There was a five hour debate prior to the vote. Jon Stewart has some fun pointing out how civilized the debate was compared to American conservatives.
Individual speeches from that debate are showing up. The one by MP David Lammy (a black guy) was quite wonderful. As part of his speech he takes on the issue where some have said the British civil unions are the same as marriage except for the name. His passionate rebuttal makes me wonder how well American Jim Crow laws resonate in England.
“Separate but equal” is a fraud. “Separate but equal” is the language that tried to push Rosa Parks to the back of the bus. Separate but equal” is the motif that determined that black and white could not possibly drink from the same water fountain, eat at the same table or use the same toilets. “Separate but equal” are the words that justified sending black children to different schools from their white peers – schools that would fail them and condemn them to a life of poverty.
It is an excerpt from the phrasebook of the segregationists and the racists. It is the same statement, the same ideas and the same delusion that we borrowed in this country to say that women could vote – but not until they were 30. It is the same naivety that gave made my dad a citizen in 1956 but refused to condemn the landlords that proclaimed “no blacks, no Irish, no dogs”. It entrenched who we were, who our friends could be and what our lives could become.
This was not “Separate but equal” but “Separate AND discriminated”,
“Separate AND oppressed”.
“Separate AND browbeaten”.
“Separate AND subjugated”.
Separate is NOT equal, so let us be rid of it.
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