•FIVE•
DEMOCRATICIDEALSANDSEGREGATION
5.1DemocracyasMembership,CivilSociety,andGovernance
© Anderson, Elizabeth, Sep 07, 2010, The Imperative of Integration
Princeton University Press, Princeton, ISBN: 9781400836826
Throughoutthisbook,Ihavebeenalludingtoanidealofdemocracyasabasisforevaluating
racialsegregation.Thisidealneedsdeeperarticulation.Democracyisawayoflifethatcanbe
understood on three levels: as a membership organization, a mode of government, and a
culture.Asamembershiporganization,democracyinvolvesuniversalandequalcitizenshipof
all the permanent members of a society who live under a state’s jurisdiction. As a mode of
government,democracyisgovernmentbythepeople,carriedoutbydiscussionamongequals.
Asaculture,democracyconsistsinthefree,cooperativeinteractionofcitizensfromallwalks
oflifeontermsofequalityincivilsociety.Thesethreelevelsworktogether.Democracyasa
modeofgovernmentcannotbefullyachievedapartfromademocraticcultureandmembership
organization. Yet the point of a democratic culture is not simply to make democratic
governmentwork.Democraticgovernmentisanexpressionofdemocraticculture.Itspointis
toservethedemocraticcommunity,andtorealizeitspromiseofuniversalandequalstanding.
Instressingtheculturaldimensionofdemocracy,Iopposeconceptionsofdemocracythat
focus on its governance structures alone: a universal franchise, periodic elections, majority
rule, transparent government, the rule of law. Such conceptions foster the illusion that laws
alonemakeademocracy,evenintheabsenceofinteractionamongcitizensacrossgrouplines.
It tends to stress a decision rule, handing victory to the majority, at the expense of norms of
equality that form the essential background condition for majority decision making to fulfill
democraticideals.
Ratherthandevelopthesepointsabstractly,letusexaminewhatthestruggleofblacksto
participate in democracy teaches us about its requirements. Consider first the idea of
democracyasamembershiporganization.InthenotoriousDredScottcase,theSupremeCourt
declared that blacks were not citizens of the United States. It made plain the symbolic and
political import of denying citizenship. In an earlier case, the Court had declared that
“citizenshipisthecharterofequality.”Itcontrastedcitizenshipwiththefeudalorderinwhich
individuals owed allegiance to particular persons, a condition—akin to slavery itself—that
was a “badge of inferiority” and a state of “servitude.”1 Given that understanding, the Dred
ScottCourtdeclaredthatblackscouldnotbecitizensbecausetheConstitution,asunderstood
byitsframers,deemedthem“beingsofaninferiororder,andaltogetherunfittoassociatewith
thewhiterace,eitherinsocialorpoliticalrelations,andsofarinferiorthattheyhadnorights
whichthewhitemanwasboundtorespect.”2Ittookacivilwar,andpassageoftheFourteenth
© Anderson, Elizabeth, Sep 07, 2010, The Imperative of Integration
Princeton University Press, Princeton, ISBN: 9781400836826
AmendmenttotheU.S.Constitution,toestablishtheprincipleofuniversalcitizenship.Without
universal citizenship, a society cannot be a democracy, but only a tyranny of one part of the
peopleovertheother.
Onceblackswoncitizenship,opponentsofblackequalityattemptedtonarrowthemeaning
andvalueofwhattheyhadwon.TheDredScottCourthadtakenforgrantedthatcitizenship
entailedbeingregardedasanequal,fitforassociationwithfellowcitizens,andentitledtoan
expansive set of rights. What rights were at issue in the claim to citizenship? The dominant
nineteenth-century understanding divided rights into “civil,” “political,” and “social” rights.
