Racial segregation - Misplaced Pages

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Racial segregation exists where governments have passed laws either allowing or requiring discrimination on the basis of race. Both South Africa and the United States passed laws requring or permitting separation of the races in daily life. The practice of segregating the races was called apartheid for many years in South Africa. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of states to pass discriminatory legislation. Segregation continued until 1954 when the court reversed its earlier decision. Segregaton is characterized by forced separation of the races in daily life when both are doing equal tasks, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. Segregation in both South Africa and the U.S. came with prohibitions against interracial marriage and against hiring people of the race that is the object of discrimination in any but menial positions. Segregation in hiring practices led to economic imbalance between the races. Segregation, however, often allowed close contact in hierarchical situations, such as allowing a person of one race to work as a servant for a member of another race. Segregation can involve spatial separation of the races, and/or mandatory use of different institutions, such as schools and hospitals by people of different races. See also: racism.

Overview

Although many societies throughout history have practiced racial segregation, it was by no means universal, and some multiracial societies such as the Roman Empire were notable for their rejection of racial segregation. Most modern societies do not officially practice racial segregation, and officially frown upon racial discrimination. However, anxieties about racial, religious and cultural differences still find expression in other forms of political and social controversy, either as an official pretext for culturally accepted discrimination, or as a socially acceptable way to discuss cultural, religious and economic friction that results from racial discrimination. For example, immigration and religious controversies often mask concerns about the culture or racial composition of the immigrants. Issues of race relations also appear in seemingly race-neutral disputes, over such issues as poverty, healthcare, taxation, religion, enforcement of a particular set of cultural norms, and even fashion.

Racial segregation differs from racial discrimination in a number of ways. Discrimination ranges from individual actions, to socially enforced discriminatory behavior, to legally mandated differences in status between members of different races. Segregation represents the most extreme option in that it is a legally mandated difference in status; however, it goes even further by mandating separation of the members of differing races and the social systems that serve them

Nazi Germany

An example of miscegenation laws was the Nuremberg Laws enacted by the Nazis in Germany against the large German Jewish community during the 1930s. The laws prohibited marriages between Jews (deemed as Untermenschen - "sub-humans") and German "Aryans" (deemed the Herrenrasse - "master race"). Many interfaith and intermarried couples committed suicide when these laws came into effect.

Under the General Government of occupied Poland in 1940, the population was divided into different groups, each with different rights, food rations, allowed strips in the cities, public transportation, and assigned

Ukrainians,
Highlanders (Goralenvolk) - an attempt to split the Polish nation by using local collaborators
Poles,
Jews (eventually sentenced to extermination as a category).
Homosexuals

During the 1930s and 40s, Jews were forced to wear yellow ribbons or stars of David, and were, along with Romas (Gypsies) discriminated against by the racial laws. Jewish doctors and professors were not allowed to teach Aryan pupils or treat Aryan patients, respectively. Later during WWII, Jews, Romas, Poles and Slavs were sent to the concentration camps, solely on the basis of their race.

The Jews were also not allowed to use any public transportation, besides the ferry, and would only be able to shop from 3-5 in Jewish stores. After the Night of the Broken Glass, the Jews were fined 1,000,000 marks for damages done by the Nazi troops and SS members.

USA

After the Civil War abolished slavery in the South, racial discrimination became regulated by the so-called Jim Crow laws, which mandated strict segregation of the races. Though such laws were instituted shortly after fighting ended in many cases, they only became formalized after the end of Republican-enforced Reconstruction in the 1870s and 80s during a period known as the nadir of American race relations. This legalized segregation lasted up to the 1960s, primarily through the deep and extensive power of the Democratic Party.

In the post-Civil War South, Democrats used the race issue to solidify their hold on Southern politics, playing on white resentment of black political power. Democrats were the agents in passing segregation laws, as well as laws disenfranchising blacks (and sometimes poor whites) politically. White and black people would sometimes be required to eat separately and use separate schools, public toilets, park benches, train and restaurant seating, etc. In some locales, in addition to segregated seating, it could be forbidden for stores or restaurants to serve different races under the same roof.

Segregation was also pervasive in housing. State constitutions (for example, that of California) had clauses giving local jurisdictions the right to regulate where members of certain races could live. White landowners often included restrictive covenants in deeds through which they prevented blacks or Asians from ever purchasing their property from any subsequent owner. In the 1948 case of Shelley v. Kraemer, the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled that such covenants were unenforceable in a court of law. However, residential segregation patterns had already become established in most American cities, and have often persisted up to the present (see white flight).

