Using Historical Memory of the Confederacy to Select Jurors
People might have racial biases, but they may not recognize them and even if they were aware of them would be very unlikely to admit to them. A lot of people think they aren't racist if they don't feel active hostility towards a group or feel an urge to attack a member of a group. However, they can have all sorts of biases against a group. People think that since they don't say crude racial statements or are a member of a group like the Ku Klux Klan, they don't have racial biases. I discuss some of these issues of banal white nationalism at a web page www.templeofdemocracy.com/breaking.htm.
I think some questions probing specific aspects of a person's historical memory can determine to some extent this persons racial attitudes.
So I am coming up with some questions that defense attorneys should ask potential jurors, particularly in the case where the defendant is a member of a minority group. I will be blogging them here and tweeting references to them on www.twitter.com @EdwardHSebesta as well as putting them on the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Anti-Neo-Confederate-Super-PAC/122398324590629.
The first question I think defense attorneys should ask is:
Are you associated with or are a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, United Daughters of the Confederacy, League of the South, Council of Conservative Citizens, Order of the Confederate Rose, or any other neo-Confederate group or group that venerates the Confederacy?
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) alone has over 30,000 members, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) has about 10,000 roughly I estimate from the subscriptions to their magazine. There is overlap in membership in some of these groups, but I estimate that there are at least 50,000 or more members of neo-Confederate groups. They get called for jury duty like anyone else.
These are people who believe that African Americans were largely content to be slaves, that being brought over to America as slaves was largely beneficial, etc. They frequently if not almost always have racial biases and often support white supremacy. Should these people be jurors, no. Besides their racial biases, their historical beliefs inherently set a low or no value on freedom for African Americans so they are not going to worry as much as others about mistakenly convicting an African American and taking away that person's freedom. Also, it is inherently repugnant that persons who glorify the Confederacy should be allowed to judge any African American.
A yes answer would not just be a means to select jurors to be rejected without cause. I would argue that membership in a neo-Confederate organization would be cause for rejection.
If you have a question that you would think would be good to identity individuals with a Lost Cause pro-Confederate attitude, email them to me or go like my Facebook pages and propose them there.
As always I don't have time for neo-Confederate nonsense.