I am a white man, but I can tell you my irish grandmothers and grandfather's were black (or very dark brown as the Sans people of Africa remain) and white men swept all the way to my ancestral home, killed nearly all of my grandfathers and raped all of my grandfathers.
By default the white race passed on what they had done by what they taught and turned their white ancestors into hating their own grandparents from six thousand years ago.
What else could be expected?
(I've read all those cases, and even in Justice Harlan's emphatic dissent in Plessy of the inequality of separate but equal, he inserts a meaningless rant against Chinese and how they can never be equal to Americans.)
God (Allah) bless you Mr. Qasim, continue speaking because only with voices such as yours can can there be a possibility than the cycle of supremacy might be cracked open and the ignorance of white supremacy be exposed.
says this tired old white man who thinks it must not continue to go on. Because while I can't change my color, I've never seen a need to worship it. But , as you say, the court has...
Someday in the future when these turmoils of idiocy have been cast from us, you will become our chief justice and I hope both of us live longer to be proud on that day.
As a 78 year-old Black female I have struggled to live through many of the rulings of SCOTUS. In spite of them, I had established a stable life and comfortable retirement until 1/20/25 when the regime took over. Now, opportunities, investments, rights, and gains are being overturned daily. It is heartbreaking to see the dissolution of lifetime achievements disappear with the stroke of a pen. America is being dismantled and I fear that many haven't noticed yet.
Once again another article completely ignores the indigenous peoples and how the Supreme Courts egregious rulings facilitated the Theft of Indigenous lands, children and Resources . For centuries no one has stepped in to advocate for the Indigenous people and nations right to self determination, not be brutalized, mutilated and murdered for bounties, raped , our sacred places desecrated and destroyed by profiteers, impoverished by white transgressors/settlers, miners, ranchers, and evil politicians, or the honoring of the treaties, which would have completely changed the whole white suprematist nation we have now. to this day Indigenous peoples lives are left to the good graces of a few politicians to prevent the erasure of their sovereignty. And most journalists and academics continue to erase us, maybe stop doing that and recognize justice for the Indiigenous is justice.
I'm 65, a retired local government (SF City Attorney's Office) attorney and SO want to believe this is fake news. Alas, I know it's not. Does our country have any chance of turning all the bad around?? Thank you as always Qasim.
If we ask why reactionary movements have been so powerful and so prevalent in American history, one can point to white supremacy protecting greed and brutality, protecting concentrations of political and economic power, but I would point to something deeper: an idolatrous variant of Christianity that worships itself through nationalism, and through the use of domination and violence on behalf of the nation, because it is convinced that those outside the nation are enemies of Christ or, at the very least, inferiors to be converted and ruled.
The idolatrous doctrine of Christian discovery was perhaps first formulated in the words of the papal bull, Dum Diversas, in 1452, and then reiterated in Romanus Pontifex, in 1455. In these bulls, the king of Portugal and his descendants were authorized to “search out” and “enslave in perpetuity” all “Saracens,” “pagans,” and “other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed.” This was what Willie James Jennings has called the “womb” from which white supremacy emerged. This was the “legal” sanction for what Bayo Akomolafe has called the transatlantic slave thefts.
The “legal” sanction for the invasions and land thefts in the New World came in a later series of papal bulls at the end of the fifteenth century justifying such conduct in order “that barbarous nations may be overthrown and brought to the faith.”[18] The claim was explicitly made that one could “discover” already inhabited lands and because of that “discovery” somehow acquire rights over these lands and their inhabitants as long as one was, allegedly, a “Christian.”
We must, as a people, retrace our steps to our worst mistakes and choose a different path. This includes the mistakes that were made as a result of decisions taken by our so-called civilization before our birth. It includes the mistakes that were made—and that are being made—in the name of our religion or our secular identity, whatever that religion or secular identity happens to be. We must seek to follow a path of reverence rather than a path of domination.
Not the “White” skin color of a majority of America’s citizens, but the residual idolatry that antedates and underlies such “whiteness,” is what must be rejected if the American people are to begin to move towards more genuine self-government. What must be rejected, to reiterate, is a residual idolatry manifest in a worship that is not directed towards God but rather towards Christianity itself through the “Christian nation,” and towards a “legal” sanctioning of domination and violence, particularly domination and violence against Native peoples, but also a quasi-legal sanctioning of domination and violence against minorities, trade unionists, women, and immigrants.
