Talking Point 7

Talking Point 7: One More River to Cross” by Charles Lawrence

Premise:
• Segregation
• Brown vs. Board of Education
• Meritocracy
• Going beyond racial discrimination
• Inferiority
• Stigmatization and Subordination of Blacks
• Apartheid of blacks
• Injuries due to segregation
• Self-perpetuating segregation
• Panacea-universal remedy
• Improve situations of blacks in getting jobs
• Parents fighting for kids’ rights
• Jobs controlled by people who ran schools
• Affirmative disestablishment of institutions
• Income disparity
• Segregation as a figment of the imagination
• Stopping the oppression

Author’s Argument:
Lawrence argues that the Brown decision fostered a way of thinking about segregation that has allowed both the judiciary and society at large to deny the reality of race in America, that the recognition of that reality is critical to the framing of any meaningful remedy—judicial or political—and that Brown may ultimately be labeled a success only insofar as we are able to make it stand for what it should have stood for in 1954.

Evidence:
1. Segregation once it is created it is self perpetuating. Gunnar Myrdal best describes it in his book, An American Dilemma, when we wrote, “Only blacks are labeled as inferior, they are denied access to equal societal opportunities. The resulting inadequate education preparation, poverty of cultural backgrounds, and lack of experience constitute real limitations on their ability to contribute to society, and the prophecy of their inferiority is fulfilled.”
2. Something also needs to be done not just in schools but also in society as a whole shown by this quote, “Our school was full of bright and capable children who would one day make fine artists, technicians, teacher, mechanics, lawyers, musicians, and businessmen. But few of them would get the chance. There will be little access to these jobs because increasingly there are fewer jobs than people, and because blacks have no power or control over the institutions that provide access to what few jobs there are.” Segregation will not only hurt minorities in school, but later on in life when they want to find a job.
3. In both the Plessy and Bakke cases the messages were the same, “in both cases blacks are told we have no right to an end to the institution of segregation, and in both cases we are told that this is so because the injury we claim is a figment of our imagination.” Again society at large is denying any harm done to people through the decisions of those court cases, which also fostered new thoughts regarding segregation at the same time.

Questions/Comments/Points to Share:
This article proved to be indicative of much of the latter part of the twentieth century, as well as, into this new century. Blacks were very much segregated from many jobs just due to their skin color and discriminated against because of that. I think that it is safe to say that this article shows who the courts were actually working in the favor of. The article I thought aside from a few vocabulary words was a rather easy read; it was both enlightening and engaging. It relates to Johnson in a sense that segregation is something that needs to be addressed and it can be correlated to Johnson’s argument of racism still needing to be talked about. Overall, I think that Lawrence has a very good argument here, but he does not need to confound readers with his extensive use of legal jargon. How does using all of the court cases make a relevant argument considering just using the Plessy v. Ferguson case would have been substantial evidence?