Racism Is Contagious

I share a deeply disturbing case I read today, authored by the California supreme court in 1854.

As was common before 1866 (post-Civil war civil rights laws), slaves and free blacks could not give testimony in court against white people.

In People v. Hall (1854), testimony from three Chinese immigrants was used to convict George Hall of murder.

The legal issue was whether the state’s bar against testimony from blacks applied to Chinese. The trial court reasoned that Chinese are not black, so their testimony could not be barred.

But in a stunningly racist opinion—and there can be no other way to put it— the state supreme court held that the words Indian, Negro, Black and White are generic terms designating race. Thus, Chinese and all other people not white, were included in the prohibition from being witnesses against whites.

The court said:

The anomalous spectacle of a distinct people (Chinese immigrants), living in our community, recognizing no laws of this State except through necessity, bringing with them their prejudices and national feuds, in which they indulge in open violation of law; whose mendacity (untruthfulness) is proverbial; a race of people whom nature has marked as inferior, and who are incapable of progress or intellectual development beyond a certain point, as their history has shown; differing in language, opinions, color, and physical conformation; between whom and ourselves nature has placed an impassable difference, is now presented, and for them is claimed, not only the right to swear away the life of a citizen, but the further privilege of participating with us in administering the affairs of our Government.

The bottom line is that this court reasoned that all people of color are morally and intellectually inferior to whites.

When our society tolerates racism against one group, it doesn’t usually doesn’t stop there.

Here’s hoping you make your own connections between this 1854 case and today!