"Miscegenation" laws prohibited people of different races from marrying. As one of many examples of such state laws, Utah's marriage law had an anti-miscegenation component that was passed in 1899 and repealed in 1963. It prohibited marriage between a white and anyone considered a Negro, mulatto (half Negro), quadroon (one-quarter Negro), octoroon (one-eighth Negro), Mongolian, or member of the Malay race (presumably a Polynesian or Melanesian). No restrictions were placed on marriages between people that were not "white persons." (Utah Code, 40-1-2, C. L. 17, §2967 as amended by L. 39, C. 50; L. 41, Ch. 35.).

In World War I, blacks served in the United States Armed Forces in segregated units. Black soldiers were often poorly trained and equipped. Still, the 93rd Division, fought alongside the French . The 369th Infantry (formerly 15th New York National Guard) Regiment distinguished themselves, and were known as the "Harlem Hellfighters".

World War II saw the first black military pilots in the U.S., the Tuskegee Airmen, 99th Fighter Squadron, , and also saw the segregated 183rd Engineer Combat Battalion participate in the liberation of Jewish Survivors at Buchenwald .

During World War II, people of Japanese descent (whether citizens or not) were excluded from the West Coast and placed in internment camps, on the basis of their race; see Japanese American internment.

Pressure to end racial segregation in the government grew among African Americans and progressives after the end of World War II. On January 26, 1948 President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981, ending segregation in the United States Armed Forces.

Institutionalized racial segregation was ended as an official practice by the efforts of such civil rights activists as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., working during the period from the end of World War II through the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 supported by President Lyndon Johnson. Many of their efforts were acts of civil disobedience aimed at violating the racial segregation rules and laws, such as refusing to give up a seat in the black part of the bus to a white person (Rosa Parks), or holding sit-ins at all-white diners.

Not all racial segregation laws have been repealed in the United States, although Supreme Court rulings have rendered them unenforceable. For instance, the Alabama Constitution still mandates that Separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race. A proposal to repeal this provision was narrowly defeated in 2004. However, in a different arena, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in February 2005 in Johnson v. California (125 S. Ct. 1141) that the California Department of Corrections' unwritten practice of racially segregating prisoners in its prison reception centers — which California claimed was for inmate safety (gangs in California, as throughout the U.S., usually organize on racial lines)— is to be subject to strict scrutiny, the highest level of constitutional review. Although the high court remanded the case back to the lower courts, it is likely that their decision will have the impact of forcing California to alter its practice of segregating by race in its reception centers.

Despite all of the legal changes of the past half-century, however, the United States remains a segregated society, with housing patterns, school enrollment, church membership, employment opportunities, and even college admissions all reflecting significant de facto segregation. Supporters of affirmative action argue that the persistence of such disparities reflects either racial discrimination or the persistence of its effects.

According to the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, the actual desegregation of U.S. public schools peaked in 1988; since that time the schools have, in fact, become more segregated. As of 2005, the present proportion of Black students at majority white schools "a level lower than in any year since 1968."

South Africa

Apartheid was a system which existed in South Africa for over forty years, although the term itself had a history going back to the 1910s. It was formalized in the years following the victory of the National Party in the all-white national election of 1948, increased in dominancy under the rule of Prime Minister Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd and remained law until 1990. Examples of apartheid policy introduced are the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, 1951, which made it illegal for marriage between races. Apartheid was abolished following a rapid change in public perception of racial segregation throughout the world, and an economic boycott against South Africa which had crippled and threatened to destroy its economy.

Rhodesia

The British colony of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), under Ian Smith, leader of the white minority government, declared unilateral independence in 1965. For the next 15 years, Rhodesia operated under white minority rule until international sanctions forced Smith to hold multiracial elections, after a brief period of British rule in 1979.

Laws enforcing segregation had been around before 1965, although many institutions simply ignored them. One highly publicised legal battle occurred in 1960 involving the opening of a new Theatre that was to be open to all races, this incident was nicknamed "The Battle of the Toilets".

Arab world

After municipal elections in Bahrain in 2002 brought Islamist opposition party Al Wefaq Islamic Action to power in the capital Manama, its newly installed mayor, Murthader Bader called for the introduction of racial segregation with the removal from the city of all non-Bahraini South Asian inhabitants and for the creation of a new township to house them.

