Gato_Solo said:
The rights to life, liberty, and happiness shall not be infringed...Does that ring a bell?
Why, yes it does. It's what I'm basing my arguments on.
If I am denied a job solely because of race or gender, then my right to life is infringed upon.
No, it's not. By that argument, you could just as easily say that your right to life gives you the right to the food out of my refridgerator. The right to life gives you the right to live, i.e., the right
not to be killed. It does not guarantee you the means to live. The right to property gives you full ownership of any property you acquire, it does not guarantee that you will acquire property. The right to the
pursuit of happiness does not guarantee that you will find happiness. Rights are a barrier between the individual and other members of society, preventing them from initiating the use of force against him. They are not a list of demands compelling other members of society to do things
for him.
As for the practical question of whether non-coercive discrimination could prevent people from achieving prosperity and happiness, it could not. Absent any laws that restrict hiring, there will always be employers who will hire them. There will always be some way around non-coercive barriers. Even during Jim Crow when there were laws on the books working against them, blacks were able to survive and in some cases, even thrive. It took a large amount of force to hold them down-- much more even than isolated incidents of individual malice. Force, on that large a scale, cannot exist without the acquiescence and participation of the government. Take away from government the power to pass laws that restrict the economic activity of people, and the system crumbles. Without force to back them up, the irrational decisions of bigots are simply not sufficient to hold down an entire people. The bigots would find themselves unable to compete in a free market.
The majority of people who were in the South made it through with little, or no, impact on their lives. Shop keepers still had shops, inkeepers still had inns.
I'm not talking about the direct economic effects of the war, I'm talking about the long term economic effects of not making full use of the productive potential of a large segment of the population. Jim Crow held back the economic development of the South just as surely as it held back the economic development of blacks. Remember the scene in
The Color Purple when Celie tells Albert that everything he does is going to fail until he does right by her? That's the position the South was in with respect to blacks. It wasn't a mystical curse, though, just natural economic consequences.
What's the difference between 'indentured servitude' and 'slavery' as practiced by the US?
Racism, certainly. In one case, the person was recognized as fully human, and it was understood that holding him in lifelong servitude was wrong. In the other case, the person's humanity was denied and evaded. To use the term 'discrimination' for it, though, implies that the slaveowners should have been enslaving everyone equally. The slave owners weren't guilty of discrimination, they were guilty of being slavers.
That man was chosen simply because he was black. Black Wall Street was destroyed simply because it was black. Racism, period. By narrowing your definition, you unintentionally ignore the way racism and discrimination work.
I don't believe that I'm ignoring anything, I just think we have an actually rather small disagreement about what should be done with regard to racism. We both completely agree that racists should not have the power to coerce or otherwise do violence to any person. You seem to believe, though, that racists should be forced to at least act as if they are rational when making decisions about their own person or property. I don't. I say take away their ability to use government coercion to force their racism on others, lock them up or execute them if they resort to force themselves, but leave them free to make choices about their own person and property. When you take away the ability to use force, they are essentially self-destructive and impotent. Let them stew in their own juices.
The examples you and I put forth are on the extreme, but the ideas for doing them came from every-day prejudice.
Actually, I think prejudice is too tame a word for it. A prejudice is something that can be overcome by evidence. A thorough-going racist is more malevolent. He has a deep self-hatred that he projects outward at other people. He alternates between attempting to boister his self-esteem by deriding them, and blaming them for his own failures. Deep inside there is a voice that whispers to him that he is an inferior sort of creature, and he tries to drown it out by screaming, "not me, them!!"
Try reading the book 'Black Like Me', by John Howard Griffin. It was written in the 'Jim Crow' twilight, but I'm sure you may begin to get an idea of what I'm talking about.
Well, I'm white like them, so I already get the inside view of all the different varieties and expressions of racism and prejudice. I'm also human, like you, so I understand the evil of their ignorance and malice. I've been treated rudely by people because of my color, and I've been treated violently by people because of my color. I grew up in a neighborhood that became predominately black when I was about 10. I went to middle and high schools that were about 50% black. I've seen the dynamics of race relations up close. I think I have enough personal experience to go on. I've heard of that book before, and I'm sure it's a good book. I don't think I have to go off and read it, though, before I can speak reasonably on this subject.
