Talk:Jim Crow laws

Edit request on 11 March 2013

The paragraph at section 7.2 (Legacy/ Political) seems distorted as if it intended to focus as much blame on Democrats as possible. That claim doesn't hold up well in the light of facts, however. I suggest adding the following text either as an additional paragraph under 7.2 or as a continuation of that section's paragraph (i.e. following immediately after ". . . all but two of them Southern Democrats."). I analyzed this data taken directly from the Wikipedia article on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

SUGGESTED TEXT:

66.213.18.2 (talk) 23:28, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

You're right; that paragraph is biased something grotesque.  Done--Launchballer 17:40, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

The original "problem" was the division of Democratic Party in 1860 into several main factions, leading to the election of Lincoln. One of the divisions was what became the "Southern Democrats," a very conservative group. This eventually morphed with time in the latter 20th century to liberal Democrats or conservative Republicans, but the change was hardly instantaneous. Roosevelt brilliantly melded the conservative South with the liberal north for a coalition which elected him 4 times in a row and then Harry Truman, who followed. It is part of history, like the rest. I don't know about the "fault" of the Democrats. It's just what happened. The Republicans won in the North in 1860 because they "seemed" to favor abolition, but they probably weren't all that outspoken, as a group, against slavery, until later. That, too, is "history."

It's just the way the various factions fell out. That's the way politics is and politicians are. They are great wo/men of principle when they talk to you, running for office. But these principles tend to fall apart when beset with DC/national political reality. Student7 (talk) 20:45, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Political paragraph is still very misleading

(Art iii (talk) 22:28, 6 June 2013 (UTC)) The Political paragraph is incredibly misleading because it states a partisan divide without enough emphasis on a regional one. Both parties voted in favor of it. Based on the numbers in the first paragraph, 152 Democrats voted yes and 96 voted no (61% support) and 138 Republicans voted yes and 34 voted no (85% support.) Within the two parties there was more support from the Republicans than the Democrats. Both parties supported the bill overall.

In the South 7 members voted yes and 97 members voted no for 7% and in the North 283 voted yes and 33 voted no for 89%. The difference in support between North and South is vastly different than the numbers between Republicans and Democrats. Maybe you should make a table showing this.

- Not only that, the political paragraph is convoluted to the point of incomprehensible as written and is just attempting to whitewash the Democratic legislative opposition by splitting the opposition between southern and northern Democrats because southern Democrats were so much larger, it turns a single vote into a "greater percentage."

So the paragraph is not objective, and it is extremely difficult to follow without a proper table. It is essentially a reverse gerrymandering argument. And most fatally, it is un-sourced. It represents original research of the congressional record, against Wikipedia guidelines.

A proper discussion here would probably just reference the civil rights bill article for the background on the vote. As it stands this paragraph is just attempting to shield the Democrats from the negative implications of the article. A nice link to a real secondary discussion which discusses why the Democrats are not branded as the racist party anymore despite their long support for Jim Crow laws is probably where this paragraph is going. Until then, I recommend simply removing it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.187.242.98 (talk) 15:58, 2 August 2013 (UTC) Please show the total vote and %. House of Representatives: Democrats for: 152 Democrats against: 96 Republicans for: 138 Republicans against: 34

Senate: Democrats for: 46 Democrats against: 21 Republicans for: 27 Republicans against: 6

What you have is purposely misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.244.72.30 (talk) 05:39, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Louisiana Population Numbers

I have a small suggestion about this part of the article:

In Louisiana, by 1900, black voters were reduced to 5,320 on the rolls, although they comprised the majority of the state's population. By 1910, only 730 blacks were registered, less than 0.5 percent of eligible black men. "In 27 of the state's 60 parishes, not a single black voter was registered any longer; in 9 more parishes, only one black voter was."

When I read the first sentence, I had little idea how to interpret it, because it compared a relative measurement (majority) with an absolute measurement (5,320). The article implies that the number is low, but it is impossible to know how low: technically, with a population of 10,641 or larger, that sentence could be true. I feel it would be useful to give the population of Louisiana at the time (according to Wolfram|Alpha, 1.382 million^[source]), to show the extreme disparity of 5,300 registered black voters out of over 691,000 black people living in the state. Similarly, I think it would help to have the same data for 1910 (1.656 million) to show that, assuming the state was still majority-black, at least 827,000 potential black voters were disenfranchised. —Cayen Aleva (talk) 14:14, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree in principle that numeric comparisons would be more meaningful than the current phrasing. But we need to be careful about assumptions based on synthesis and original research. The 1,656,000 population in 1910 would be the total population of the state. Presumably about 828,000 of those would have been women, not allowed to vote regardless of race (except possibly in tax and budgetary votes). Another large but unknown number would have been under 21 years of age, also not eligible. That brings the eligible black population for 1910 a lot closer to (but stilt probably greater than) the 146,000 indicated in the current statement. If you can find a reliable source that gives the actual number of eligible blacks, than yes, it should be included, but otherwise we can't Fat&Happy (talk) 16:49, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

