Separations between Africans and Whitefolks.

Two pennies and an insult were well spent if it meant seeing the spectacle of whitefolks making a spectacle of themselves. So, although the carnival was a lot less than mediocre (which is why it agreed to a Colored Thursday), it gave the four hundred black people in its audience thrill upon thrill upon thrill.

In this part of the book it describes the carnival Paul D. invited Sethe and Denver to and how they felt about the atmosphere of the carnival. Sethe describes seeing the “spectacle whitefolks” as money well spent since it was the chance for African Americans to see whitefolks entertain them for once. During this time period which was around the mid-1800’s African Americans were strongly separated from the white people. The reason why African Americans were shocked about white people making a fool of themselves was because during that time period African Americans were the one that were suppose to make a fool of themselves.  The carnival was meant and only a loud African Americans to go because of the way it was set up and the low quality, which is a reason why white people wouldn't attend the carnival the first place. This passage shows how low the African Americans were treated and how much they were discriminated from the white people.

Although during the mid-1800s the fourteenth amendment was not passed yet it shows the difference between when it was passed a few years later to then. The fourteenth amendment was passed on July 9th, 1868. Even though the fourteenth amendment granted African Americans “equal protection under the law” it still did not change the separation between Africans and White people. Africans did get “equal protection”, but they had a different kind of equality than the white people did, which allowed Africans and White people to have their own bathrooms, restaurants, etc. In other words the fourteenth amendment still allowed racism because the Africans were offered a different kind of equality (equivalent) than the white people. In 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment was passed, which was “abolishment of slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime”. In 1869 the Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson upheld “the constitutionality of segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine”. An African American train passenger named Homer Plessy was arrested for refusing to sit in a Jim Crow car, which was a law in Louisiana that he broke. Plessy argued his constitutional rights violated the Fourteenth and Thirteenth Amendment. The court rejected his argument and implied that “merely a legal distinction between whites and blacks did not conflict with the 13th and14th Amendments.” It wasn’t until Brown v. Board in 1954 that the doctrine of separate but equal was overruled by a court of law.