Essay on "Oppression by the Law"

Quoted Instructions for "Oppression by the Law" Assignment:

Writing Assignment #3: Write about the following question: How and why has law been used to oppress people who are seen as a threat by the ruling class? Make reference to Noam Chomsky’s Drug Policy as Social Control, the Louisiana Separate Car Act, and the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Fergusson along with whatever insights you have gained from your own experiences and observations.

Topic: law as a means of oppression Thesis: Law has often been used, not as a means of insuring that justice is served, but as a means of segregating and oppressing certain groups of people.

All arguments in the essay will be evaluated in part as to the degree that they are thesis-centered, meaning that the instructor will grade papers in part on the basis of how well the arguments support the thesis statement. Other considerations will be coherence, organization, and general proficiency with the language which includes the ability to write grammatically correct sentences Sample Paper:(does not have to be same but it should be relate to topic)

Introduction: Law as oppressor Write about the concept of law as a means of oppressing those who are seen as a threat to the ruling class and how the hegemony of the privileged has throughout history tended to outweigh justice at the expense of the poor and oppressed. Body – Part 1: Drug Policy as Social Control a. The drug war. b. Dangerous populations. c. The law concerning gin and whiskey in nineteenth century England. d. US legislation relating to marijuana and Mexicans. Body Part 2: The Louisiana Separate Car Act & Plessy v. Ferguson Conclusion: Make brief reference to situations not as yet mentioned concerning law as a means of oppressing people. Restate the idea in the introduction that throughout history justice has taken a back seat to the intent of those in privileged positions to maintain and augment their power at the expense of those they have been elected or hired to serve. 50

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1.Drug Policy as Social Control By Noam Chomsky In the typical Third World society, like Columbia, or India, or Mexico, or Egypt - they are all more or less the same – there is a sector of great wealth, enormous wealth, there are large numbers of people who live somewhere between suffering and misery, and then there is a sector who  are  just  superfluous;;  they  are  of  no  use,  that  is,  they  don’t  contribute to profit. So you just have to get rid of them somehow. Every Third World society has the same structure, and that structure is now being imposed on the United States. Inequality is growing, a large part of the population, probably a majority, is declining in earnings, wealthy is enormous and very concentrated, profits are going through the ceiling. They have never had such profits before and a large part of the population is useless. Unskilled labor in urban slums, which happen to be mostly black and Hispanic, the superfluous people. In these circumstances what do you do? Well, you have to do the same thing they do in the Third World. You have to get rid of the superfluous people, and you have to control the ones who are suffering. How do you control them? One of the best ways of controlling them is by increasing fear, and hatred, and making them hate each other and fear the superfluous people. That’s  the  way  it’s  done  everywhere,  and  it’s  happening  in  the  United  States.  That’s  where  the   drug war fits in. In the United States the drug war is basically a technique for controlling dangerous populations  internal  to  the  country  and  doesn’t  have  much  to  do  with  drugs. That’s  always   been true. It goes back to England in the nineteenth century when they made gin illegal and kept whiskey legal. There was a simple class reason for it. Gin was the drink of the of the working class and whiskey was the drink of upper class people. When alcohol prohibition was instituted in the United States, the purpose was to close the saloons in New York City where immigrants and working class people came, but nobody stopped anyone from drinking in rich suburbs. In the case of marijuana, the marijuana legislation introduced right after prohibition ended started in the border states but it was aimed at Mexicans. Nobody even knew what marijuana was, it was just something the Mexican immigrants used and therefore it had to be criminalized so you could control the Mexican immigrant population. The so-called drug was started in the 1980s and it was aimed directly at the black population. None of this has anything to do with drugs. It has to do with controlling and criminalizing  dangerous  populations.  It’s  kind  of  like  a  U.S.  counterpart  to  “social   cleansing.” Poor black males are criminalized the most by the drug war. The number of black men in the criminal justice system is enormous. That criminalizes a dangerous population. What about the  population  which  is  declining  in  earnings  and  jobs?  They’re  frightened.  The more you can increase the fear of drugs and crime and welfare mothers and immigrants and aliens and poverty and all sorts of things, the more you control people. Make them hate each other. Be 41 frightened of each other and think that the other is stealing from them. If you do that you can  control  people.  