Dred Scott lives!

With the Supreme Court’s declaration that President Trump’s third version of a Muslim travel ban is now enforceable, even as legal challenges against it proceed, the court and the country reopen the racism that permeates American history.

“The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, 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 that instrument to the citizen?”

Thus begins Chief Justice Roger Taney’s explanation of the Supreme Court’s 1857 ruling against the slave Dred Scott’s lawsuit that he was entitled to freedom when he was taken by his “owner” to a free territory. Taney’s answer, of course, was no. Sorry, you’re not one of us.

Read the full piece here.