, grapples with the nature of status as a relational position and the rights that solidify that position. Murray lists nine “personal rights” that would secure an individual’s “status in the larger community on a basis of equality of opportunity with all other persons.” Among them:
[one’s] freedom of movement, … the right to be accepted as an equal with all other members of a free citizenry where [one] has met the impartial standards for such acceptance, the right not to be set aside or marked with a badge of inferiority, [the] right to enjoy all public privileges on a basis of equality with other citizens without distinction or discrimination, the right to live in peace, … and the right to die secure in the knowledge that [one’s] children and their children, shall have...
The nine rights serve as the basis for Murray’s argument against segregation. Murray intentionally chose to focus on the rights of the individual, as the US Constitution guarantees rights to individuals, but the rights of Black Americans are often spoken of specifically, as though they are a separate entity entirely. They are denied the default “individual” articulation, and their rights are treated as something fundamentally different than the rights of non-Black people.
Murray also argues that the social position of inferiority forced onto Black people through discriminatory laws and practices is inseparable from slavery. In making their argument, Murray points to the sole dissent by Justice John Marshall Harlan in an 1883 Supreme Court case that ruled the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which would’ve desegregated public accommodations, unconstitutional.
Murray’s articulation of personal rights and the threat that racial exclusion poses to these rights can help us navigate our current reality. Their words serve as a reminder that the racial injustice we witness today is inseparable from the violence and oppression upon which the US was built. We see the legacies of colonialism and slavery everywhere from school segregation to police brutality.
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