But my understanding of the Constitution does not have to be limited to the document as originally written, nor the first ten amendments as the framers originally understood and implemented them. That original Constitution, the one drafted at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, ratified by the thirteen colonies, and venerated by conservatives as if it were gospel, is dead. It was shot at Bull Run. It burned in the Battle of the Wilderness. It bled the ground red at Gettysburg. As a Black person, I do not even acknowledge the legitimacy of the original Constitution, much less think our
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