The Unstated Clause 0
Jorge Reina Schement, a vice chancellor at Rutgers University, recalls his summer job working on a loading dock when he was a student. Here’s a snippet; follow the link for the rest:
I ran to the front office, where I was told that immigration – La Migra – had swept all the loading docks. When I asked about my fellow workers, I received a shrug. Later, I asked the boss why they didn’t take me. He laughed and replied, “You don’t look like a Mexican.” I was a light skinned Mexican-Italian born in Texas. My first lesson about deportations: Skin color matters.
One could argue that “skin color matters” is an unstated founding principle of the United States, just as the 3/5ths rule was a stated one. The 3/5ths rule is gone (at least formally), but skin color still matters.