Читать книгу Race Distinctions in American Law - Gilbert Thomas Stephenson - Страница 7

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It is important, at the outset, to distinguish clearly between race distinctions and race discriminations; more so, because these words are often used synonymously, especially when the Negro is discussed. A distinction between the Caucasian and the Negro, when recognized and enforced by the law, has been interpreted as a discrimination against the latter. Negroes have recognized that they are the weaker of the two races numerically, except in the Black Belt of the South, and intellectually the less developed. Knowing that the various race distinctions have emanated almost entirely from white constitution-makers, legislators, and judges, they regard these distinctions as expressions of the aversion on the part of the Caucasian to association with the Negro. Naturally, therefore, they have resented race distinctions upon the belief and, in many instances, upon the experience that they are equivalent to race discriminations.

In fact, there is an essential difference between race distinctions and race discriminations. North Carolina, for example, has a law that white and Negro children shall not attend the same schools, but that separate schools shall be maintained. If the terms for all the public schools in the State are equal in length, if the teaching force is equal in numbers and ability, if the school buildings are equal in convenience, accommodations, and appointments, a race distinction exists but not a discrimination. Identity of accommodation is not essential to avoid the charge of discrimination. If there are in a particular school district twice as many white children as there are Negro children, the school building for the former should be twice as large as that for the latter. The course of study need not be the same. If scientific investigation and experience show that in the education of the Negro child emphasis should be placed on one course of study, and in the education of the white child, on another; it is not a discrimination to emphasize industrial training in the Negro school, if that is better suited to the needs of the Negro pupil, and classics in the white school if the latter course is more profitable to the white child. There is no discrimination so long as there is equality of opportunity, and this equality may often be attained only by a difference in methods.

On the other hand, if the term of the Negro school is four months, and that of the white, eight; if the teachers in the Negro schools are underpaid and inadequately or wrongly trained, and the teachers of the white schools are well paid and well trained; if Negro children are housed in dilapidated, uncomfortable, and unsanitary buildings, and white children have new, comfortable, and sanitary buildings; if courses of study for Negro children are selected in a haphazard fashion without any regard to their peculiar needs, and a curriculum is carefully adapted to the needs of white children; if such conditions exist under the law, race distinctions exist which are at the same time discriminations against Negroes. Where the tables are turned and Negro children are accorded better educational advantages than white, the discriminations are against Caucasians.

A law of Virginia requires white and Negro passengers to occupy separate coaches on railroad trains. If the coaches for both races are equally clean, equally comfortable, and equally well appointed; if both races are accorded equally courteous service by the employees of the railroad; if, in short, all the facilities for travel are equal for both races, race distinctions exist but not race discriminations. The extent of accommodations need not be identical. The railroad company, for instance, need furnish only the space requisite for the accommodation of each race. If, however, the white passengers are admitted to clean, well-lighted, well-ventilated coaches and Negroes, to foul, unclean, uncomfortable coaches; if white coaches are well-policed, while Negro passengers are subjected to the insults of disorderly persons; if, in other words, the Negro passenger does not receive as good service for his fare as the white, a discrimination against the Negro is made under the guise of a legal distinction.

In like manner, one might consider each of the race distinctions recognized in the law and show how it may be applied so as not to work a discrimination against either race and, as easily, how it may be used to work an injustice to the weaker race. A race distinction connotes a difference and nothing more. A discrimination necessarily implies partiality and favoritism.