Evening star., 1947-11-21
Rights VS.. Privileges

To the Editor of The Star:
The startling recommendations OF the Civil
Rights Report have thrown this voteless COM
munity into an emotional panic The response
of a considerable portion Of our white COM
munity is one of seething defiance. Our Negro
community is encouraged to hope that at long
last they will achieve their constitutional guar
antees of full citizenship. The Presidents Com
mttee would achieve this by outlawlng every
conceivable form of un-American discrlmlna-
ton and segregation.
There is no point in disputing the Commit
tees indictment of minority discrimination and
segregation as un-American Those holding to
the contrary will find no support for intoler-
ance in the teachings of Jesus or the historic
precepts of American democracy. But we ma
tives who know our Washington, D. c., can
question the suficiency of remedy that Jumps
political, economic and social objectives in an
al-or-none program.
Those who have studied the report are
searching their souls. More than tour-score
years ago human slavery was abolished and
equal rights guaranteed all irrespective OF race
or creedF The intellectually honest white man
is asking himself why there is such cruel dis
parity between our professed Christian Ideals
and our un-American performance. Likewise
the frustrated negro IllIlOllty AilulSiioAie4y 10
asking why the legislative, the judicial and the
executive branches of our government nave
BETRAYED their solemn oath to preserve and
defend our Constitution.
The probable explanation is the refusal of
both white and Negro leadership to make realis-
tic distinctions between rights and privileges.
Both groups insist upon Jumping them together
in a short-sighted all-or-none attitude. True
I, itI1of yuhara IL iS almost in0nOS-
sible to tell where rights end and privileges
begin. But for the most part human rights deal
with survival or security at the political and
economic levels On the other hand privileges
are expedient matters of personal pleasure,
preference or even prejudice at the social level.
Our white leaders err when they insist that
privileges dominant with personal preference
or prejudice should have the legal suf1ciency
and mmunities of constitutional rights. For
instance they would enforce restrictive coven-
ants with Federal laws and sanctions. In SO
designing they fail to see the greater jeopardy
of giving property preference or prejudice a
longer life than the good will and consent OF
the covenanted. Surely it is against public
policy to make human caprice in respect to
the ownership of property irreVocable. Our
courts made a similar mistake when they in
terpreted the "due process clause" OF the four
teenth amendment to mean that 1t applied to
the corporate fiction as well as to the newly
liberated slave. Judicialy they endowed the
Protean guises of the corporate fiction with
human rights. God grant that in world Of
crashing spiritual values they do not sanctify
similar stupidity by endowing property with
human rights through restrictive covenants.
Our Negro community retards victory by
poor timing and poor emphasis in its fight
against un-American discrimination. They can
not understand why white sympathizers willing
to battle shoulder to shoulder for FEPC, anti
poll-tax laws and antilynching laws suddenly
become inert when social riders are added.
There is no need to be hypocritical about the
explanation The Negro is just as much q slave
to the snobbery and social folderol Of their
racial caste systems a. the whita man II .