> I really wish people's knowldege of U.S. history would go a bit more beyond civil rights.

Have you ever heard anybody talk about how the 13th Amendment (outlawing slavery) has the exception for prisoners, and how our prison population is totally coincidentally comprised of one certain group of people over all others? https://sites.lib.jmu.edu/civic/2020/09/17/slaves-of-the-sta...

The 1973 Equal Credit Opportunity Act has an exception where it's still totally legal to deny someone a home loan if they're judged incapable of affording the home: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Credit_Opportunity_Act

I would love to believe the modern day state I call home doesn't still reflect all of its founders' beliefs, but idk the more I learn about this stuff the worse it gets. It's pretty wild to read California's first gubernatorial address where they take the entire last third of the speech to basically say "no darkies tho": https://governors.library.ca.gov/addresses/s_01-Burnett1.htm...

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"Our Constitution has wisely prohibited Slavery with the State; so that the people of California are once and for ever free from this great social and political evil. But the Constitution has made no provision in reference to the settlement of free people of color within our limits, but has left the Legislature to adopt such legislation upon this delicate and important subject as may be deemed most essential to the happiness of our people. The Constitution excludes this class of persons from the right of suffrage, and from all offices of honor or profit under the State."

"For some years past I have given this subject my most candid and serious attention, and I most cheerfully lay before you the result of my own reflections. There is, in my opinion, but one of two consistent courses to take in reference to this class of population, – either to admit them to the full and fee enjoyment of all the privileges guaranteed by the Constitution to others, or exclude them from the State. If we permit them to settle in our State, under existing circumstances, we consign them, by our own institutions, and the usages of own society, to a subordinate and degraded position, which is in itself but a species of slavery. They would be placed in a situation where they would have no efficient motives for moral or intellectual improvement, but must remain in our midst, sensible of their degradation, unhappy themselves, enemies to the institutions and the society whose usages, have placed them there, and for ever fit teachers in all the schools of ignorance, vice, and idleness."

"Our position upon the Pacific, our commercial and mineral attractions, would bring swarms of this population to our shores. Already we have almost every variety of human race among us; a heterogeneous mass of human beings, of every language, and of every hue. That period is rapidly approaching, when the natural increase of population in the States East of the Rocky Mountains will render Slave labor of little or no value, and when investments in that species of property will cease to be remunerative. If measures are not early taken by this State, Slaves will be manumitted in the Slave States, and contracts made with them to labor as hireling for a given number of years, and they will be brought to California, in great numbers. Our State is now in a position to take an efficient stand upon this subject. A few years’ delay will make it almost, if not quite, impossible to do that which can be so easy accomplished now. If California will take a decided stand now, and firmly maintain it, a few years’ experience will demonstrate the practical utility of the measure. That weak and sickly sympathy – that misplaced mercy – that would hesitate to adopt a salutary measure to-day, but would suffer all the inevitable consequences of to-morrow, may consider the policy I propose as harsh in its character; but if it is calculated to produce the greatest good to the greatest number, it is the best humanity."

"It could be no favor, and no kindness, to permit that class of population to settle in the State under such humiliating conditions, although they might think otherwise; while it would be a most serious injury to us. We have certainly the right to prevent any class of population from settling in our State, that we deem injurious to our society. Had they been born here, and had acquired rights in consequence, I should not recommend any measures to expel them. They are not now here, – except a few in comparison with the numbers that would be here, – and the object is to keep them out. I, therefore, call your most serious attention to this subject, believing it to be one of the first importance."