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Zonie63 -> RE: Do you realy think that Jim Crow was the same as aparthied? (10/8/2013 8:13:08 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BamaD
In a major outbreak of moral equivalence the two have been declared as the same thing, what do you think?
If you're talking about moral equivalence, then they were probably were on the same level, although there were some technical differences. I think Apartheid was probably more analogous to the U.S. reservation system - something designed to maintain the illusion that indigenous peoples were autonomous and had some degree of self-rule.
I think South Africa tried to set up puppet states within their territory as "independent" black-ruled nations, but I don't think they were ever recognized by the international community since they were sham governments. The U.S. didn't go quite that far, although they have tried to make it seem as if the indigenous nations had some degree of self-rule, with tribal governments, tribal police, schools, social services, etc. That system still exists today, although I think it's gotten better in recent decades, not like it used to be.
Jim Crow was different in that nearly every town and county in the Deep South had both black and white populations, whereas the Indians had been resettled to other remote areas. With Jim Crow, I think the general goal was to maintain the same kind of culture and economy in the Postbellum South that they had before the Civil War, although due to the results of that war, they had to pass it off as something "separate but equal," which was another sham, but a lot of people bought it at the time. The North gave it a nod and a wink because they were starting to get busy in the West enforcing their reservation system and (later) making some aggressive moves into the Pacific and Latin America. As long as everything was "free" and "democratic" on paper, they didn't really care all that much about what was going on in the South.
Apartheid may have been different in that respect as well, since I don't think South Africa had the same level of geopolitical aspirations that the United States had. When we gained independence, we seemed to be extremely land hungry, grabbing and acquiring as much land as we could get. The Europeans were somewhat similar during the scramble for Africa, but South Africa was still under the thumb of the British at that point.
On a scale of moral equivalence, I would suppose it all works out to be pretty much the same. Different places, different cultures, different methods employed - but it seems to come down to the same thing.
I don't know what would be worse in terms of practical differences. Jim Crow laws were ultimately reversed - although it took a long time and created a lot of misery before enough people finally stood up and demanded that such abominable practices be done away with. Some whites were still stubborn about the whole thing (and not just in the South), but the elimination of Jim Crow and the advent of equality and civil rights was inevitable.
For some reason, South Africa was even more stubborn.
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