And  that’s  just  what  the  drug  war  does. If  we  wanted  to  stop  drug  use  in  the  United  States  there’s  an  easy  way  to  do  it:   educational programs. They work very efficiently, and they have made a big difference to the extent they have been used. Among the more privileged sectors, my children, probably yours, the use of drugs has been declining for a long time and so has the use of every other substance. My students  don’t  smoke,  don’t  use  drugs,  consumption  of  coffee  is  going down. In the United States, cigarettes are a class issue now. Students at universities almost never smoke cigarettes. But  if  you  go  to  a  poor  section  of  town,  you’ll  see  a  lot  of  teenage  kids  smoking  cigarettes.  It’s  a   class issue, just like the use of drugs, just like the use of alcohol. This comes through changes in perception and understanding. But  today  educational  programs  are  on  the  decline;;  they’re  being  cut  back. The circumstances  driving  people  to  use  drugs  are  intensifying.  There’s  more  poverty and fewer jobs, lower  wages  and  fewer  support  systems.    That’s  what’s  driving  people  to  drugs  and  that’s  where   the problem lies. But  it’s  not  being  approached  because the drug problem has been converted into a means of social control. It’s  like  when  you  turn on the television today, you hear all sorts of attacks on welfare mothers, even from some liberals. The idea is to get working people on the opposite side of the welfare mothers. The wages of the working people are going down, their lives are getting worse, and their children are not going to have even the opportunities they had. So what do you do? Do you  tell  them,  “We’re  trying  to  harm  you”?  Or  do  you  tell  them,  “Welfare  mothers  are  stealing   from  you”?  Of  course,  you  tell  them  welfare  mothers  are  stealing from you. Thus, if some teenage girl was raped and has a child, she is stealing from you, so you hate  her.  That’s  why  they’ve  made  the  welfare  system  so  harsh  and  cruel,  increasing  cruelty  and   fear.  These  are  the  methods  of  social  control.  They’re  used everywhere. In  a  country  like  the  United  States,  where  you  can’t  really  send  out  the  paramilitary   forces to murder people, as they do more and more in the Third World, you rely more heavily on techniques of social control.  That’s  basically  what  the  drug was is all about Chomsky,  Noam.    “Drug  Policy  as  Social  Control.”  Prison  Nation:    The  Warehousing  of   America’as  Poor.  Eds.  Tara  Herivel  and  Paul  Wright.  New  York:  Routledge,  2003.  57-59. Print 42

2.Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) In Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of a Louisiana law passed in 1890 "providing for separate railway carriages for the white and colored races." The law, which required that all passenger railways provide separate cars for blacks and whites, stipulated that the cars be equal in facilities, banned whites from sitting in black cars and blacks in white cars (with exception to "nurses attending children of the other race"), and penalized passengers or railway employees for violating its terms. Homer Plessy, the plaintiff in the case, was seven-eighths white and one-eighth black, and had the appearance of a white man. On June 7, 1892, he purchased a first-class ticket for a trip between New Orleans and Covington, La., and took possession of a vacant seat in a white-only car. Duly arrested and imprisoned, Plessy was brought to trial in a New Orleans court and convicted of violating the 1890 law. He then filed a petition against the judge in that trial, Hon. John H. Ferguson, at the Louisiana Supreme Court, arguing that the segregation law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which forbids states from denying "to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," as well as the Thirteenth Amendment, which banned slavery. The Court ruled that, while the object of the Fourteenth Amendment was to create "absolute equality of the two races before the law," such equality extended only so far as political and civil rights (e.g., voting and serving on juries), not "social rights" (e.g., sitting in a railway car one chooses). As Justice Henry Brown's opinion put it, "if one race be inferior to the other socially, the constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane." Furthermore, the Court held that the Thirteenth Amendment applied only to the imposition of slavery itself. The Court expressly rejected Plessy's arguments that the law stigmatized blacks "with a badge of inferiority," pointing out that both blacks and whites were given equal facilities under the law and were equally punished for violating the law. "We consider the underlying fallacy of [Plessy's] argument" contended the Court, "to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it." Justice John Marshall Harlan entered a powerful -- and lone -- dissent, noting that "in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens." Until the mid-twentieth century, Plessy v. Ferguson gave a "constitutional nod" to racial segregation in public places, foreclosing legal challenges against increasingly-segregated institutions throughout the South. The railcars in Plessy notwithstanding, the black facilities in these institutions were decidedly inferior to white ones, creating a kind of racial caste society. However, in the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the "separate but equal" doctrine