In my book—Arguments over Genocide: The War of Words in the Congress and the Supreme Court over Cherokee Removal—I show how the arguments of the advocates of that genocide and their allies continue to constitute the basis of U.S. property law as well as the foundation of our conduct towards the peoples of the Native Nations to this day.
As long as we have democratic politicians who believe the fairytales they are presented with at confirmation hearings by the demagogues, especially after 2000's steal of the elections, there will be no room for Justice on this court. What really irks me is that "democratic" presidents since then, who had the chance to stock up the court, just sat on their hands- in good ole fashioned Democratic Party style.
We are now in the situation that we actually don't wanna sue in light of the case ending up at the Court- like any suit against this admin or DJT, since it just means that things are getting more corrupt, more unjust than they've ever been in the past 60 years.
If anybody would like to take a look where the "democratic" Party is at, look no further than New York City's Zohran Mamdani. Chosen by We, The People to represent us as Mayor none of the fat cats in the Party have the guts to endorse him, thereby IGNORING the will of NewYorkers!
Then the Party acts "surprised" about its "approval" ratings in the 20th percentiles!
It's no wonder that many neighbors of mine are saying," why should I go vote when it doesn't matter who is in power- they're all doing NOTHING for me.
This the sad state of affairs in these "United" States of America.
So many of Americas ills come from not talking about what ails them. Racism is a case in point. They don't want to admit it's a big deal. They point to laws that protect peoples rights. Yet it's pretty damn obvious to a blind man that those laws are never obeyed. I would also say the wealth gap but that's the same the world over. Also the arguments about sex and abortion. Which shouldn't be a political can of worms because those in voted aren't hurting anybody with their choices of what to do with their own body. trump is turning the race issue even more towards anger. Defunding programmes that protect and help lift the poor out of poverty. Defunding programmes that help black and brown kids have an equal chance at higher education. Scholarship funds are being cut, or as trump wants it, done away altogether. He is replacing help with hate. This will not end well. His MAGA base is fracturing because he promised them he would "clean out the swamp" and now they are realising, especially over the Epstein scandal, that he's part of it. I suspect that those who voted for him will simply choose not to vote at all. They can't defend their enemy for so many decades, the libs. They were never republicans to start with so they'll crawl back into their grievance space and seethe. Politics avoids the issue of positive changes towards discussing race because they don't want to jeopardise votes. It's a never ending cycle.
SCOTUS clearly from its start has been and still is an antidemocratic institution. It has been politicized from the beginning and does not deserve at all its supreme position. It is not instructed to rule by high ethical standards. Its members should not be chosen by presidents but by the deans of law schools, not for life but for a period of 10 years, and impeached if they have shown unethical conduct. With all this evidence of ongoing unethical, antidemocratic and harmful rulings this court must be renewed.
Oh dear, I've known about at least 60% of the SCOTUS judgments mostly by my reading outside he set curricula of my formal education. Some of the others I've heard of but not known the full details, of consequences. The last few I've never even heard of, to my shame.
This spotty understanding of a fairly well read and educated senior citizen is probably the norm for most US citizens, or their comprehension could be even worse than mine. I suspect all this is by design and deliberate obfuscation, in fact a long running conspiracy among the white elites to ignore or bury the truth of its hateful disregard of most religious strictures. Persistent bigotry and hypocrisy, practiced for centuries by a caste ridden society which all the while has been spinning outrageous lies about American exceptionalism.
Yes. impeachment for gross misrepresentation should be used to remove elected and appointed high mucky mucks purporting to be "leaders and representatives" of US law.. Retraction of those very laws that have been imposed to the lethal detriment of US democracy and the integrity of our society is urgently required. A new Constitution might have to be written and passed by popular vote alone.
If there were a way, the 6 reprehensible disgusting justices (if they should even be called that) should be impeached. They have forsaken their oath to the constitution and to the American people.
Also in the 1896 Plessy vs Ferguson case the court ruled that segregation by skin color was legitimate. That set the stage for Woodrow Wilson to segregate the Federal Civil Service.
Things will only get worse.I can hardly read anything now that charlie kirk has been shot. I truly don't care about him. I hate that I feel that way after ten years of trump. But I hate what will happen now. I doubt trump will target Utah with the National Guard. It will be worse. and random other shootings will happen more and more as magats take out their frustrations of being in power on those of us who aren't. I hate that I've become less caring about some people. All the empathy is being squeezed out of me.
...and so it goes on.
I am a white man, but I can tell you my irish grandmothers and grandfather's were black (or very dark brown as the Sans people of Africa remain) and white men swept all the way to my ancestral home, killed nearly all of my grandfathers and raped all of my grandfathers.