Civilrightspertaintothelegallyenforceablerightsofpersonsasfreeeconomicagents:tobuy,
sell, and lease property, make contracts, sue and be sued for enforcement of contracts, and
testifyincourt.Politicalrightspertaintotherightsofcitizenstoparticipateingovernance:to
vote,assembleforpoliticalpurposes,holdpoliticaloffice,andserveonjuries.Socialrights
aretherightsofcitizenstoassociateontermsofequalitywithothersincivilsociety:tosharea
meal in a restaurant, sit together in a rail car, attend the same schools, work together as
colleagues (not only as master and servant), marry and live together.3 Immediately after the
Civil War, a majority of northerners, although they advocated abolition of slavery and
universal citizenship, thought that citizenship for blacks should be limited to civil rights,
without granting blacks the full range of social or political rights, including the vote.4 The
conjunction of the franchise with adult citizenship, so obvious today, was not so obvious in
nineteenth-century America, which accepted voting restrictions on the basis of gender,
property, literacy, and other qualifications. Referenda to grant blacks the right to vote were
defeatedinseveralnorthernstatesin1865.5
The attempt to separate civil, political, and social rights, and to define citizenship
narrowlytoentailonlyasubsetoftheserights,failed.Thereasonswhyitfailedyieldinsights
into the nature of democracy as a mode of governance and a culture. The first lesson
Americanslearnedwasthefollyofclaimingtosecurecivilrightsforblackswithoutgranting
them political rights. This was attempted under the Reconstruction program administered by
President Andrew Johnson in 1865. Johnson opposed black enfranchisement and left the
government of the southern states to unreconstructed white supremacists. They enacted the
Black Codes, which attempted to virtually reenslave freedmen and free blacks. Blacks were
required to sign year-long labor contracts with planters, which included provisions
empoweringtheplanterstogovernblacks’privatelives.Theywouldforfeitanentireyear’s
wages if they left the plantation. Employers were forbidden from offering higher wages to
blacksalreadyundercontract.Blackscouldbeboundoverinservicefor“vagrancy,”avague
crime that included spending their incomes in ways of which whites disapproved. Northern
outrageagainsttheBlackCodes,rightlyseenasattemptingtonegateemancipation,alongwith
therecognitionthatblackscouldnevercountontheenforcementoftheircivilrightsiftheyhad
no hand in selecting state officials responsible for upholding the law, led to the demand for
blackvotingrights.6
Couldblacks’claimstoequalcitizenshiprestonlyonequalityofcivilandpoliticalrights,
andnotalsoofsocialrights?ManyAmericansthoughtso.TheRadicalRepublicansdidnot.
SenatorCharlesSumner,aleaderoftheRadicals,introducedabill,eventuallytobepassedas
© Anderson, Elizabeth, Sep 07, 2010, The Imperative of Integration
Princeton University Press, Princeton, ISBN: 9781400836826
the Civil Rights Act of 1875, to guarantee the social rights of blacks by prohibiting
discriminationandsegregationinpublicaccommodations.Itsfirstdraftalsoincludedabanon
segregatedschools.Defendersofthebillcitedtwolinesofargument.Onejustifiedthebillas
an enforcement of the common law obligation of operators of public accommodations and
commoncarrierstoserveallcustomersonequalterms.7Thisrationalestressestheeconomic
injustice of segregation. The second justified the bill as a requirement of republican
government.WilliamForton,secretaryofthePennsylvaniaEqualRightsLeague,submitteda
petitiontoSumnerurgingthepassageoftheCivilRightsActso“thatourgovernmentmayin
factbeatruerepublic.”8
Radical Republicans linked social rights of interracial association in civil society to
republican government through two arguments: one based on status equality, the other on the
consequences of association. The status equality argument observed that the segregation of
public facilities enforced a caste system. It stressed the incompatibility of republican
principles with any kind of caste or inherited inequality. Discrimination in public
accommodations is a “degradation to republican institutions” because, in violating the
principle of equal rights, it is also a violation of the republican requirement that “just
governmentstandsonlyontheconsentofthegoverned.”9Againstthisclaim,opponentsargued
thatdiscriminationbyprivatelyownedpublicaccommodationscannotimpugntherepublican
character of government. Only state action can do this. Republicans replied by arguing that
these accommodations are regulated by law to ensure that they fulfill a public purpose of
realizingindividualliberty.Suchregulationsmustsecurethebenefitsofregulationequallyto
allclassesofpeople.Hence,anondiscriminationrequirementforregulatedinstitutionsopento
thepublicisbuiltintotherepublicanrequirementthatgovernmentaffordequalprotectionof
thelawstoall.10Whydid“separatebutequal”accommodationsfailtosatisfytherequirements
of equality? The segregation of public facilities “is an indignity to the colored race, instinct
with the spirit of Slavery.”11 It inflicts an expressive injury on blacks, making them an
untouchablecaste,whichisincompatiblewithrecognizingthemasequalcitizens.