was abruptly overturned when a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that segregating children by race in public schools was "inherently unequal" and violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Brown provided a major catalyst for the civil rights movement (1955-68), which won social, not just political and civil, racial equality before the law. After four decades, Justice Harlan's dissent became the law of the land. Following Brown, the Supreme Court has consistently ruled racial segregation in public settings to be unconstitutional. AUTHOR'S BIO Alex McBride is a third year law student at Tulane Law School in New Orleans. He is articles editor on the TULANE LAW REVIEW and the 2005 recipient of the Ray Forrester Award in Constitutional Law. In 2007, Alex will be clerking with Judge Susan Braden on the United States Court of Federal Claims in Washington. 43 ??????? Summary of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S. Ct. 1138, 41 L. Ed. 256 (1896). Facts Plessy (P) attempted to sit in an all-white railroad car. After refusing to sit in the black railway carriage car, Plessy was arrested for violating an 1890 Louisiana statute that provided for segregated  “separate  but  equal”  railroad  accommodations.  Those  using  facilities  not  designated   for their race were criminally liable under the statute. At trial with Justice John H. Ferguson (D) presiding, Plessy was found guilty on the grounds that the  law  was  a  reasonable  exercise  of  the  state’s  police  powers  based  upon  custom,  usage,  and   tradition in the state. Plessy filed a petition for writs of prohibition and certiorari in the Supreme Court of Louisiana against Ferguson, asserting that segregation stigmatized blacks and stamped them with a badge of inferiority in violation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments. The court found for Ferguson and the Supreme Court granted cert. Issue ? Can the states constitutionally enact legislation requiring persons of different races to use “separate  but  equal”  segregated  facilities? Holding and Rule (Brown) ? Yes. The states can constitutionally enact legislation requiring persons of different races to use “separate  but  equal”  segregated  facilities. This case was later overruled by Brown v. Board of Education. Justice Warren wrote the opinion for a unanimous court, holding that separate facilities which segregate based on race are inherently unequal. 44 ? Case Basics Docket No. 210 Petitioner Plessy Respondent Ferguson Decided By Fuller Court (1896-1897) Opinion 163 U.S. 537 (1896) Argued Monday, April 13, 1896 Decided Monday, May 18, 1896 Term: 1851-1900, 1895 Location: Former Louisiana State Capitol Building Facts of the Case The state of Louisiana enacted a law that required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Adolph Plessy--who was seven-eighths Caucasian--took a seat in a "whites only" car of a Louisiana train. He refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested. Question Is Louisiana's law mandating racial segregation on its trains an unconstitutional infringement on both the privileges and immunities and the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment? Conclusion Decision: 7 votes for Ferguson, 1 vote(s) against Legal provision: US Const. Amend 14, Section 1 No, the state law is within constitutional boundaries. The majority, in an opinion authored by Justice Henry Billings Brown, upheld state-imposed racial segregation. The justices based their decision on the separate-but-equal doctrine, that separate facilities for blacks and whites satisfied the Fourteenth Amendment so long as they were equal. (The phrase, "separate but equal" was not part of the opinion.) Justice Brown conceded that the 14th amendment intended to establish absolute equality for the races before the law. But Brown noted that "in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races unsatisfactory to either." In short, segregation does not in itself constitute unlawful discrimination. PLESSY v. FERGUSON. The Oyez Project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. 25 May 2014. . Columbia School of General Studies in NYC gs.columbia.edu 45 ????????? 3.The Center for Grassroots Oversight http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=louisiana_separate_car_act_of_1890_1 Profile: Louisiana Separate Car Act of 1890 Louisiana Separate Car Act of 1890 was a participant or observer in the following events: 1896:  ’Plessy  v.  Ferguson’   Case  Establishes  ‘Separate  but  Equal’  Doctrine  in  US  Law Justice Henry Brown. [Source: Wikimedia]The US Supreme Court rules 7-1 in Plessy v. Ferguson that  a  Louisiana  law  requiring  “equal  but  separate  accommodations for the white  and  colored  races”  is  constitutional. Homer Plessy, a light-skinned  black  man  who  sometimes  “passed”  as  white,  took  part  in  a   plan by a small number of black professionals seeking to have a court overturn the Louisiana Separate Car Act of 1890. Plessy boarded a whites-only railroad car and was arrested, as per arrangement,  by  a  private  detective.  The  group  intended  to  use  Plessy’s  light  skin  tone  to   demonstrate how arbitrary  and  unconstitutional  the  law  was.  