Cathy Young: Racism, Civil Rights, and Libertarianism
[Cathy Young writes a weekly column for RealClearPolitics and is also a contributing editor at Reason magazine. This article originally appeared at RealClearPolitics.]
Thanks to Rand Paul, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky and son of maverick libertarian Republican Ron Paul, we find ourselves in an unlikely debate about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the legal permissibility of race discrimination in the private sector. Late last month on the Rachel Maddow MSNBC show, Paul opined that privately owned establishments should be able to decide whom to serve without government interference....
But while the libertarian argument against anti-discrimination laws is certainly not racist, it sometimes seems uncomfortably naive (in 1964 or today) about the social realities of Jim Crow. As some strong champions of free markets, such as legal scholar Richard Epstein, have pointed out, racial segregation and discrimination by private businesses in the South was not simply the result of owners' personal choices but of powerful societal pressure as well as coercion by state governments. Businesses that refused to discriminate were targeted for officially sanctioned or condoned harassment and intimidation....
Most likely, over the long haul, overt discrimination against blacks in the private sector would have become socially unacceptable and mostly extinct. But could American society have afforded to wait? To answer "yes" is to underestimate the urgency of the issue, the evil of Jim Crow. Segregation was not merely an inconvenience or a violation of abstract principle but the systematic degradation of American citizens who were black. When African-American singer Dorothy Dandridge sang in all-white nightclubs, she often had to urinate into a cup because she wasn't allowed to use the bathroom.
It's fine to discuss the intellectual merits of free-market and free-association arguments against the ban on private discrimination. But the reminder that 50 years ago, such obscene practices were not only condoned but socially approved in large parts of this country should shock our conscience as Americans. A dispassionate or glib attitude on the subject is not a good way to win people over. One cannot talk about anti-discrimination law as an infringement on liberty and forget that for the first two centuries of America's existence, its treatment of blacks was a grotesque stain on its libertarian ideals....
Read entire article at Reason
Thanks to Rand Paul, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky and son of maverick libertarian Republican Ron Paul, we find ourselves in an unlikely debate about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the legal permissibility of race discrimination in the private sector. Late last month on the Rachel Maddow MSNBC show, Paul opined that privately owned establishments should be able to decide whom to serve without government interference....
But while the libertarian argument against anti-discrimination laws is certainly not racist, it sometimes seems uncomfortably naive (in 1964 or today) about the social realities of Jim Crow. As some strong champions of free markets, such as legal scholar Richard Epstein, have pointed out, racial segregation and discrimination by private businesses in the South was not simply the result of owners' personal choices but of powerful societal pressure as well as coercion by state governments. Businesses that refused to discriminate were targeted for officially sanctioned or condoned harassment and intimidation....
Most likely, over the long haul, overt discrimination against blacks in the private sector would have become socially unacceptable and mostly extinct. But could American society have afforded to wait? To answer "yes" is to underestimate the urgency of the issue, the evil of Jim Crow. Segregation was not merely an inconvenience or a violation of abstract principle but the systematic degradation of American citizens who were black. When African-American singer Dorothy Dandridge sang in all-white nightclubs, she often had to urinate into a cup because she wasn't allowed to use the bathroom.
It's fine to discuss the intellectual merits of free-market and free-association arguments against the ban on private discrimination. But the reminder that 50 years ago, such obscene practices were not only condoned but socially approved in large parts of this country should shock our conscience as Americans. A dispassionate or glib attitude on the subject is not a good way to win people over. One cannot talk about anti-discrimination law as an infringement on liberty and forget that for the first two centuries of America's existence, its treatment of blacks was a grotesque stain on its libertarian ideals....