Allport misread formal law as rejecting a state-backed racial caste system

Evidence

This anti-miscegenation law was accompanied by a set of measures designed to codify the superior status of white people and the subordination of Black people. The law gave white indentured laborers “freedom dues”—a payment in cash, land, or supplies received when they completed their contract term—while enslaved Black people were entitled to no freedom at all. The legislature enacted a set of “slave codes,” which declared that an enslaver who killed a person he enslaved while “correcting” the victim would not be prosecuted for a felony. The same statute, by contrast, prohibited masters from inflicting “immoderate correction” on white indentured laborers and allowed those laborers to file complaints against masters who violated this restriction. The codes also prohibited Black or mulatto individuals from holding public office, testifying in court, or otherwise swearing under oath. This legal distinction in status based on race alone turned racial classification into a caste system. Through these laws, colonial landowners constructed race as a system of power in which anyone categorized as Black could be dominated by anyone categorized as white. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 213 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Untouchables were beaten if their shadows came in contact with someone from a higher caste. They carried buckets to spit in to avoid contaminating the ground. They wore bells to signal their approach. Although discrimination against Untouchables is now technically illegal, prejudice and ill treatment against them abounds. In 2003, after trying to exercise his legal right to use the village well, Girdharilal Maurya’s farm was looted, his house burned to the ground, and his wife and daughter beaten. “People treat animals better than us,” Maurya observed. “This is not natural…. Why did the gods let me be born in such a country?” — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 235 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The Allport tradition has neglected the part played by group-level political constraints in shaping the dynamic evolution of intergroup behaviors and attitudes. We need more empirical research addressing the influence of the social organization of intergroup relations. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 684 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Allport downplayed government complicity in American racial caste despite official segregation — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice: Fifty Years…, 2164; Allport’s tradition neglected group-level political constraints — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 684; Colonial law deliberately constructed race as a caste system of power — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project: A New American Origin…, 213 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Colonial law deliberately constructed race as a caste system of power #complicates (0.80) — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 213
• Caste-based stigma persists violently despite formal legal abolition #complicates (0.80) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 235
• Allport’s tradition neglected group-level political constraints #complicates (0.72) — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 684