From Acclaimed Scholar Robin Kelley in Democracy Now: “The Declaration of Independence is a little bit different in that it is not a constitution. It’s not law, per se. But it does make these claims that go beyond the drafters. When the drafters developed this declaration, they assumed that human beings were basically white men.
They imagined an independent nation that’s basically a kind of herrenvolk republic — that is, a white republic. There was no assumption that other people, either Native people, Black people, would participate in that republic. There might be some exceptions, of course. And so, the declaration, the language goes beyond its intention.”
