Whats with J-Walking being illgial?

I agree.

US Jaywalking laws seem to me about discriminating against pedestrians (poor people - often black) in favour of motorists (rich people - often whites).

The person who adopts an environmentally sensitive stance of walking to a nearby store is penalised to benefit the lazy gas guzzler who drives.

Half my time walking to my nearby supermarket is spent waiting at
crossings for cars to go by.
Wow. I had an image of 5 old white guys sitting in a dark, smoky room: "So how can we discriminat against blacks, jaywalking laws, brilliant!" I am not going to say we don't have or haven't ever had laws that discriminat people, but jaywalking, dude really, i mean, dude really!
 
Or Missouri, or Illinois, or Massachusetts, or Maryland, or California...seperate but equal was the law of the land, man.

Forgot about missisippi. But really just the south.

There are racists everywhere but it was more intensified in the south east and south-midwest.
 
I have been to the USA; and know you have black, latino and white areas of conurbations, and segregation has been enforced by jaywalking (in the UK they used 'sus' laws instead) laws and mugging gangs too.
We're supporting segregation by having people cross the road at the intersection?
 
I have been to the USA; and know you have black, latino and white areas of conurbations, and segregation has been enforced by jaywalking (in the UK they used 'sus' laws instead) laws and mugging gangs too.


Rofl Are you kidding me!? Jaywalking enforces segregation? :lol: I have never heard of this argument against it in my life!
 
so black automatically equals jaywalker, and laws against jaywalking are thus racist?
how does that work?
 
Come to Baltimore City, and you'll see people jaywalking AND making U-turns on a busy 2 lane road. Jaywalkers will even stare at you while walking in the road as if there's an invisible crosswalk you don't know about. Or, my favorite, walk right up to the middle of the road and stop within 1 feet of cars going 40mph.
 
Yes, many jaywalkers believe they are walking stop signs.

Edit: @ EdwardTking i posted your commit in my AIM away msg.
 
What I believe the law should be that it is illegal to cross the street when said crossing would affect motorists.
 
As a side note, if you checked to make sure no cars were coming, why wouldn't you see the cop car.
 
Are you still committing a crime even if their are no cars coming while you cross the road?
 
I assure you that "seperate but equal" was a nationwide practice.

Well i dont think it was. From a historical perspective, jim crow laws originated in the south in response to the north making them appoint black politicians after the civil war.

Unless you can explain to me that the north adopted the souths attitude i dont see that as practical.

Not to mention my mother grew up in the north and she tells a different story.
 
Well i dont think it was. From a historical perspective, jim crow laws originated in the south in response to the north making them appoint black politicians after the civil war.

Unless you can explain to me that the north adopted the souths attitude i dont see that as practical.

Not to mention my mother grew up in the north and she tells a different story.


And I, with the acusation, bear the burden of proof; here it is.

For much of the 20th century, it was a popular belief among many whites that the presence of blacks in a white neighborhood would bring down property values. The United States government created a policy to segregate the country which involved making low-interest mortgages available to white civilian families through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and to white military families through the Veteran's Administration. Black families were denied these loans because the planners behind this initiative labeled many black neighborhoods throughout the country "in decline." The rules for loans did not say that "black families cannot get loans". Rather it said people from "areas in decline" cannot get loans. While a case could be made that the wording did not appear to compel segregation that was its effect. And actually, this administration was formed as part of the New Deal to all Americans as well, and really just effected black residents of inner city areas; though most black families did in fact live in the inner city areas of big cities, and almost entirely occupied the inner city areas after World War II ended and whites began to move to new suburbs.

In addition to encouraging white families to move to suburbs by providing them loans to do so, the government uprooted many established African American communities by building elevated highways through their neighborhoods. In order to build a highway, tens of thousands of single-family homes were destroyed. Because these properties were summarily declared to be "in decline", families were given pittances for their properties, and were forced into federal housing called "the projects". In order to build the towering monstrosities that are "the projects", even more single family homes were demolished.

In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson ordered the segregation of the federal Civil Service.[1] White and black people would sometimes be required to eat separately and use separate schools, public toilets, park benches, train and restaurant seating, etc. In some locales, in addition to segregated seating, it could be forbidden for stores or restaurants to serve different races under the same roof

Segregation was also pervasive in housing. State constitutions (for example, that of California) had clauses giving local jurisdictions the right to regulate where members of certain races could live. White landowners often included restrictive covenants in deeds through which they prevented blacks or Asians from ever purchasing their property from any subsequent owner. In the 1948 case of Shelley v. Kraemer, the U.S. Supreme Court finally ruled that such covenants were unenforceable in a court of law. However, residential segregation patterns had already become established in most American cities, and have often persisted up to the present (see white flight).