The ninth citation in the article itself has the number of registered black voters in Louisiana in 1896 at 130,334, which is a good demonstration of how the number of actual black voters plunged during this time. So perhaps instead of using eligible black voters vs. registered black voters, a better (or easier) comparison could be registered black voters pre- vs. post-disenfranchisement.

Also, now that I'm reading that paper, it seems somewhat inappropriate in an article about Jim Crow to point out that "tens of thousands of poor whites" were unable to vote in Alabama without mentioning that in the same period registered black voters went from 181,471 to 3,000. At the very least, I feel the two numbers should be presented side-by-side. —Cayen Aleva (talk) 19:30, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Article locked, but where is the quality control?

It is often the case that people kill other over something that someone included/ removed, with fights going on for months and years, while nobody actually bothers to improve the articles. I read the first line and picked up two gross errors: "The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with, starting in 1890, a separate but equal status for African Americans." The first sentence implies that all laws were Jim Crow laws. Secondly, it says these were enacted "between 1876 and 1965" ... "starting in 1890" - if these started in 1890, they can't be between 1876 and 1965. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 16:27, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Laws

If we are going to call this "Jim Crow Laws", we really need to confine this to actual law which may include real estate covenants in the North. But de facto segregation is not a law, nor are "loan policy", nor are "union practices" nor is "hiring practices."

It might be better to change the title to "Jim Crow" or "Jim Crow practices." The article looks okay, but some of the material, right now, is non--WP:TOPIC. Having said that, most people thought of the South when they thought of "Jim Crow" even if some northern practices were "suspect." Student7 (talk) 19:29, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Maybe there should be two articles, one higher level on "segregation practices in the US" including de facto, and a lower level one confining itself to actual law, not de facto stuff. Student7 (talk) 19:31, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Edit request 22 February 2014

I suggested an edit to the legacy section which another user has reversed. There is currently massive press attention to a new law legalising discrimination against LGBT people in Arizona and similar proposed legislation in other states all referring to these laws as Jim Crow laws. The user who reversed the edit stated that they felt it was off topic. I agree that there is a clear difference as the new laws legalise homophobic discrimination, rather than racist discrimination. However, people reading the press coverage of the current situation and seeing it referred to as Jim Crow laws could look this up on wikipedia if they do not know what they are. Modern parlance now refers to homophobic legislation as Jim Crow laws and this is directly because of the legacy of the original Jim Crow laws. I think the term has been carried across from one equalities category to another because the civil rights movement prizes equality for all, (for example, Martin Luther King was pro-equality for all discriminated against groups including LGBTs).

So I do think it is fair to say that the reason the press are now widely referring to anti-LGBT laws as Jim Crow laws is as a direct result of the legacy of the original Jim Crow laws. Indeed, if that were not true why would the same name be used? I think a reference to this is needed in the legacy section. Please can others comment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.31.30.231 (talk) 14:44, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

This is about this edit and I'm the editor who removed the material. It's my feeling that this article is about the actual laws "enacted between 1876 and 1965 in the United States at the state and local level," as our current lead has it. "Jim Crow" is a powerful metaphor, which has an immense amount of social power in the US, and it only makes sense that it will be used by people to describe laws, which are factually not Jim Crow laws in the sense that this article covers, which they oppose in order to demonize them. Are we to have a paragraph in here on every law that someone tries to insult or criticize by comparing it to Jim Crow laws? How in the world is that going to add to the reader's understanding of what the actual Jim Crow laws were? Calling a law a "Jim Crow law" in the US is rhetorically equivalent to comparing a politician to Hitler. They don't list instances of that in the article on Hitler, nor should they. That's my position anyway.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:38, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree with omitting it. If someone hears this term in the recent-use sense, he could surely read this article to learn what the term means. Alf is correct: it's not actually a Jim Crow law, just either a metaphor or epithet. So readers would quickly see that and be 1) educated about the term, but more importantly, either 2a) see through the strong emotional language and instead focus on more direct understanding of the actual situation rather than a different population, time, and historical background, or 2b) see how/why the comparison to a different population/time/etc may be appropriate. Choice among 2a vs 2b probably depends on your political stance, but either way those seem important results of keeping the article on its actual topic. Wikipedia articles are instructed to be focused by topic, even if there are several topics that have the same name (WP:DAB rather than a monolithic multientry page). It would certainly be appropriate to discuss this new use of the term in the articles about the LGBT laws (and link from there to here) but I don't think vice versa. DMacks (talk) 18:45, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

