Plessy V. Ferguson's Theory Of Civil Rights

“Beginning in the late 1870s, Southern state lawmakers passed laws that required Whites and Blacks to attend separate schools and to sit in different areas on public transportation.” (“Jim Crow Laws” 1). People thought these laws were needed because “The Jim Crow system was undergirded by the following beliefs or rationalizations: whites were superior to blacks in all important ways, including but not limited to intelligence, morality, and civilized behavior; sexual relations between blacks and whites would produce a mongrel race which would destroy America;” (“

Plessy V. Ferguson Case of Plessy v. Ferguson is the case talking about the discrimination that happen between the black race and white race. It starts from Plessy a person who have mix race (not naturally white and not naturally black). Plessy think that in US they abolish the segregation happen in their country but unfortunately people in US still discriminate people base on the race that they have. To check the US especially Lousiana law, he try to buy railway first class ticket which is this ticket is only use for white people only. Since Pressy is mix race so Lousiana citizen think that he is one of black race not white race then he suppose to sit base on the black railway coach not in the first class railway coach.

We can talk of prominent sociologists Max Weber and Franz Boas, who attributed on the refutation of the biological concept of race, dedicated to remove the ambiguous racial aspect from fundamental social, political, or economic determination. Years ago, white viewed “any racial intermixture makes one ‘non-white’” because they put white in a category of “pure,” which meant “white as “havin’ a little Negra blood in ya’-just one little teeny drop and a person’s all Negra.” Here came with a principle of social concept: hypo-descent. Thus, “black” turned out to be a word with different meanings in society, and faced the racial difficulties with stereotypes. "Micro-level" of racism mention in the writing, in which was drawn with social concepts by Omi and Winant. The concept is more likely separates two people by a noticeable factor- race.

This use of power by white people over black individuals has caused numerous black individuals to view themselves as trapped in their own skin, which is a concept Fanon defines as “blackness”. In Frantz Fanon’s article, The Fact of Blackness, he speaks about how black people do not feel the weight of their “blackness” until they are under the scrutiny of white counterparts and viewed as objects. Fanon states, “A feeling of inferiority? No, a feeling of nonexistence. Sin is Negro as virtue is white.

The whites feared mixing of the race which is the Mongrel Race; because they were afraid the white race would be diluted. So, they did everything keep blacks at the bottom. The Southern states reacted by creating and enforcing Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow was a system created as a segregation of colored people and white people, but mainly focusing on blacks. These laws existed because of the idea of being superior (Ferris State University, 2012).

“ I swear to the Lord, I still can’t see Why Democracy means Everyone but me “(Hughes’’. Langston Hughes eloquently uses contradictions to express racial inequality in The United States of America. Democracy, a word that suggests inclusiveness, but not practiced during Langston Hughes’s time. This inequality is what drove Hughes mastery of words. Langston Hughes was one of the millions of Black American who faced systemic injustice simply because of their skin color.

1930s America was filled with racism and segregation. Whites believed that they were superior to every other race; especially african americans. The novel Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison focuses on racism and segregation in 1930s America. Ralph Ellison uses symbolism to portray the way that white Americans viewed black people. White America looked to black people as a form of entertainment.

One of the most derogatory laws in the 19th century American history can be considered the Jim Craw laws regarding Afro-Americans. Due to this law, also called segregation law, between 1877 and 1950s, more precisely between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the civil rights movement in the South, Afro-Americans – or, as they were regarded as “persons of color” – were separated from white communities. Racial discrimination was the basis of any of the Jim Craw laws. Taking into account these laws, one should mention that they spread the attention to the interaction between white and black people, including playing in company with each other; marriages between white and black people were considered void; separate schools were established for African descendants, black children were not allowed to attend any white school; on the means of transportation separate accommodations were set up, namely on the buses colored people have to sit in the back and if there were no places for white people they have to give up there seats in favor of whites. Segregation was everywhere.

Segregation has plagued the U.S. since before the Civil War. Racism between blacks and whites has ended in horrible incidents to blacks done by whites. Racial segregation is primarily done in the south. The government seems to do nothing to stop it. The racial segregation has has to stop, the Declaration of Independence says, “all men are created equal” but in the south that does not apply.

Literally it was a barrier where African Americans felt they could never truly be comfortable and express themselves. Additionally, white Americans also had a veil where they found difficulty in seeing blacks as whole Americans. They believed themselves to be superior in all facets of society such as predominance in belief systems and history. They viewed other races as inferior and dehumanised them. (Bois, 2005 [1920]) Whites had a sense of privilege because of the injustices they created such as colonialism and the exploitation of other races for their own power (Bois, 2005

At the same time it devalued black women as promiscuous and undesirable. The CRT scholars believed these stereotypes permitted privileged white men to accept a limited behavior from their female counterpart, which both elevated and trapped them at the same time. CRT scholars stated how racism has pitted white and black women against each other in society. They argue these stereotypes still persist today, long after the end of slavery. Black womanhood is continually being devalued, while the white womanhood is elevated, but restricted.

He states this because he did not believe that Topeka’s white schools and black schools were equal. The Court declined his argument. The Court determined that the segregated schools were considerably equal enough under the Plessy doctrine. It wasn 't until the mid twentieth century when Brown v Board of Education came into play that Plessy’s argument was given the okay by the constitution. The Court tried to use Plessy v. Ferguson to deny the argument that Oliver Brown was giving during the Brown v. Board of Education case.

Little did they know, segregation and race relations has spread throughout the country and some people still didn’t treat them as equals. For example, Plessy V. Ferguson essentially cemented African Americans as the subordinate race by declaring separate is equal (Race

“Double consciousness has forced some blacks to see themselves through the eyes of the dominant white society. Du Bois theory of double consciousness is always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others.”(Lyubansky and