JJ: In the last session of the Congress, Republicans and conservative Democrats offered 75 amendments to the Constitution. This year we have voted on five already, including a tax limitation amendment and a don't burn the flag amendment. So the only question is why, beyond the Equal Rights Amendment, the Democratic party does not advance the idea of fundamental rights in terms of organizing. All of our organizing is based on incremental legislative programs, not fundamental rights. In the last election, the flag and the Ten Commandments were on the ballot for conservatives. But for Democrats we're at patients' bill of rights [and other] limited, incremental legislative programs. And I guarantee you that people who are fighting for fundamental rights are more passionate about their causes than people fighting for incremental legislative programs. So the fact that we have already voted on four or five conservative constitutional amendments in this session of the Congress, why wouldn't similar legislative proposals have the opportunity of working their way through the process? I happen to believe that if the American people understand what's at stake, it's just a matter of time before these amendments could be added to the Constitution.
PB: So this is not just an academic exercise?
JJ: No, it's serious as a heart attack.
PB: You write that the only appropriate prism through which to see American history is racism and slavery. Why?
JJ: What I tried to do when I made that statement was not to be dismissive of anyone else's history. And I hope I accomplished that. It is my goal to affirm the history of every single American as legitimate. However, I argue that race is probably the most appropriate prism through which to view the development of our country, the structure of our country, and to understand our most historic and central problems. Race, I argue, academically, not race personally. I try to separate it from any emotional issues, which was very difficult to do, and just present race as an academic subject. Only the history of race shows us debate over whether or not there should even be a federal government.
It was argued at the Constitutional Convention that had the issue of slavery not been submerged we might have never even arrived at the idea of a Constitution. The idea of how states were admitted to the Union, the very structure our Senate is built on, is tied into the race dialogue. Liberals say we should invest more money in health care, education, housing, a cleaner, safer and sustainable environment. Well, radical Republicans argued that we needed to invest in education, health care and housing for the newly freed slaves. That's where economic liberalism comes from. The race debate then is not what we perceive happened to Rodney King or Amadou Diallo or any of us individually, it is the collective history of who we have become as a nation and how far we are willing to go to change that history.
PB: Are you for or against direct reparations for slavery?
