A Threat to Citizenship

Reading, and re-reading, U.S. Supreme Court case Plessy vs. Ferguson and reflecting about our Thursday conversation in regards to the court case I couldn't help relate the case to citizenship and identity politics. The question that continues to intrigue me is how does Plessy's identity (appearing anglo and having phenotype white feature, but marked as a Black man) challenge citizenship and the dominant ideology of the national identity? Declared the law of the land, the 13th amendment abolished slavery and attempted to free black people and their decedents from the bondage that they had endured; and combined with the 14th and 15th amendment, the Reconstruction Amendments sought to introduce Black people to privileges that had been reserved for whites since the introduction of African slavery in North America (to my knowledge at least). While legislation existed to introduce Blacks to: full citizenship, "equal rights," and "equal" protection, society was unprepared to embrace these new changes and expand the ideology of who was perceived as a citizen and who was not. This idea is reflected in the final decision of Plessy vs. Ferguson where the Supreme Court ruled that the separation of races did not go against the 14th amendment if the races were treated equally.

For its time citizenship is most challenged in regards to physical appearance, in particular skin color. While the 14th amendment extended federal citizenship to Blacks above state citizenship, Blacks continued to be seen as inferior people. In Plessy vs. Ferguson Justice Henry B. Brown wrote the majority opinion upholding the separations standards of the South and consistently framed Blacks in positions of servitude and criminality stating, "A white man is not permitted to have his colored servant with him in the same coach, even if his condition of health requires the constant personal assistance of such servant." This image constrains Blacks from being seen as anything else, let alone work in positions that their white counter parts worked. While this framing may have been made unconscious, this image creates a binary between access and disadvantaged. A large majority of white people did not work in positions of servitude, and if they have been the dominant citizenship then it is hard for the dominant class to see Blacks as anything else. 

I believe that Plessy is a threat to citizenship and the national identity because his physical appearance blurs the idea of citizenship. If a black man that appears white, is 1/8's Black then who else potentially can be black? Could black men have been benefiting from the privileges whites had. If so how does the United States continue to segregate without breaking the law? The answer is creating "separate but equal facilities that treat both races the same" and prevents contact of the two identities. While the question turns to equality vs. equity, The Jim Crow Laws were enforced to institutionalize Blacks into second class citizenship and prevented the national identity to extend to them.