Pornography and Civil Rights: A New Day for Women's Equality

Appendix B: The Indianapolis O rdinance....................106

Appendix C: The Cambridge Ordinance ....................133

Appendix D: The Model O rdinance..............................138

Pornography and Civil Rights

5

The Meaning of Civil Rights

Civil rights as we understand them are new, not old.

Equality was not a constitutional principle or legal imperative in 1776. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution were passed in 1865, 1868,

and 1870, not in 1776. They made slavery illegal, introduced

the principle of equal protection under the law, and gave Black

men the vote. The first civil-rights statutes were passed in the

same period to help undo the effects of slavery. Still, the after-

math of slavery was segregation. The Supreme Court decided

to outlaw segregation in public schooling in 1954, not in 1776

or 1868. Modern civil-rights acts to dismantle segregation and

prohibit discrimination were passed in 1957, 1960, 1964, and

1968, not in 1776 or 1868. The Voting Rights Act was passed

in 1965, not in 1776 or 1868. In the United States for most of

its history, Black people were virtual y excised from the body

politic, first through the constitutionally protected slave trade,

then through constitutionally protected segregation.

There were two kinds of segregation. De jure segregation

was mandated by law, enacted by statute, enforced by the police. De facto segregation was separation of the races without the overt sanction of specific laws: Blacks had inferior status,

worth, and resources.

In the South, there was de jure segregation. Laws forbade

Blacks access to public accommodations, including toilets, restaurants, hotels, parks, and stores. Blacks were allowed only restricted access to public transportation. Jobs, housing, and

education were marginal and often debased in quality. De jure

segregation effectively kept Blacks from voting. De jure segregation implicitly sanctioned physical violence against Blacks.

There was widespread police brutality and vigilante terrorism, including lynchings and castrations.

De jure segregation set the standard for the way Black people

were treated throughout the United States. The degraded civil

status and racial inferiority of Blacks were taken for granted. In

The Meaning of Civil Rights

7

practice, segregation in housing and to a somewhat lesser extent

in education was the rule. The use of the word nigger was commonplace. Unemployment and menial labor ensured that Blacks were economically dispossessed and political y disenfranchised.

Narcotics, especial y heroin, were dumped on Black urban ghettos, law enforcement collaborating in targeting a Black population for addiction and despair. White contempt for Blacks was expressed openly in humor, in street harassment, in condescension, in infantilizing or animalistic media stereotypes, and in physical violence. Until de jure segregation was dismantled,

no Black person lived independent of it no matter where they

lived, because de jure segregation meant that the authority of law

applauded the debasing of Black people. Every Black person

was affected adversely in their rights and dignity by de jure segregation, humiliated