Racism In The Judicial System

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Racism In the Judicial System Is there racism in our judicial system? Racism in the American court system dates back centuries ago, way back to 1857 for the famous Dredd Scott v Sandford. The Dredd Scott case was about a freed slave who had a temporary home in the state of Illinois which was a free territory. Even though Mr. Scott was a freed slave that still did not grant him citizenship in the United States. Chief Justice Taney held a strong disposition towards blacks and wanted to do everything in his power to ensure that they didn’t become citizens under that Constitution. He thought of them as nothing, “Blacks, on the other hand, were not included and were not intended to be included, under the word “citizens” in the Constitution. (Bell 16) Chief Justice Taney considered blacks to be worse than the Indians, stating that even though the Indians were also a lesser individual than whites because they were free and worked together in small tribes which were governed by their own laws. He also viewed their governments as foreign and was very pleased at the fact that Indian governments had been taken over by the white race. He referred to it as if the white race was doing the Indians a favor by taking them over and naturalizing them so that they could become citizens in the United States. However, he felt that blacks weren’t worthy of this “naturalization” process. “They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations: and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” (Bell 17) Roger B Taney was the 5th Chief Justice in the Supreme Court who had such hateful views towards non-whites. What is most disturbing about this is that he is such a high ranking official in the highest branch of the
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