Locke’s liberalism and the American Constitution embedded racial hierarchy in their foundations

Evidence

In many cultures, including what Guénon called “Eastern civilizations,” life is valued intrinsically, because of the unity of the universe as architecture; and architecture presupposes an architect, a rational/intelligent plan, and an intent to design. The modern distinction obliterated this worldview, using racial theories and social Darwinism in order to classify creatures. … And when the American Constitution declared all men to be equal, the “Black man” was more or less in the rank of animals. Locke’s philosophy and the theory and practice of the American Constitution—two remarkably influential sources of political thought and political practice—are on their own ample evidence of liberalism’s organic embeddedness in the structure of thought I have been discussing. … What led to the Distinction are a host of augmenting factors, eminent among them the political and social revolutions in Europe against the abuses of monarchies and church, secularized Christian concepts, and, quite likely, prior barbarian influences on Christianity itself. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 400

Categorization

• SEED: The claim that liberalism’s racism is ‘organic,’ not accidental — Locke the slave-trade investor and the Constitution demoting Black people near animal rank — makes a strong essay on how exclusion is structural rather than corrigible in Enlightenment thought.
• XREF: connects to: Liberal constitutional democracy historically reserved political reality to economically privileged minorities. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2336; Segregationist legislation was justified in the language of property rights and liberty — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1468