Sumner’s republican argument claims that racial segregation could not be based on the
consentofthegoverned.Yetatthattime,amajorityofcitizenssupportedsegregationofsome
public facilities. Hence, Sumner’s argument implicitly—and soundly—rejects a standard
definition of democratic governance in terms of majority rule. Many laws enacted with
majorityapprovalcansubvertdemocracy.Amajoritydecisiontodisenfranchiseaminorityand
forbid its members from assembling, publishing newspapers, petitioning government, or
runningforofficeisplainlytyrannicalandundemocratic.12Soisanylawthatdeniescitizens
equal status in civil society, or any system of regulation that permits private individuals
entrusted with operating services for the public good to deny citizens equal access to those
servicesonthebasisofrace.
Sumner’sconsentargumentappealstoaconceptionofdemocracynotasmajorityrule,but
asgovernment“bythepeople”:aformofcollectiveself-determinationwherebythosesubject
tothelawsarealsoinarelevantsensetheauthorsofthelaws.Equalrightsareaprerequisite
foranygroupofpeopletoconstituteacollectiveabletoauthorizelawsforall.Foronepartof
thepeopletoimposeaninferior,castelikestatusonanotheramountstoan“oligarchy,”nota
© Anderson, Elizabeth, Sep 07, 2010, The Imperative of Integration
Princeton University Press, Princeton, ISBN: 9781400836826
democracy.13 To constitute a collective capable of consent as a body, all members must be
secureintheirequalrights.Withoutcivicequality,thepeopleasabodyhavenotconsentedto
anything. Rather, the dominant class has tyrannically imposed its will on the subordinate
classes.
Sumnerdidnotbelievethataddingbareequalityofcitizensbeforethelawtomajorityrule
was sufficient to constitute citizens as a collectively self-determining body. If some class of
citizens could regularly settle public issues by discussing them only among themselves,
excludingotherclassesfromtheirdiscussions,orignoringwhattheysay,theywouldconstitute
anarbitraryrulingclasswithrespecttotheothers.Democracyrequiresthatcitizensfromall
walksoflifediscussmattersofpublicinteresttogether,asequals.Solongasthecitizenswere
divided into distinct noninteracting groups, the aggregation of their opinions would still not
amounttotheconsentofaunifiedbodyofcitizens.Fortheirsentimentswouldnotbeattunedto
theinterestsofthewholepublic,inwhicheachisregardedasanequaltotheothers.Thisis
the second reason—besides its inherent status degradation—that racial segregation of public
accommodationsandstate-runinstitutionscontradictsrepublicanprinciples.
ArguingbeforetheMassachusettsSupremeCourtagainsttheconstitutionality(understate
law)ofraciallysegregatedschools,Sumnersetmanyofthetermsofthemoderndemocratic
argument for integration. When public schools are segregated, they become “schools of
prejudiceanduncharitableness.”14Whitechildreneducatedinsuchschoolsare“nursedinthe
sentimentsofCaste...theircharactersaredebased,andtheybecomelessfitforthedutiesof
citizenship.”15Ifthestatehadthepowertosegregateschoolsbyrace,itcouldsegregatebyany
otherdistinctions,asofethnicityorclass.Then
thegrandfabricofourCommonSchools...where,atthefeetoftheteacher,innocentchildhoodshouldcome,
unconsciousofalldistinctionsofbirth,—wheretheEqualityoftheConstitutionandofChristianityshouldbeinculcated
byconstantpreceptandexample,—willbeconvertedintoaheathensystemofproscriptionandCaste.Weshallthen
havemanydifferentschools,representativesofasmanydifferentclasses,opinions,andprejudices;butweshalllookin
vainforthetrueCommonSchool.16
So far, the argument could be read as undermining de jure segregation only, without
necessarily supporting de facto integration. Sumner sought actual integration. “The law
contemplatesnotonlythatallshallbetaught,butthatallshallbetaughttogether.”17Forpublic
schools must be sites for the cultivation of the republican virtues and sentiments needed for
citizenstobeself-determining.Hence,schools
mustcherishanddevelopthevirtuesandthesympathiesneededinthelargerworld.Andsince,accordingtoour
institutions,allclasses,withoutdistinctionofcolor,meetintheperformanceofcivilduties,soshouldtheyall,without
