In the 1890s the US Supreme Court entrenched what was known as the “Separate But Equal” doctrine, bypassing the concept of everybody being equal under the law. This meant that segregation and discrimination along racial lines was legal so long as services were available to each race. For instance, so long as there was a restaurant in a town catering to black people then it was perfectly acceptable for every other restaurant to put “No Coloreds” [sic] signs in the window.
Why they handed down this ruling is a bit of a mystery. Possibly they felt that as the civil war was still fresh in the memory, it was better not to be ‘provocative’ – not risk numerous southern states simply ignoring them were they to outlaw racial discrimination laws. They also ‘kicked for touch’ by grasping at the 1st amendment and its right to free assembly provisions as a justification (ie: if you have the right to free assembly then you had the right not to associate with people you didn’t like).
It was not just the south who engaged in this sort of thing; predictably – (as Tucker Carlson and Ron Desantis have been showing in recent days) – the liberals all rushed to discriminate against black people too. New York was a very segregated city and everyone from Bernie Sanders to Chuck Schumer to Robert De Niro all grew up in a city where blacks were expected to live in Harlem and ‘behave’ – and God help any black people who foolishly moved into ‘liberal’ neighbourhoods.
Although a bit of a grey area, it is true to say that there were plenty of shops, hotels, public facilities, schools, transportation and other things catering for black people, even though there was widespread discrimination being undertaken. Ironically a lot of businessmen made their fortunes by effectively having a monopoly on black customers.
Compare this situation – where those being discriminated against still had access to services and facilities – with the situation in New Zealand in 2021/22 whereby those refusing to take the coronavirus vaccination were not only discriminated against by Ardern’s Government, in the face of several centuries of constitutional principles, but were treated worse than black people in Mississippi at the height of the Jim Crow era!
Nurses, schoolmasters, policemen and many other government employees were fired, businesses (illegally in a ‘constitutional’ sense) and government institutions refused service to a large number of New Zealanders. It was truly shocking. Even more shocking was the lack of integrity and ‘honour’ from those whose job it is to protect the ‘innocent’ or ‘minority’: judges, politicians, the police and others.
The view of the Marxists was ‘who are you going to complain to?’ – with an implied threat that anyone (a judge, for instance) who didn’t just ignore 1000 years of history could expect an immediate special bill passed through Parliament firing them.
Wickedness doesn’t even begin to describe the last year or so in New Zealand, and the conduct of those in government.
When it’s been shown the vaccine doesn’t actually work, when it’s been shown it has caused at least one death, when the entire policy came crashing down last week in disgrace and ignominy, the attitude has been the usual Kiwi explanation for everything of ‘never mind, eh’. No one will be held accountable, no one will go to prison and if someone (ahem) was to point out the similarities between Ardern and, say, Idi Amin, the response from the (universally racist) left-wingers will be… ‘but Jacinda is white’.