I do not imagine that the white and black races will ever live in any country upon an equal footing. But I believe the difficulty to be still greater in the United States than elsewhere. An isolated individual may surmount the prejudices of religion, of his country, or of his race, and if this individual is a king he may effect surprising changes in society; but a whole people cannot rise, as it were, above itself. A despot who should subject the Americans and their former slaves to the same yoke, might perhaps succeed in commingling their races; but as long as the American democracy remains at the head of affairs, no one will undertake so difficult a task; and it may be foreseen that the freer the white population of the United States becomes, the more isolated it will remain.
--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835, quoted in Cornel West, Race Matters, 1994, Vintage Books, p. 135.
--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835, quoted in Cornel West, Race Matters, 1994, Vintage Books, p. 135.
1 comment:
Always amazing how many people believed that "commingling" would be impossible even after the Civil War, even among the intelligentsia. It's also amazing that what De Tocqueville calls "a yoke" is essentially what we call Civil Rights law, and that it was applied - essentially - outside democratic parameters. The majority was against or indifferent to the legislation. I wonder what De Tocqueville would say about the current climate... Unfortunately, probably "I told you so."
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