the country's history. Using detailed case studies of redistricting decisions and the tailoring of electoral laws from Los Angeles to the Deep South, he documents how such rules were designed to discriminate against African Americans and Latinos. Kousser contends that far from being colorblind, Shaw v. Reno (1993) and subsequent "racial gerrymandering" decisions of the Supreme Court are intensely color-conscious. Far from being conservative, he argues, the five majority justices and their academic supporters are unreconstructed radicals who twist history and ignore current realities. A more balanced view of that history, he insists, dictates a reversal of Shaw and a return to the promise of both Reconstructions.