Plessy’s  lawyers  argued  that   Louisiana’s  segregation  law  violated  both  the  Thirteenth Amendment, which bars slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees all Americans equal protection under the law (see July 9, 1868). Louisiana courts consistently found against Plessy, and the case moved all the way to the Supreme Court. Writing  for  the  Court’s  majority,  Justice  Henry  Brown  rules   that  the  law  does  not  “discriminate”  among  legal  rights  by  race,  but  merely  recognizes  a   “distinction”  between  races  “which  must  always  exist  so  long  as  white  men  are  distinguished   from  the  other  race  by  color.”  He  adds:  “Legislation  is  powerless  to  eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based on physical differences, and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the differences of the present situation. If the civil and political rights of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other  socially,  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  cannot  put  them  on  the  same  plane.”  The ruling  establishes  the  “separate  but  equal”  doctrine  that  informs  many  states’  decision  to   segregate public facilities—schools, railcars, even drinking fountains. Justice John Marshall Harlan, a former slave owner and a pro-slavery politician, writes a fiery  dissent  that  refutes  Brown’s  assertion  that  the  Louisiana  law  discriminates  equally  among whites  and  blacks.  Harlan  writes,  “Everyone  knows  that  the  statute  in  question  had  its  origin  in   the purpose, not so much to exclude white persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks, as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned  to  white  persons.”  He  disagrees   with  the  majority  opinion’s  finding  that  segregation  on  railcars  does  not  violate  African- Americans’  constitutional  rights  under  the  Fourteenth  Amendment.  But  Harlan  does  not   advocate social equality among the races. Instead, he argues that legally imposed segregation denies  political  equality.  Harlan  writes:  “The  white  race  deems  itself  to  be  the  dominant  race  in   this country. And so it is, in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth, and in power. So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for all time, if it remains true to its great heritage, and holds fast to the principles of constitutional liberty. But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.  In  respect  of  civil  rights,  all  citizens  are  equal  before  the  law.” Harlan’s  dissent   becomes the underpinning of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision (see May 17, 1954). (Konkoly 12/2006; PBS 12/2006) 46 ??????? 4.Plessy v. Ferguson 1896 On June 7, 1892, 30-year-old Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in the "White" car of the East Louisiana Railroad. Plessy could easily pass for white but under Louisiana law, he was considered black despite his light complexion and therefore required to sit in the "Colored" car. He was a Creole of Color, a term used to refer to black persons in New Orleans who traced some of their ancestors to the French, Spanish, and Caribbean settlers of Louisiana before it became part of the United States. When Louisiana passed the Separate Car Act, legally segregating common carriers in 1892, a black civil rights organization decided to challenge the law in the courts.* Plessy deliberately sat in the white section and identified himself as black. He was arrested and the case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Plessy's lawyer argued that the Separate Car Act violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. In 1896, the Supreme Court of the United States heard the case and held the Louisiana segregation statute constitutional. Speaking for a seven-man majority, Justice Henry Brown wrote: "A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and colored races -- has no tendency to destroy the legal equality of the two races. ... The object of the Fourteenth Amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either." Justice John Harlan, the lone dissenter, saw the horrific consequences of the decision. "Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. ... The present decision, it may well be apprehended, will not only stimulate aggressions, more or less brutal and irritating, upon the admitted rights of colored citizens, but will encourage the belief that it is possible, by means of state enactments, to defeat the beneficent purposes which the people of the United States had in view when they adopted the recent amendments of the Constitution." The Plessy decision set the precedent that "separate" facilities for blacks and whites were constitutional as long as they were "equal." The "separate but equal" doctrine was quickly extended to cover many areas of public life, such as restaurants, theaters, restrooms, and public schools. The doctrine was a fiction, as facilities for blacks were always inferior to those for whites. Not until 1954, in the equally important Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, would the "separate but equal" doctrine be struck down. Richard Wormser - PLESSY v. FERGUSON www.pbs.org/wnet/.../stories_events *According to other sources the date the Separate Car Act was passed was in 1890. U.S. National Archives & Records Administration 700  Pennsylvania  Avenue  NW,  Washington,  DC  20408  •  1-86-NARA-NARA  •  1-866-272-6272 47 ? Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) In Plessy v. Ferguson the Supreme Court held that the state of Louisiana did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment by establishing and enforcing a policy of racial segregation in its railway system. Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote a memorable dissent to that decision, parts of which are quoted today by both sides of the affirmative action controversy. One statement often quoted by opponents of race-conscious affirmative action programs is Harlan's assertion that the Constitution is "color-blind," which can be found in the excerpts below. Judge Harlan's dissent In respect of civil rights, common to all citizens, the Constitution of the United States does not, I think permit any public authority to know the race of those entitled to be protected in the enjoyment of such rights. Every true man has pride of race, and under appropriate circumstances which the rights of others, his equals before the law, are not to be affected, it is his privilege to express such pride and to take such action based upon it as to him seems proper. But I deny that any legislative body or judicial tribunal may have regard to the race of citizens which the civil rights of those citizens are involved. Indeed, such legislation as that here in question is inconsistent not only with that equality of rights which pertains to citizenship, national and state but with the personal liberty enjoyed by everyone within the United States.... It was said in argument that the statute of Louisiana does not discriminate against either race but prescribes a rule applicable alike to white and colored citizens. But this argument does not meet the difficulty. Everyone knows that the statues in question had its origin in the purpose, not so much to exclude white persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks, as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons. Railroad corporations of Louisiana did not make discrimination among whites in the matter of accommodation for travellers. The thing to accomplish was, under the guise of giving equal accommodations for whites and blacks, to compel the latter to keep to themselves while travelling in railroad passenger coaches. No one would be so wanting in candor as to assert the contrary. The fundamental objection, therefore, to the statues is that it interferes with the personal freedom of citizens....If a white man and a black man choose to occupy the same public conveyance on a public highway, it is their right to do so, and no government, proceeding alone on grounds of race, can prevent it without infringing the personal liberty of each.... The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country. And so it is, in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth, and in power. So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for all time, if it remains true to its great heritage and holds fast to the principles of constitutional liberty. But in the view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our Constitution in color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.... 48 ? The arbitrary separation of citizens, on the basis of race, while they are on a public highway, is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution. It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds If evils will result from the commingling of the two races upon public highways established for the benefit of all, they will infinitely less than those that will surely come from state legislation regulating the enjoyment of civil rights upon the basis of race. We boast of the freedom enjoyed by our people above all other peoples. But it is difficult to reconcile that boast with the state of the law which, practically, puts the brand of servitude and degradation upon a large class of our fellow citizens, our equals before the law. The thin disguise of "equal" accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead anyone, nor atone for the wrong this day done.... I do not deems it necessary to review the decisions of state courts to which reference was made in argument. Some, and the most important to them are wholly inapplicable, because rendered prior to the adoption of the last amendments of the Constitution, when colored people had very few rights which the dominant race felt obliged to respect. Others were made at a time when public opinion, in many localities was dominated by the institution of slavery, when it would not have been safe to do justice to the black man; and when, so far as the rights of blacks were concerned, race guides in the era introduced by the recent amendments of the supreme law, which established universal freedom, gave citizenship to all born or naturalized in the United States and residing here, obliterated the race line from our systems of governments, national and state, and placed our free institutions upon the broad and sure foundation of the equality of all men before the law.... For the reasons state, I am constrained to withhold my assent from the opinion and judgment of the majority. Source: McKenna, George, ed. A Guide to the Constitution That Delicate Balance (New York, 1984), pp. 384-386. 49 ?????????? Topics for Research Relating to the Topic 1. Alien Sedition Acts 2. Jim Crow and Black Laws 3. Patriot Act 4. Racial Profiling 5. Slave Codes 6. Supreme Court Cases: Dredd Scott v. Sanford, Plessy v. Fergusson. Sources 1.?America's Poor. Eds.Tara Herivel and Paul Wright. ?New York: Routledge, 2003. 57-59. Prin 2. Chomsky, Noam. The People in Gravest Danger. New Humanist, March 1, 2003. Print.