The section in question is about the legacy of Jim Crow laws, so it might be appropriate to include the information that other discriminatory laws have been referred to as Jim Crow laws, as that spread to other equalities groups is a genuine and significant part of the legacy of Jim Crow laws. But in this case (i.e. the SB1062 bill in Arizona) this does not only apply to LGBT people - it is a genuine Jim Crow law and it applies to ethnic groups as well. It allows anyone to refuse goods and services to anyone else if they believe this conflicts with their religious beliefs. Homophobia may have been the initial motivation for the bill, but it does also legalise racist discrimination and there are indeed people who would use it as a reason to legally discriminate against black and ethnic minority people. There are indeed still religious organisations that promote racist views and this is indeed a genuine Jim Crow law. Religion is a red herring here and a weak excuse to legalise discrimination. All that is required for it to become law now is for the governor of Arizona to sign it. Whether is is appropriate or not to include a mention of the legacy of Jim Crow laws in the way the term is now used to refer to legal discrimination against other equalities groups, I think it would still be right to refer to SB1062, which is a genuine new Jim Crow law and will be open to use for legal racist discrimination is signed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.254.158.172 (talk) 11:03, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

"The Jim Crow laws were racial segregation laws enacted between 1876 and 1965 in the United States at the state and local level. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with, starting in 1890, a "separate but equal" status for African Americans."

Does SB1062 mandate that gays use different bathrooms, go to different schools, ride in different areas of public transportation than straights? Hardly. Ignorant and inflammatory use of a term by opponents of the proposed law may be appropriate to discussing that opposition. It has no business being used to promote a false equivalence that serves to minimize the actual state-enforced oppression of that era. There really needs to be some sort of Godwin's law corollary for this sort of foolishness. Fat&Happy (talk) 17:11, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

SB1062 doesn't mention gay people at all - it applies to black people and gay people equally. Its creators are supposedly motivated by homophobia but if it is signed it will enable any racial segregationist or anti-miscegenationist to refuse goods and services to ethnic minorities. Did Jim Crow laws only apply to government-run institutions? If they applied to private businesses then this is a Jim Crow law. The law would be used to legalise any form of faith-motivated discrimination so I would think it would probably in reality be used more against Muslims and other religions than against LGBTs and only some of the smaller, more extreme religious groups would use it against BME people, for example refusing service for mixed race marriages etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.31.30.231 (talk) 00:30, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

We understand what you mean about readily identifying people for discrimination. This cannot usually been accomplished with LGBT. But we are documenting a series of laws which applied mostly in the Southern United States during a particular period of history. We cannot unilaterally open this up to another period and another state. It is off WP:TOPIC.

Southern laws were generally aimed at "collecting" African American money or labor, but inconveniencing them in the process. The most widely known example was Rosa Parks not moving to the back of the bus, per law, despite having paid the same fare as whites. Arizona laws are about not doing business at all! Quite different from Jim Crow.

We should not use the tone of journalism, whose main goal is to "sell time" to advertisers. We are an encyclopedia. We do rely on journalism for reporting the events, but we must use WP:RS for analysis. The faculty of objective reporting and analysis does not usually occur in modern journalism. Student7 (talk) 21:43, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

The Arizona law (now vetoed anyway) is clearly NOT a "Jim Crow Law". The Jim Crow put legal mandates separating people on the basis of race, making it an offense for a black man to use a whites only toilet; to sit outside of the "coloreds" area of the bus; to use a whites drinking fountain; and segregated education facilities. It is also used to describe the laws passed to effectively disenfranchise African-Americans: this not only kept them from voting, but kept them off of the juries as jury selection was based upon voting registration. The Arizona law does NOT specify that LGBT people must sit in the back of the bus; cannot eat in a non-LGBT part of a restaurant; must only use LGBT designated public toilets; can only attend LGBT designated education facilities; or impose any kind of test likely to prevent a LGBT person from registering to vote. What it is designed to do is to allow business owners to refuse service on the basis of "religious conviction". You could argue that it is "discriminatory", but it is not the same as Jim Crow, in that it allows people to discriminate, rather than legally mandate discrimination.