Mr Bader told the English language Gulf Daily News "It would cost a lot and we would have to find an area to accept them," he said. "A big question is where to build any new accommodation."

The government rejected the proposals.

Fiji

Two military coups in Fiji in 1987 removed from power a government that was led by an ethnic Fijian, but was supported principally by the Indo-Fijian (ethnic Indian) electorate, which then made up approximately half of the population. A new constitution was promulgated in 1990, establishing Fiji as a republic, with the offices of President, Prime Minister, two-thirds of the Senate, and a clear majority of the House of Representatives reserved for ethnic Fijians, despite the fact that ethnic Fijians then comprised less than half the population. Ethnic Fijian ownership of the land (which was worked principally by Indo-Fijians) was also entrenched in the constitution.

World-wide condemnation of the 1990 constitution, and a brain-drain of many Indo-Fijian professionals and business owners, caused the Fijian government to revise the constitution in 1997. Amendments deleted most of the discriminatory provisions, and subsequent elections in 1999 brought a new government to power, with Mahendra Chaudhry as the country's first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister.

Another coup followed in 2000, with George Speight, supported by sympathetic officers in the Army and police force, seizing power, with the aim of ending Indo-Fijian influence in politics. Democracy, and the moderate 1997 constitution, were eventually restored, however.

Current prime minister Laisenia Qarase has refused to adhere to the Constitution by not including members of the largely Indo-Fijian Fiji Labour Party in the government.

Australia

While there is no existing Australian government policy that segregates Aborigines, their poor socio-economic conditions typically leave them somewhat segregated from the rest of Australian society. This situation has led a number of commentators and civil rights groups to characterize the situation as Apartheid. In fact, Australia's government policies are viewed by some as the original impetus for the Apartheid system in South Africa.

Malaysia

Malaysia has an article in its constitution which distinctly segregates the Malays and other indigeneous peoples of Malaysia from the non-Malays, or bumiputra under the social contract, giving them special rights and privileges. This includes government-sponsored discounts and requiring even the private sector of the economy to preferentially treat bumiputras with economic priveleges and penalising companies who do not have a certain quota of bumiputra in employment. Furthermore, any discussion of abolishing the article is prohibited with the justification that it is seditious. This form of state-sponsored racial segregation is claimed as apartheid to opponents of the article. Supporters of the policy maintain that this is affirmative action for the bumiputra who had suffered during the colonial era of the history of Malaysia, using the concept of the Ketuanan Melayu that Malaysia belongs to the Malays.

Sociological Research Behind Brown v. Board

In the Brown v. Board decision, Chief Justice Earl Warren, writing for a unanimous court, said that "in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal... To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone."

The decision made clear that the justices were influenced in part by studies by Kenneth B. Clark showing that segregated education had a negative psychological effect upon black school children. Significant doubt was subsequently cast on these studies, especially Clark's "doll study."

White separatism

Main article: White separatism

White separatism is the belief that those who are of white or Caucasian race should have separate institutions or even separate societies, territories, governments, and should not cross-breed with those considered to be of non-white races. White separatists groups often label themselves as racialists rather than racists. White separatism is one among many forms of separatism.

Black separatism

Main article: Black separatism

Black separatism is a separatist political movement that seeks a separate homeland for black people, particularly African-Americans. Parallel to the white separatism, there also exists, particularly in the United States, a similarly politically marginal black separatist movement. Black separatists generally hold that whites are racist oppressors of blacks and that there can be no remedy for black advancement within contemporary white-dominated society. They believe that the only solution for blacks is to break away and to create a separate, segregated black society. The mainstream black separatism is sharply opposed by anti-segregationists and integrationists within the African American community. They generally hold that blacks can and should advance within the larger American society, calling for integration through personal improvement, educational achievement, business involvement, and political action.

Latino separatism

Some of the political groups among Americans of Mexican descent, in 1960s advocated racial separatism for the bronze race or the Chicanos. Some of them wanted to create an independent Chicano state in the south-west of United States, on the territories that were won by the U.S. from Mexico after the Mexican-American War in 1848. Some of these views were reflected in the Plan Espiritual de Aztlan document which inspired Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, MEChA and their Plan de Santa Barbara.

References

Dobratz, Betty A. and Shanks-Meile, Stephanie L, White Power, White Pride!: The White Separatist Movement in the United States, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001, 384 pages, ISBN 0801865379.

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