The persistence of racism lies within the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments of the Constitution of the United States.

This is the set of amendments that outlaws slavery and indentured servitude, grant African-Americans citizenship and outlaw the denial of suffrage based on race, color or previous conditions of servitude. These amendments have established and solidified not only the race barrier of this country but the mentality of the 13 percent of the United States who are African-American.

Within these amendments lies the history of fear, mistrust, terrorism, exploitation and brutality of the Civil Rights Movement. Now, a race exists that is as apprehensive as the Supreme Court that denied Dred Scott his pursuit of happiness and unalienable rights.

In the Supreme Court case of Dred Scott the ideology of white supremacy resonated in its decision of not trusting an African-American as a citizen. The Supreme Court questioned the capability of an African-American to “become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guaranteed by the instrument to the citizen.” To this day the African-American questions the capability of their government to give them the opportunity to become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States. So, here lies the problem.

Within these amendments lies the calamity of African-Americans: Am I African or American? This question has been deliberated by Ralph Ellison, W.E.B DuBois, Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison and many other prominent African-American literary figures, and the answer is nonrepresentational. African-Americans carry the burden of this double-identity that in turn creates a mental state of regression. Without a country and representation the African-American is victimized by a government that condoned the institution of slavery, the Fugitive Slave Law, lynching, convict facility experimental electrocutions, the infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan into government, assassinations of black leaders, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, the distribution of crack, the engineering of AIDS and the destruction of the Black Panther Party. The list continues.Without faith in the government, African-Americans will suffer at the hands of an institution that has simply belittled its culture, history, pride and humanity. The battle of destroying the color line lies within removing these amendments. Too many times has the debate of who is at fault for the state of African-Americans deteriorated into a melee of redundant dialogue. The American government is undoubtedly at fault stemming from its history of manipulation, hypocrisy and militaristic domination and now it is their civic responsibility to mend the souls who have endured devastation, including their own.

In closing, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments speak all too loudly in the socioeconomic disenfranchisement of Black America. This legislation does not grant citizenship, it in turn creates a second class citizen. It was witnessed in the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina and then the prompt reaction to the natural disaster in Alabama (I do not trivialize the lives lost in Alabama). The answer is not that the government tightened up FEMA procedures; the answer is concealed genocide through majority power. In other words, these amendments are concealed Jim Crow laws and they will continue to reveal the inconsistencies that haunt America.

Marcus Thomas is a junior in journalism and political science. He can be reached at [email protected].