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Without Regard to Color
The Dred Scott Ruling Reconsidered
When people say that “blacks weren’t citizens” because of the Dred Scott case, that just was not true. That is like saying that before the Hobbs decision, no woman had an abortion. Legally and in practice that is false. But it is the legal part I refer to here. Certainly, when law said repeatedly, through over a hundred and fifty years of debate leading up the 1838 North Carolina decision by Judge Gaston, that blacks were citizens and-or could vote, then that “simple” Dred decision was not true before that time, only after it.
History is continually flattened by white supremacists. It is done not through a technique unknown to current political followers, and those familiar with Trump. He repeats the same things over and over and never wavers. His commitment to his truth is supreme. This technique is to eliminate the past and all contradictions, and by constant repetition, it becomes Truth. It also makes fools out of those like me — and probably you, dear reader and inquirer — as looking through the past requires skepticism, not adherence to what you know.
To understand the past, start with the present. And not just any present, but the 2020 or 2024 election. The amount of division is step, and thanks to Trumps endless barrage of polarizing comments about race, class, immigration status, women, religious people…
