Democracy and Black Voting Rights Essay

Relationality is being able to think with an open mind. Not to look at the world in such a one-dimensional manner but to see it for what it truly is. The example of ghettos they used in the book was excellent; you have to look not just at the ghettos but at the suburbs as well. We must look at all the aspects of the ghetto such as, economic field, political field, educational field, and legal field. What this is trying to say is that much like race this concept cannot be isolated, it must be looked at with all the intertwined aspects that make it up. Leading up to the civil rights movement America was infamously known for its slavery along with its “democratic” practice. Democratic practice and actual Democracy are two different things. “Who gets to feast at the bounty of America democracy, and who goes hungry?” (105). This quote really grasped my attention, it seemed that America only benefited whites while non-whites suffered hardships for many years in this “democratic” society; claiming that, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal,” yet supported slavery and colonialism. This had to be changed and thus the Civil Rights Movement arose to combat the racial terrorism, segregation, and disenfranchisement that people of color suffered. The Civil Rights Movement made great strides for the advancement of colored people but to this day still falls short of the goals it was set out to accomplish. For the Civil Rights Movement to be fulfilled the way it was intended we would have to change the mind sets of those who could not see people of color as human beings. Many actions were made to keep people of colored oppressed, in Mississippi during late 1950s a study showed that $245 dollars were spent on whites educational expense while only $3 dollars were spent on blacks educational expenses. In the southern states they also greeted people of color disrespectfully by calling them by their first name and not by their last name. Having blacks pick up food from the back door of restaurants so that no one would see them. To even giving blacks literacy test that were impossible for them to complete to prevent them from voting, they went as far to give them tests such as “how many feathers on a chicken” or “how many bubbles on a bar of soap” which was a guarantee way of preventing them from voting. White backlash was a response to the Civil Rights Movement, although whites had to take down signs such as, “blacks need not apply” that did not stop them from practicing forms of discrimination. Senator Wallace at the time ran under the Democratic Party and although he did not win the presidency he made a strong showing by cloaking race specific issues with “states’ rights.” This was known as coded language and would subsequently be used by many others. President Nixon used this method to turn loyal Democrats in southern states to Republicans, by claiming that he wanted to expand black voting rights, masking it as a moral issue. Another tactic used by politicians was called discursive co-optation, which means manipulating ideas/language. Politicians used this to their advantage to take the Civil Rights Movement out of context and use it against the movement. Most conservative liberals would claim, “Let us not speak of race no

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