The Reasoning in Plessy

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Sun Jan 5 13:36:15 PST 2003



> >
> > The Court put it like this, referring, indeed to
> > "physical difference," but putting more weight on
> the
> > idea that race is a social relationship:
>
> justin: what do you make of that reference to
> "racial instincts"?

The Court is adverting to the common idea at thetime that members of different races had an instinctual aversion to each other.

The Court's reasoning contains elements of the idea prevalent at the time that there were some sort of biological, natural "physical" differences among the races, but it does not rest its justification for seperate but equal (upholding Jim Crow laws) on that basis. It proceeds, rather, from the idea that whatever the source of racial aversions, whether thy are social or rooted in biology, instincts, and the like, legislation cannot force integration on races if their members do not want to be socially integrated.


>
> it seems to me that the distinction between "civilly
> and politically,"
> on the one hand, and "socially," on the other, is a
> bogus distinction,
> conveniently supportive of conviction (about racial
> instincts and
> physical difference).

Ia gree, byt the contrast between political and social is a term of art that goes back to the debates around the 14th AMendment. That Amendment was understood by many of its framers to guarantee blacks "political and civil" equality -- the right to make contracts, own property, serve on a jury, and not to be ignored by the police when crimes were committed against one; with the passage of the 15th Amendment, the right to vote -- but not "social" equality, that is, not the right to interact as equals with whites, to marry their sisters, attend their schools, and the like. You may doubt the coherence of the distinction, but consider the way working class people are treated as political and civil "equals" to the rich, but their social inferiors. This may have been the distinction the Court had in mind. It was rejected for race in Brown v. Board of Education (1955). How long till it is rejected for class?
> j
>
>
> <snip>
> > Legislation is
> > powerless to eradicate racial instincts, or to
> abolish
> > distinctions based upon physical differences, and
> the
> > attempt to do so can only result in accentuating
> the
> > difficulties of the present situation. If the
> civil
> > and political rights of both races be equal, one
> > cannot be inferior to the other civilly *552 or
> > politically. If one race be inferior to the other
> > socially, the constitution of the United States
> cannot
> > put them upon the same plane.
> >
> >
> > Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 551 (1896)
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> http://www.brainmortgage.com/
> "Something's not in orbit in the capital of this
> galaxy."
> - Alphaville
>

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