38 pages • 1-hour read
Separate Pasts: Growing Up White In The Segregated South
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Themes
The Effects of Segregation on Southern Society
The central issue in Separate Pasts is the historical legacy of racial segregation in the United States. Racial segregation describes the legal and social enforced separation of African Americans from Caucasians. Segregation dictated where African Americans could legally walk, talk, drink, rest, or eat. McLaurin describes discrimination as an unthinking part of Southern life, writing that “race, then, was something I rarely thought about and never pondered” (31).
Segregation followed the Reconstruction Era (1863-1877), a period of increased civil rights for African Americans. Following the surrender of the Confederacy in the American Civil War, several legislative changes were enacted. The Reconstruction Act of 1867 required that Southern states enfranchise former slaves before they could be admitted into the union, transforming Southern society. The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery, the 14th Amendment made freed slaves citizens, and the 15th Amendment granted the right to vote. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 banned racial segregation in accommodations.
Many Southerners reacted violently to these changes. McLaurin identifies the period between the end of Reconstruction and the establishment of segregation in North Carolina as contentious and marked by racial strife. By the turn of the 20th century, segregation, popularly known as the Jim Crow laws, was established in the South. In the 1896 US Supreme Court case Plessy vs. Ferguson, a “separate but equal” doctrine was held up by the courts. Despite the promise of separate but equal, Jim Crow laws institutionalized economic, educational, and social disadvantages for people of color.
Segregation is rooted in white supremacy and racism. By promoting ignorance and applying artificial barriers to maintain the racial order, segregation prevented the South from reaching its economic, political, and social potential. Successful, independent African Americans undermined the ideological framework of white supremacy upon which segregation rested. White supremacy argued that African Americans needed help to succeed in life. White supremacists increased their efforts to see that African Americans remained in subservient positions by restricting access to jobs, education, and other means of social mobility.
In 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that school segregation was unconstitutional. In some states, it took many years to implement this decision. North Carolina integrated slowly—it wasn’t until 1971 that the school boards of North Carolina met the requirements of Brown v. Board of Education.
Racial Inequality and Stereotypes
Racism is a complex and widespread phenomenon, and McLaurin does not attempt to address it in all its forms. His memoir focuses on segregation as a system. Throughout the book, McLaurin shows that stereotypes upheld segregation. Stereotypes are oversimplified ideas or beliefs about groups of people. Stereotypes come with assumptions about how people behave. Several stereotypes are introduced and debunked throughout the book. In each instance, McLaurin shows the reader why stereotypes are dangerous. Stereotypes that African Americans needed white people to uplift and help them hid the reality that poverty was the result of social customs and laws that penalized African Americans, not of a lack of ability.
Stereotypes circulate as a form of social control. McLaurin describes how white men perpetuated stereotypes about the sexual appetites and prowess of African American women. Here, for instance, is his account of comments about African American women made by men in his grandfather’s store:
“That nigger’ll fuck anything that walks, boy.”
“Half the damned nigger women in this town’s pregnant. That’s the thing they do best, I reckon, have younguns.”
“Niggers breed like rabbits, son. Ain’t no way white folks gonna keep up with ‘em” (70).
Stereotypes about the sexual appetites of African American women are used to justify dehumanizing language. The overt sexualization of white women was not common. McLaurin references the research of scholars such as V. 0. Key and C. Vann Woodward, who argue that these sexual politics and racial stereotypes were applied by white men in power to justify a “patriarchal white-supremacist society” (66).
The Power of Human Connection to Create Social Change
While trained as a historian, McLaurin narrows the focus of his memoir by spending less time on structural conditions or historical contexts. Instead, he chooses to build his analysis of how segregation shaped day to day life in the South through a series of vignettes. Deeply personal, the encounters document situations or experiences that change his worldview. McLaurin suggests that racism functions by abstracting social realities. Segregation was a powerful tool for white supremacy, as it limited the encounters between white people and African Americans.
McLaurin proposes that human relationships have the power to challenge and overcome systems of oppression. Throughout Separate Pasts, McLaurin introduces individuals who present a challenge to the ideology of white supremacy. The stereotypical view of African Americans as less intelligent, undisciplined, sexually rapacious, and born to serve whites is repeatedly challenged through every-day encounters. Through personal encounters with African Americans, McLaurin’s internalized white superiority gradually erodes. The social ties of the community provide a way to learn from the experiences and insights of other people.
McLaurin uses personal anecdotes to show the reader that there is no innate difference between races. Throughout the text, we witness McLaurin gradually rejecting the segregationist worldview he was raised to believe. As a young man, he thinks he is superior to African Americans. However, his personal relations with African American individuals undermined the core beliefs of segregationists. McLaurin recounts his own story in the hopes that his own experiences unlearning racism will contribute to further awareness of the human costs of racism.
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