By default the white race passed on what they had done by what they taught and turned their white ancestors into hating their own grandparents from six thousand years ago.
What else could be expected?
(I've read all those cases, and even in Justice Harlan's emphatic dissent in Plessy of the inequality of separate but equal, he inserts a meaningless rant against Chinese and how they can never be equal to Americans.)
God (Allah) bless you Mr. Qasim, continue speaking because only with voices such as yours can can there be a possibility than the cycle of supremacy might be cracked open and the ignorance of white supremacy be exposed.
says this tired old white man who thinks it must not continue to go on. Because while I can't change my color, I've never seen a need to worship it. But , as you say, the court has...
Someday in the future when these turmoils of idiocy have been cast from us, you will become our chief justice and I hope both of us live longer to be proud on that day.
As a 78 year-old Black female I have struggled to live through many of the rulings of SCOTUS. In spite of them, I had established a stable life and comfortable retirement until 1/20/25 when the regime took over. Now, opportunities, investments, rights, and gains are being overturned daily. It is heartbreaking to see the dissolution of lifetime achievements disappear with the stroke of a pen. America is being dismantled and I fear that many haven't noticed yet.
Once again another article completely ignores the indigenous peoples and how the Supreme Courts egregious rulings facilitated the Theft of Indigenous lands, children and Resources . For centuries no one has stepped in to advocate for the Indigenous people and nations right to self determination, not be brutalized, mutilated and murdered for bounties, raped , our sacred places desecrated and destroyed by profiteers, impoverished by white transgressors/settlers, miners, ranchers, and evil politicians, or the honoring of the treaties, which would have completely changed the whole white suprematist nation we have now. to this day Indigenous peoples lives are left to the good graces of a few politicians to prevent the erasure of their sovereignty. And most journalists and academics continue to erase us, maybe stop doing that and recognize justice for the Indiigenous is justice.
Liked the "Airplane" reference.
I'm 65, a retired local government (SF City Attorney's Office) attorney and SO want to believe this is fake news. Alas, I know it's not. Does our country have any chance of turning all the bad around?? Thank you as always Qasim.
Is it possible a few of them might be in the Epstein Files?
If we ask why reactionary movements have been so powerful and so prevalent in American history, one can point to white supremacy protecting greed and brutality, protecting concentrations of political and economic power, but I would point to something deeper: an idolatrous variant of Christianity that worships itself through nationalism, and through the use of domination and violence on behalf of the nation, because it is convinced that those outside the nation are enemies of Christ or, at the very least, inferiors to be converted and ruled.
The idolatrous doctrine of Christian discovery was perhaps first formulated in the words of the papal bull, Dum Diversas, in 1452, and then reiterated in Romanus Pontifex, in 1455. In these bulls, the king of Portugal and his descendants were authorized to “search out” and “enslave in perpetuity” all “Saracens,” “pagans,” and “other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed.” This was what Willie James Jennings has called the “womb” from which white supremacy emerged. This was the “legal” sanction for what Bayo Akomolafe has called the transatlantic slave thefts.
The “legal” sanction for the invasions and land thefts in the New World came in a later series of papal bulls at the end of the fifteenth century justifying such conduct in order “that barbarous nations may be overthrown and brought to the faith.”[18] The claim was explicitly made that one could “discover” already inhabited lands and because of that “discovery” somehow acquire rights over these lands and their inhabitants as long as one was, allegedly, a “Christian.”
We must, as a people, retrace our steps to our worst mistakes and choose a different path. This includes the mistakes that were made as a result of decisions taken by our so-called civilization before our birth. It includes the mistakes that were made—and that are being made—in the name of our religion or our secular identity, whatever that religion or secular identity happens to be. We must seek to follow a path of reverence rather than a path of domination.
Not the “White” skin color of a majority of America’s citizens, but the residual idolatry that antedates and underlies such “whiteness,” is what must be rejected if the American people are to begin to move towards more genuine self-government. What must be rejected, to reiterate, is a residual idolatry manifest in a worship that is not directed towards God but rather towards Christianity itself through the “Christian nation,” and towards a “legal” sanctioning of domination and violence, particularly domination and violence against Native peoples, but also a quasi-legal sanctioning of domination and violence against minorities, trade unionists, women, and immigrants.