distinctionofcolor,meetintheschool,beginningtherethoserelationsofEqualitywhichtheConstitutionandLaws
promisetoall.18
Thepromiseofpoliticalequalityisashamwithoutsocialequalityintheinstitutionsofcivil
society.Politicalequalityintherealmofgovernancecannotberealizedwithoutademocratic
culturepervadingcivilsociety.Thisisnotamatterofmerelegalequality,butofhabitsand
sentimentsofassociationontermsofequality:
AstheStatederivesstrengthfromtheunityandsolidarityofitscitizenswithoutdistinctionofclass,sotheschoolderives
© Anderson, Elizabeth, Sep 07, 2010, The Imperative of Integration
Princeton University Press, Princeton, ISBN: 9781400836826
strengthfromtheunityandsolidarityofallclassesbeneathitsroof.19
Prejudice is the child of ignorance. It is sure to prevail, where people do not know each other. Society and
intercourse . . . remove antipathies, promote mutual adaptation and conciliation, and establish relations of reciprocal
regard.20
I take these points about “solidarity” and “reciprocal regard” to be tightly joined in a
democratic culture. Solidarity without mutual regard implies the subsumption of every
individual under some collective purpose, without that purpose necessarily serving the
interestsoftheindividualssojoined.Itcouldexpressthesolidarityofsoldiersonamissionof
imperial conquest, for reasons of state. Mutual regard signifies that the common purposes
around which citizens are joined have been constructed with due regard for each citizen’s
interests. No subgroup, not even a majority, is entitled to simply design a public policy that
ignores the interests of others and impose it by majority vote. Rather, in a fully democratic
culture,publicpurposesmustbeshapedby“mutualadaptationandconciliation,”todifferent
individuals’ interests. This cannot happen without “society and intercourse.” Citizens can
adjust their sense of the common purpose to others’ interests only through discussion and
cooperative engagement with other citizens from all walks of life on terms of equal regard.
Thisiswhatademocraticcultureconsistsin.Itssiteiscivilsociety.Itincludesnotonlythe
spacesrecognizedas“publicforums”—suchaspublicstreets,parks,andauditoriums—butall
domains in which diverse citizens may interact and cooperate. This includes public
accommodations, stores, shopping malls, places of employment, civic organizations, and
nonprofitorganizations.Civilsocietyoccupiesamiddlegroundbetweentheformalinstitutions
of government and domains of private life, including families, friendships, churches, and
privateclubs.
Sumner showed how civil, political, and social rights must be joined to realize a
republican order, and how democratic governance requires a democratic culture of free
interactionontermsofequalityofcitizensinfullyintegratedinstitutionsofcivilsociety.His
countrywasnotpreparedtogoalongwiththatvision.IntheCivilRightsCases,theSupreme
CourtstruckdowntheCivilRightsActof1875forexceedingthepowersofCongressunder
the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.21 The federal government was in any event
unwillingtoenforceblacks’socialrightstoequalaccessinpublicaccommodations.Nocase
ofdiscriminationwasprosecutedundertheCivilRightsActbeforeitwasoverturnedin1883.
Shortlythereafter,theCourtupheldtherightofstatestoprohibittheassociationofwhitesand
blacksinpublicaccommodations.22AccordingtotheCourt,citizenshipnolongersignifiedthat
onewasfitforassociationwithothercitizens.Itwouldnotrepudiatetheseparationofsocial
fromcivilandpoliticalrightsuntilBrownv.BoardofEducationin1954.
Thissketchofdemocraticlessonslearnedinthestruggleforracialequalityhighlightssome
oftheessentialfeaturesofademocraticsociety,understoodasamembershiporganization,a
mode of governance, and a culture. We glimpse within it the importance of integration to
democracy, and a vision of what integration entails: the free interaction of citizens from all
walksoflifeontermsofequalityandmutualregardinallinstitutionsofcivilsociety,andon
voluntary terms in the intimate associations of private life. To fully grasp the importance of
integrationtodemocracy,weneedtofurtherdevelopthreegreatthemesindemocratictheory:
collectiveinquiry,accountability,andequality.
