June 28, 2010

(In)Justice of the Peace

From Martika:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/15/interracial-couple-denied_n_322784.html

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/16/louisiana.interracial.marriage/


There is the article that relates to this class. I thought of this because of the movie Mr and Ms. Loving where it was illegal for the couple to get married because he was white and she was black. This article is about a justice of peace who is denying interracial couples marriage licenses. He says that he won’t marry them because he thinks that the children won’t be accepted and he won’t be a part of putting them through that. At some point he had to have been socialized to believe that. He also had to be socialized to believe that this type of thinking isn’t racist. He chooses not to marry couple that isn’t of the same race because he wants to treat the couples “equally”. Since he is a justice of peace he is in a place of authority over these couples so he exercised his ability even though it’s illegal, because of the Loving vs. Virginia case that was represented in this movie, and decides whether or not these couples can get married. Without the marriage license they can’t get married unless they go somewhere else, but that is an inconvenience for them. How they feel would be private troubles and the inconvenience would be a private trouble, but the issue stems from the history of racism in America and this inequality between different racial groups.

In one of the class discussions we talked about costs of romantic love for college women. This article had multiple reasons why it isn’t valid. One of the main things that I noticed about this article is the age group that she interviewed since they are first year college student they are young and they most likely are highly influence by the social norms that are acceptable in the high school setting.

--Martika

1 comment:

  1. I think the way he justifies his actions is very interesting. He says that he doesn't want to take part in what will happen to their child, so he appears to be linking together the ideal social norm that people will only have children (or sex for that matter) after they have become married. He takes a very structural perspective actually, saying that the child will be discriminated against and outcast, then going on to assume that if he refuses to marry them then the child will never be born and everything will remain stable.

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