In my book—Arguments over Genocide: The War of Words in the Congress and the Supreme Court over Cherokee Removal—I show how the arguments of the advocates of that genocide and their allies continue to constitute the basis of U.S. property law as well as the foundation of our conduct towards the peoples of the Native Nations to this day.
https://ethicspress.com/products/arguments-over-genocide/?GENOCIDE
As long as we have democratic politicians who believe the fairytales they are presented with at confirmation hearings by the demagogues, especially after 2000's steal of the elections, there will be no room for Justice on this court. What really irks me is that "democratic" presidents since then, who had the chance to stock up the court, just sat on their hands- in good ole fashioned Democratic Party style.
We are now in the situation that we actually don't wanna sue in light of the case ending up at the Court- like any suit against this admin or DJT, since it just means that things are getting more corrupt, more unjust than they've ever been in the past 60 years.
If anybody would like to take a look where the "democratic" Party is at, look no further than New York City's Zohran Mamdani. Chosen by We, The People to represent us as Mayor none of the fat cats in the Party have the guts to endorse him, thereby IGNORING the will of NewYorkers!
Then the Party acts "surprised" about its "approval" ratings in the 20th percentiles!
It's no wonder that many neighbors of mine are saying," why should I go vote when it doesn't matter who is in power- they're all doing NOTHING for me.
This the sad state of affairs in these "United" States of America.
Thank you
So many of Americas ills come from not talking about what ails them. Racism is a case in point. They don't want to admit it's a big deal. They point to laws that protect peoples rights. Yet it's pretty damn obvious to a blind man that those laws are never obeyed. I would also say the wealth gap but that's the same the world over. Also the arguments about sex and abortion. Which shouldn't be a political can of worms because those in voted aren't hurting anybody with their choices of what to do with their own body. trump is turning the race issue even more towards anger. Defunding programmes that protect and help lift the poor out of poverty. Defunding programmes that help black and brown kids have an equal chance at higher education. Scholarship funds are being cut, or as trump wants it, done away altogether. He is replacing help with hate. This will not end well. His MAGA base is fracturing because he promised them he would "clean out the swamp" and now they are realising, especially over the Epstein scandal, that he's part of it. I suspect that those who voted for him will simply choose not to vote at all. They can't defend their enemy for so many decades, the libs. They were never republicans to start with so they'll crawl back into their grievance space and seethe. Politics avoids the issue of positive changes towards discussing race because they don't want to jeopardise votes. It's a never ending cycle.
Excellent article, I knew that there was a history but have never seen anyone put it so cleanly and thoroughly. Thank you for your work!
SCOTUS clearly from its start has been and still is an antidemocratic institution. It has been politicized from the beginning and does not deserve at all its supreme position. It is not instructed to rule by high ethical standards. Its members should not be chosen by presidents but by the deans of law schools, not for life but for a period of 10 years, and impeached if they have shown unethical conduct. With all this evidence of ongoing unethical, antidemocratic and harmful rulings this court must be renewed.
Oh dear, I've known about at least 60% of the SCOTUS judgments mostly by my reading outside he set curricula of my formal education. Some of the others I've heard of but not known the full details, of consequences. The last few I've never even heard of, to my shame.
This spotty understanding of a fairly well read and educated senior citizen is probably the norm for most US citizens, or their comprehension could be even worse than mine. I suspect all this is by design and deliberate obfuscation, in fact a long running conspiracy among the white elites to ignore or bury the truth of its hateful disregard of most religious strictures. Persistent bigotry and hypocrisy, practiced for centuries by a caste ridden society which all the while has been spinning outrageous lies about American exceptionalism.
Yes. impeachment for gross misrepresentation should be used to remove elected and appointed high mucky mucks purporting to be "leaders and representatives" of US law.. Retraction of those very laws that have been imposed to the lethal detriment of US democracy and the integrity of our society is urgently required. A new Constitution might have to be written and passed by popular vote alone.
If there were a way, the 6 reprehensible disgusting justices (if they should even be called that) should be impeached. They have forsaken their oath to the constitution and to the American people.
Also in the 1896 Plessy vs Ferguson case the court ruled that segregation by skin color was legitimate. That set the stage for Woodrow Wilson to segregate the Federal Civil Service.
Things will only get worse.I can hardly read anything now that charlie kirk has been shot. I truly don't care about him. I hate that I feel that way after ten years of trump. But I hate what will happen now. I doubt trump will target Utah with the National Guard. It will be worse. and random other shootings will happen more and more as magats take out their frustrations of being in power on those of us who aren't. I hate that I've become less caring about some people. All the empathy is being squeezed out of me.