© Anderson, Elizabeth, Sep 07, 2010, The Imperative of Integration
Princeton University Press, Princeton, ISBN: 9781400836826
5.2DemocracyasaModeofCollectiveInquiry
In April 1963 blacks in Birmingham, Alabama, began a carefully planned series of daily
demonstrations,demandingthatthewhitebusinesseliteendtheirpracticesofsegregationand
discrimination. At first, the demonstrations were subdued. Small groups of blacks picketed
segregated stores. Others marched to pray at City Hall. Every day police arrested the
demonstrators and blocked the prayer marchers. Protesters began to fill up the jails. The
SouthernChristianLeadershipConferencedistributedthousandsofleafletsinblackchurches,
urging their members to join the demonstrations, and trained volunteers in methods of
nonviolentprotest.Theprotestsescalatedasblacksorganizedamassiveboycottofdowntown
stores and paralyzed downtown traffic by putting thousands of people on the streets.
Commissioner of Public Safety “Bull” Connor set dogs and fire hoses against the
demonstrators. White shoppers, afraid of getting caught up in confrontations between police
and protesters, avoided downtown, thereby inadvertently putting additional pressure on the
white business elite to settle the dispute. Business leaders arranged secret meetings with
Martin Luther King, Jr., and other leaders of the boycott to negotiate an end to segregated
facilitiesandemploymentdiscrimination.OnMay10theyannouncedanagreementthatgranted
blacks their demands. The white political elite tried to destroy the settlement by bombing
King’s Birmingham headquarters and his brother’s house. They hoped to provoke a riot that
would provide the pretext for hundreds of state troopers who had been sent to the city to
unleash violence on the black community. Their gambit failed when Civil Rights Movement
leadersurgedblackstostaycalm whilePresidentKennedy mobilizedthe NationalGuardto
keepthepeace.23
The1963Birminghamdemonstrationwasthefirstmasscivilrightsprotestbroadcastlive
on television nationwide. Northern whites were shocked to see violent assaults against
peacefulblackprotesters.Theybecamevividlyawareofthebrutalityunderpinningthesystem
ofwhitesupremacythattheyhadcomplacentlyallowedtoruletheSouthforgenerations.This
was a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement. As movement leaders had planned, their
protestsforcedwhitesnationwidetofaceuptotheinjusticesofwhitesupremacyandledthem
tothrowtheirsupportbehindtheCivilRightsActof1964,whichenactedasnationallawthe
core demands put before Birmingham’s white business elite that May. The act prohibited
segregationofprivatelyownedpublicaccommodations,therebyfulfillingthelostpromiseof
theCivilRightsActof1875,andbannedemploymentdiscrimination.
ReflectingontheBirminghamdemonstrationstwenty-fiveyearslater,AndrewYoung,one
of its organizers, said in a roundtable discussion: “[A]lthough I never wrote so much as a
memoormadeaspeechortookpartinaconsultationonthe1964or1965CivilRightsActs,
yet we were very consciously writing those bills. The demonstrations in Birmingham were
specifically designed as measures to educate the United States on the dynamics of race
relationsandracialsegregation.”24
© Anderson, Elizabeth, Sep 07, 2010, The Imperative of Integration
Princeton University Press, Princeton, ISBN: 9781400836826
LetustakeYoung’sremarksseriouslyandconsidertheBirminghamprotestsaseducative
acts, yielding a practical lesson embodied in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. From this
perspective, democratic action is a mode of collective teaching and learning by which we
discern and define problems of public interest and experiment with solutions to these
problems. It is practical intelligence exercised by the body of citizens interacting with one
anotherincivilsocietyandgoverninginstitutions.
We owe this perspective to John Dewey. He argued that practical intelligence is the
applicationofexperimentalmethodstovaluejudgmentsandpracticalprecepts.25Wetestour
valuejudgmentsbylivinginaccordancewiththemandseeingwhetherdoingsoissatisfactory
—whether it can provide satisfactory answers to questions like this: Does action in
accordancewiththevaluejudgmentsolvetheproblemitwasintendedtosolve?Doesitbring
aboutworseproblems?Doesitgiverisetocomplaintsfromothersthatneedtobeaddressed?
Might we do better by adopting different judgments? If we find life in accordance with the
value judgment satisfactory, we stick with it; if not, we seek new judgments that can better
guideourlives.
The Civil Rights Movement put the value judgments and practical precepts of whites
regarding the management of race relations to the test. Southern whites had long understood
their problem to be how to secure their supremacy over blacks, conceived as an alien and
inferior race. Their solution was to constitute blacks as an untouchable caste, through
systematicsegregationanddiscrimination.BlacksputthissolutiontothetestinBirminghamin
1963,andinmanyotherplacesacrosstheSouth,teachingwhitesthattheywouldnolongerput
upwithsuchtreatment,thatwhites’livescouldnolongerproceedunhamperedonsuchterms.
