Works in Progress Group #10 Racial Justice: Policing & Political Community

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Session Type: Works-in-Progress

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A Rebuke of The “Political Family”

As a starting point, Professor Makar's article begins by analyzing the metaphor of the “political family,” which was first used to tell the story of citizenship in the U.S. The metaphor was used prominently in Justice Taney’s opinion in Dred Scott to exclude Mr. Scott and other enslaved persons from the privileges of citizenship, stating that the Constitution created a “political family,” but that definition did not intend to include enslaved persons.

This article argues that although the rule of law that Dred Scott created was overturned by the Fourteenth Amendment, the metaphor was not; it was used to establish a terrible legacy that was never fully rebuked. This article traces back the lines of authority in voting rights cases, criminal punishment cases, and right to education cases to argue that the failure to affirmatively and forcefully condemn the original meaning of such a divisive metaphor through legal discourse has resulted in the creation of illegitimate structures of racism that our very society continues to maintain today.


“Black is a Country”: Policing the Global Poor through Segregative Quarantinism

Professor Hayat's work in progress examines that in March 2020, with just nine coronavirus cases, Newark, New Jersey “locked down” three discreet areas containing thirteen public housing developments. Videos surfaced showing Newark Police Department patrolling the locked down areas, blaring sirens and blasting warnings over their bullhorn all hours of day and night. News reports confirmed Newark Police Department stops, confrontations, and summonses for violations of the stay-at-home order. Later, Newark and four adjacent majority-minority cities instituted “Silent Mondays” strongly recommending no residents leave home at all even for essential tasks. None of the white towns bordering Newark, even with higher virus rates, were under such restrictive orders. Minority communities worldwide, however, experienced hauntingly similar restraints on movement overseen by law enforcement. For example, in Siene-Saint-Denis, one of the poorest suburbs of Paris (where 28% of residents are immigrant), there were reports of prison-like conditions owing to police using their mandate to keep the streets clear to harass and beat youths. In Jerusalem’s poorer ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, and also in Victoria and Auckland, advocates reported the same – isolation and over-policing of poor minorities under lockdown. It is the perpetuation of segregation throughout the world that facilitated with ease the enforcement of excessive lockdown orders. The Human Rights Watch has denounced over-policing the dispossessed during quarantine as “unacceptable and illegal.” This project explores residential segregation experienced through quarantinism as both civil rights and human rights violations.