Our United States Constitution recognizes slavery and racism as fundamental parts of our new and “more perfect” union. In so doing, the Constitution legitimizes unequal treatment of the people who were living in these United States at the time. And, don’t be fooled by any of that North and South stuff because racial prejudice was part of everyday life at the time in all parts of the country.
The 13th Amendment to our Constitution was supposed to render disparate treatment on the basis of race as a thing of the past, but the voices of inequality had other ideas about how to get around the language of the Amendment and they did. “Involuntary servitude” became “slavery” by another name and Jim Crow laws began to appear as a means of perpetuating disparate treatment on the basis of race.
Both the 14th Amendment and the 15th Amendment offered language which was intended to prevent discrimination on the basis of race where the 13th Amendment had proven to be inadequate. Alas, the voices of inequality continued unabated to enact more Jim Crow laws with the intent of continuing their prejudicial practices. Those Jim Crow laws continued to offer shelter to the voices of inequality until the mid-nineteen sixties. We know this is true because when we open our minds to the possibility of racism in these United States we can easily find examples of lynching taking place right up until today. Racism, especially systemic racism, is still part of our day to day life in America so all of our attempts to bring about corrective change have fallen well short of the mark.
Three Constitutional Amendments, several State Constitutions and countless laws have been unsuccessful in vanquishing racism from our United States of America so what will it take to get the job done? In my opinion, we need another Constitutional Amendment in order to truly establish at the highest level of our judicial system that these prejudicial behaviors are unacceptable. I offer the following language as a simple and inviolate means of ending inequality in America:
“We the people of the United States are all created equal and shall all be treated equally in all matters public and private.”
The goal of such an Amendment is to clearly state, in as few words as possible, that inequality of treatment is unlawful for any reason.
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