Maybe I am wrong, maybe I am right, but here is the situation. The Supreme Court have decided not to take the case of giving 3.6 million people of the U. S. Possessions equal rights. I say the court is wrong in not taking the case. I think it is wrong that those people do not have equal rights in the first place. It is not about law (although the lawmakers and court are not reading the law the way I am), it is about morality.
This is the situation. American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are U.S. territories. These possessions have U.S. passports, pay taxes, and, as U.S. possessions, it is considered U.S. soil. So, the way I see it, if the properties are American soil anyone born on that soil is automatically a U.S. citizen and have all the rights and privileges as a citizen.
The problem, the reason there are lawsuits, and it has gone all the way to the Supreme Court, is the people can not vote. My question is, why not? All citizens are supposed to be afforded the right to vote, or am I wrong about that. They are calling it ‘Insular Cases’.
I will quote what I read in a Yahoo news article: ‘Insular Cases that deny people like Fitisemanu equal rights as citizens were explicitly founded on racist premises. The cases, which occurred from 1901 to 1922, claimed that the people of the oversees territories the U.S. conquered in the Spanish-American War came from “savage tribes” and “alien” and “uncivilized races” who were “absolutely unfit to receive” the rights provided by the Constitution. The court invented a new legal class of “unincorporated territory” for the colonial possessions taken from Spain that denied them equal rights and statehood.’
These people also serve in the armed forces, go to schools in the 50 states, work in the 50 states, can live in any state and must abide the American laws. But it seems as though the courts still want to hold on to the racist laws from more than a century ago. Yet we as Americans choose to tell other nations how they should conduct themselves when we are the ones that need to change. These racist stereotypes not only hurt the island possessions but many Black, Brown, etc. here on mainland USA.
As I read the article, all I thought about is how many island people I have met, and I thought they had all the rights I have. My original thoughts about our laws, which I have harbored in my mind since childhood, have not changed. A lot of these laws can be changed but most keep hitting roadblocks put up by the Republicans. The Republicans loaded the Supreme Court and now they control what goes on there. I do not foresee anything that make sense or is moral coming out of the Supreme Court.
The people of these islands will never see justice as long as the court is the way it is and as long as the Congress have those roadblocks. Call them American Nationals or whatever you want, it still is not right. Let us not call it Insular Cases, call it what it is. Racist.
tega227 