Northern whites had, in the post-Reconstruction era, conceived their problem to be how to
reconstitute the Union in the face of violent white resistance to black empowerment during
Reconstruction. Their solution was to forge a reconciliation between northern and southern
whitesbyallowingthelattertohavetheirwaywithblacks,underthebannerofstates’rights.
Blacks put this solution to the test, too, repeatedly demonstrating the contradictions between
thispolicyandmoralandconstitutionalprinciplestowhichnorthernwhitesfoundthemselves
morecommitted.
Theexerciseofpracticalintelligenceintestingvaluejudgmentsisnotonlyinstrumental(
1.2).ItwouldbetoocynicaltosaythattheCivilRightsMovementmerelyforcedanalteration
in the means—from overtly racist to formally race-neutral and covert—to a fixed end of
maintainingwhitesupremacy.TheCivilRightsMovementforcedachangeinendsaswell,by
changing whites’ understanding of the problem. It could no longer be understood in terms of
managingrelationswithagroupconceivedtobeentitled,atmost,toonlyaminimalsetofcivil
rights,withoutpoliticalandsocialrights.Toberecognizedastherightfulbearerofpolitical
andsocialrightsisnomerelyinstrumentalchange.Toexercisetherighttovote,tonolongerbe
driventothecurbbyamenacinghatestare—aportentofwhites’readinesstoinflictviolence
on blacks—and to be able to enjoy integrated public accommodations are huge moral
achievements, signifying a profound alteration in race relations. The power of democratic
methodstopromotelearning,atleastinthelonghaul,isdemonstratedinthesuccessivelessons
of blacks’ struggle for equality: that there can be no republic without universal citizenship
foundedonequalrights,nocivilrightswithoutpoliticalrights,andnopoliticalrightswithout
© Anderson, Elizabeth, Sep 07, 2010, The Imperative of Integration
Princeton University Press, Princeton, ISBN: 9781400836826
socialrights.
Yetitwouldbenaivetosupposethatwhiteshavestoppedpracticesofsocialclosureand
opportunity hoarding that maintain racial inequality. These continue in modified forms
(chapters 2–4). There is also considerable distance between most people’s self-image as
racially just, and their actual attitudes and conduct, which reflect the continuing power of
racialstigmatization—justasthereisslippagebetweentheideologiesofcolorblindnessand
multiculturalismandthecontinuingpublicstatusofstigmatizingimagesofblacks( 3.3).Moral
transformation in light of experience is real. But it is far messier and less complete than its
subjectswouldliketothink.
The struggle for black equality was thus a collective exercise in practical intelligence,
achieved through democratic methods—free speech, public assembly, protests, petitions of
grievance to officials, testimony before Congress and publicity of complaints through a free
press, mobilization of supporters, and voting. Democratic means are a society’s way of
exercisingpracticalintelligenceasabodytoarticulateproblemsofpublicinterestanddevise
and test solutions to those problems. They are, as Andrew Young claimed, means by which
differentmembersofthepubliceducateoneanotheraboutpublicproblemsandpolicies.
The epistemic powers of democratic practices are best understood in light of three
features:diversity,communication,andfeedback.26Considerfirstdiversity. Publicproblems
andpolicieshaveasymmetriceffectsondifferentpartsofthepopulation.Thosemostfamiliar
withtheseeffectstendtobethosemostaffectedbythem.Thisentailsthatknowledgerelevant
tothearticulationandsolutionofpublicproblemsisasymmetricallydistributed.Citizensare
thereforeepistemicallydiverse.Tounderstandandsolveproblemsofpublicinterestrequires
thatinformationheldbydiversecitizensfromdifferentwalksoflifebebroughttotheattention
ofdecisionmakers—tovotersatlarge,theirrepresentatives,andothergovernmentofficials.
In democratic theory, public communication of information relevant to articulating and
solving public problems is often called “deliberation.” That term may unduly narrow our
conceptionofdemocraticcommunicationtothekindsofrelativelysobertalkthattakeplacein
a congressional hearing or around a negotiating table. Such discussions are essential to
democratic inquiry. Often, however, bringing matters to the attention of the public requires
communicatingwithloudvoices,inlargenumbers,withtheater,drama,andsymbolism.Itmay
requiredisruptingthenormalroutinesofcitizenssothattheysitupandlisten.Thisiswhythe
righttomasspublicassembliesanddemonstrationsissuchacriticalfeatureofdemocracies.