With the migration to the North of many black workers at the turn of the twentieth century, and the friction that occurred with white and black workers during this time, segregation was and continues to be a phenomenon in northern cities as well as in the South. Whites generally allocate tenements as housing for the poorest blacks. It would be well to remember, though, that while racism had to be legislated out of the South, many in the North, including Quakers and others who ran the Underground Railroad, were ideologically opposed to southerners treatment of blacks. By the same token, many white southerners have a claim to closer relationships with blacks than wealthy northern whites, regardless of the latter's stated political persuasion.[2]

"Miscegenation" laws prohibited people of different races from marrying. As one of many examples of such state laws, Utah's marriage law had an anti-miscegenation component that was passed in 1899 and repealed in 1963. It prohibited marriage between a white and anyone considered a Negro (Black American), mulatto (half black), quadroon (one-quarter black), octoroon (one-eighth black), Mongolian, or member of the Malay race (presumably a Polynesian or Melanesian). No restrictions were placed on marriages between people that were not "white persons." (Utah Code, 40-1-2, C. L. 17, §2967 as amended by L. 39, C. 50; L. 41, Ch. 35.).

In World War I, blacks served in the United States Armed Forces in segregated units. Black soldiers were often poorly trained and equipped. Still, the 93rd Division fought alongside the French . The 369th Infantry (formerly 15th New York National Guard) Regiment distinguished themselves, and were known as the "Harlem Hellfighters".[3][4]

World War II saw the first black military pilots in the U.S., the Tuskegee Airmen, 99th Fighter Squadron,[5] and also saw the segregated 183rd Engineer Combat Battalion participate in the liberation of Jewish survivors at Buchenwald.[6]

Laws don't have to directly say "persons of colored skin" or what-have-you, as this paragraph illustrates.

A law need not stipulate de jure segregation in order to have the effect of de facto segregation. For example, the eagle feather law, which governs the possession and religious use of eagle feathers, was officially written to protect then dwindling eagle populations while still protecting traditional Native American spiritual and religious customs, of which the use of eagles are central. The eagle feather law later met charges of promoting racial segregation due to the law’s provision authorizing the possession of eagle feathers to members of only one ethnic group, Native Americans, and forbidding Native Americans from including non-Native Americans in indigenous customs involving eagle feathers—a common modern practice dating back to the early 1500s.


While segregation ala Plessy vs. Ferguson was not enacted in most of the North, this de facto racism I described was certainly prevalent. It was a matter of the lesser of two evils: Blacks were still opressed and things were largely segregated in the North, just not to the extent of the South.

Although formal segregation did not exist in the North and facilities were not segregated, the North contained elements of de facto racism. Certain neighborhoods may be restricted to blacks and job opportunities were denied them by unions in, for example, the skilled building trades. Blacks who moved to the North in the Great Migration after WWI were able to live without the same degree of oppression experienced in the South.

“ Despite the actions of abolitionists, life for free blacks was far from idyllic, due to northern racism. Most free blacks lived in racial enclaves in the major cities of the North: New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. There, poor living conditions led to disease and death. In a Philadelphia study in 1846, practically all poor black infants died shortly after birth. Even wealthy blacks were prohibited from living in white neighborhoods due to whites' fear of declining property values. ”

[11]

While it is commonly thought that segregation was a southern phenomenon, segregation was also to be found in "the North". The Chicago suburb of Cicero for example, was made famous when Civil Rights advocate Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a march advocating open (race-unbiased) housing.

“ Northern blacks were forced to live in a white man's democracy, and while not legally enslaved, subject to definition by their race. In their all-black communities, they continued to build their own churches and schools and to develop vigilance committees to protect members of the black community from hostility and violence. ”

And, of course, the citation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_segregation_in_the_United_States
 
And what did all that have to do with jim crow laws?

Basically this quote from the same article proves you wrong in my original intent.

Wikipedia said:
Although formal segregation did not exist in the North and facilities were not segregated, the North contained elements of de facto racism.

Jim crow laws existed in the south. And like the article said, formal segregation did not exist in the north, even if some racist laws were still apparent in the north.
 
And what did all that have to do with jim crow laws?

Basically this quote from the same article proves you wrong in my original intent.



Jim crow laws existed in the south. And like the article said, formal segregation did not exist in the north, even if some racist laws were still apparent in the north.

Hello? Put this in context, man. Many of the same laws existed in the North just the same, but without the distinction of saying "Black." Instead, they were aimed at "low income areas," which were the places that Blacks lived. Read the part about the eagle feather again. Oh hell, I'll just c/p it for you.

A law need not stipulate de jure segregation in order to have the effect of de facto segregation. For example, the eagle feather law, which governs the possession and religious use of eagle feathers, was officially written to protect then dwindling eagle populations while still protecting traditional Native American spiritual and religious customs, of which the use of eagles are central. The eagle feather law later met charges of promoting racial segregation due to the law’s provision authorizing the possession of eagle feathers to members of only one ethnic group, Native Americans, and forbidding Native Americans from including non-Native Americans in indigenous customs involving eagle feathers—a common modern practice dating back to the early 1500s.
 
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