Restricting communication to quiet rooms governed by norms of subdued and polite
conversation can be a means the powerful use to suppress the communication of grievances.
ConsiderthedifficultiesblacksencounteredinNorthCarolina.WhiteelitesinNorthCarolina
prided themselves in upholding a kinder, gentler style of white supremacy than in the Deep
South.Theysawtheunequalracerelationstheyenforcedasamicable,groundedinnormsof
civility.Buttheyriggedtherulesofcivilitytoblockanypolitewayforblackstoexpresstheir
legitimatedemands.Theycharacterizedblackswhodemandeddesegregationasrude,unruly,
and irresponsible. They selected, as purported spokesmen for the black community,
“responsible”blackswhoseeconomicdependenceonwhiteemployersmadethemreluctantto
challengesegregation.“Credible”blackshadtoexpresstheirclaimsinsuchmild,indirect,and
© Anderson, Elizabeth, Sep 07, 2010, The Imperative of Integration
Princeton University Press, Princeton, ISBN: 9781400836826
apologetic terms that whites could represent their own neglect of black interests as an
accommodationofblackclaims.Civilityprovidedexcusesforendlessstonewalling.Timeand
again,NorthCarolina’sactivistshadtoresorttosit-ins,strikes,and demonstrationstoforce
whiteelitestopayattentiontotheirdemands.27
The necessity of disruptive communication is closely connected to the epistemic
consequencesofsegregation.Whenadvantagedgroupsareabletosegregatethemselvesfrom
the disadvantaged, they lose personal contact with the problems of the disadvantaged. They
becomeignorant.Enclosedinsecureenclaves,insulatedfromtheproblemstheirsegregative
practicesimposeonothers,theybecomecomplacentandinsular:thosepeople’sproblemsare
notours.Disruptivedemonstrationsareneededtobreakthroughthesewallsofcomplacency,
insularity,andignorance.Theypreventtheadvantagedfromcontinuingtheireverydayroutines.
Theymake“those”people’sproblemseveryone’sproblems.Onlysowilltheadvantagedsitup
andlisten,andtherebylearnfromthosefromwhomtheyhaveclosedthemselvesoff.
Thus,disruptivecommunicationcanforcepeopletolisten.Butbecauseitisepisodicand
nondeliberative, it cannot by itself forge lasting solutions to the problems the demonstrators
articulate. It must work with negotiation and deliberation, which are needed to forge
agreementsandworkoutthedetailsofplanstoimplementthem.Negotiationanddeliberation,
inturn,requireintegration.Ifinsularelitesareallowedtoworkout“solutions”forthemselves,
without having to consult excluded groups, their answers will neglect the interests of the
excluded.
The value of solutions is rarely settled once and for all. Agreed policies no less than
traditional practices must be tested in experience. Effective testing requires feedback on the
consequences of policies. Some of these mechanisms, such as the U.S. Inspector General
officesandtheGovernmentAccountabilityOffice,areinternaltothegovernancestructureof
democracies. However, most feedback mechanisms, such as periodic elections, a vigilant
press,petitionstogovernment,andpubliccommentaryonproposedadministrativeregulations,
lie at the intersection between civil society and governing institutions. Disruptive
demonstrationsandlegalactionarealsoneededtoprovidefeedbackwithrespecttoserious
grievances. All such practices can be viewed epistemically, as mechanisms designed to
facilitate collective critical inquiry into problems of public interest, and public policy
solutionstosuchproblems.
5.3DemocracyasaSystemofAccountability
Thisepistemicaccountofdemocraticpracticesmightseemtoointellectual,toodetachedfrom
thecontentofmuchdemocraticcommunication.Demonstratorsandpetitionersdonotpresent
objectivescientificreportsonsocialconditions.Theyexpresscomplaintsandmakedemands,
often with great passion and drama. They display their numbers, unity, determination, and
virtue.Cancommunicationscouchedinsuchtermstrulycountaseducative?
They can. To see this, we need to go beyond a conventional account of knowledge as
essentially generated from a third-person perspective, the kind of knowledge that can be